Barney Birthday Bash

Yesterday was Ellie's big party!  First of all, I just have to say how much it meant to us to have so many people come from all over to attend her party.  We had people from Memphis, Brownsville, Dyer, Henderson, Selmer and Greenfield all under one roof.  We really appreciate people making the effort to drive all this way to celebrate with us!!

Here is the big TWO year old!! Thank you to DeDe for the pants and Mrs. Marilyn for our Barney shirt!

When I discovered Fliparoo Gym, I was sold immediately!  It is kind of like Jackson's version of The Little Gym.  I really didn't want to have 40 people crammed into my house, and I wanted the kids to be able to run wild, eat lots of sugar, and pass out on their way home.  I think we can call that part of the party a huge success:)

Since Ellie is still obsessed with Barney, we went with a purple and green Barney party.  My child would LOVE something that is hard to find.  Thank goodness for Amazon, Ebay and Etsy, otherwise we would have been in trouble.  We had the party at lunch time (in hopes of good naps after!) so we served Chick-fil-a nuggets, fruit, PB&J's, and crackers/chips.  I did the whole fancy cake thing last year so this year we just had cupcakes.  I loved not having to worry about cutting a cake.  I was told they tasted pretty good, too!  Tammy, the owner of Fliparoo entertained the kids and let them have full reign over the gym. There was a trampoline, balance beam, bars, and mats to jump on.  I think they all had a great time!  The parachute was also a big hit.

We had a balloon artist come and make balloon sculptures and paint faces.  I thought this was a fun touch and something everyone enjoyed.  These people also do magic shows and dress as clowns.  We will definitely be calling them again in the future!

Now on to the pictures!

DeDe and I spent last Saturday making these Barney suckers.  We had fun doing it!

DeDe also made the cute party hats!

Here is the balloon lady.  Her clown name is "Nurse Periwinkle" because she is a retired nurse.

The birthday girl got her own personal BARNEY balloon.  She was thrilled!

Having fun, and running wild!

What time is it? It's time for lunch and cake! Ellie got a little bashful when everyone started singing.  She may be our shy little one!

I think the party was a hit!  I cannot believe my baby is TWO!

Ellie's Birthday

Ellie's real birthday was a day full of celebrations!  Since her birthday fell on a school day, we took cupcakes for her class to enjoy.  Her sweet teachers even let me come and take pictures.  I just loved getting a peek into what a day at MDO is like.  The kids were so sweet and well behaved.  They even sang a little blessing before diving into their cupcakes.

After school, we let Ellie open her gifts from us and then we met Will and his parents at Chuck E Cheese for dinner!  This was a fun last minute treat.  Ellie and Will had a great time...and so did their Daddy's!

Turning 2 sounds pretty fun, doesn't it?  Just wait...party details are next!

Happy Birthday Ellie!

Ellie,

Tomorrow you will be TWO years old.  How in the world did that happen?  I thought the first  year of your life flew by, but I really think this last year went even faster!

You are so sweet, funny, polite, smart, and loving.  You are everything I dreamed and imagined my little girl would be.  I still have those days where I look at you and cannot believe that you are mine!  You have such sweet manners and you thank me all day long for anything and everything.  Every time you say "thank you Mommy, thank you" I feel like I should be saying "THANK YOU" for being YOU and for letting me be YOUR mommy!

Even though your actual birthday didn't play out how I had hoped, I am thankful those days are long gone.  You'd never know that you got off to a pretty rough start!  You have grown, blossomed and matured into such a sweet little 2 year old and I am so proud of you!  I cannot wait to see how you grow in this next year.  You are just such a joy!

3 months...

You can be shy at times, and you can be bossy at times.  You can also be a tad dramatic when you want to be:)  You tend to be a mommy's girl but boy when Daddy is around he rules the world!

6 months...

Luckily, you have been rather healthy!  You have had an ear infection and a case of croup this year, but so far that's it!  I am so thankful for a healthy, happy girl.

9 months...

You are so easy going and content 90% of the time.  You love to play babies, tea party, kitchen, doll house, and you still LOVE Barney.  You have also been eating more recently and branching out to a few new foods!

You are just a little parrot and you talk constantly.  You even have a southern "twang" and it is hilarious!  You say right "thayer", my chAir, red is RAYed, bed is BAYed...SO funny!  You sleep from 8 pm-7 am and you take a great afternoon nap after lunch...usually 2.5- 3 hours.

18 months...

You can count to 12, you know your ABC's and you know all of your primary colors and shapes!  You are just a little sponge soaking in new information daily.

You LOVE school and ask for a hug and a kiss each morning at drop off.  You seem so big when you wave bye to me and don't ever look back.  I am so glad you enjoy school because I know how good it is for you.

Happy Birthday sweet girl!  We love you more than you will ever know!

What a difference a year makes...

I cannot believe my baby will be TWO in one week!

Ellie's first movie

Ellie has been really into "princess" and the movie Tangled since Christmas.  I wasn't intentionally trying to push the princess stage, but I secretly wanted to see Tangled myself so the movie just so happened to end up at our house on Christmas morning!  It really is a cute movie and I notice some fun new things about it every time I watch.

When I heard Beauty and the Beast (one of my all time favs) was coming back out in theaters with a Tangled Ever After preview, I knew we had to go!  I was a little nervous about taking our LOUD and busy girl, but overall she did very well and really enjoyed the movie!

And before anyone asks and thinks I have completely lost my mind, NO I did not run out and buy a smocked Rapunzel dress just for "Ellie's first movie".  I am not that crazy!  It was a Facebook steal that has been sitting in her closet for months.  It's still big but she just HAD to wear it, it was just too perfect!

Fun weekend

We were excited to finally have a weekend at home after the craziness of the holidays.  Even though we were in town, we weren't really home much!  We had lots of fun things going on.

Ellie was up EARLY Friday.  When I say early, I mean 5 am which is very unusual for her. This turned Friday  into "stay in your PJ's all day, day."  It was so nice and warm outside that Don took her out for a while after he got home from work.  You could tell by the smile on her face how happy she was to be out of the house!

Before anybody says anything, yes my child has a bow in her hair while wearing pajamas.  Her bangs have gotten so long that they are constantly getting in her eyes.  The big bows finally have a purpose!

Friday afternoon, Will came to play!  He didn't stay long, but they had a great time and played so well together.  Having two kids was actually easier because they could entertain themselves!

Saturday, we ate breakfast and did a little shopping.  Ellie ate scrambled eggs for the first time in months!  We really were so excited.  She has refused eggs for a long time so we were thrilled to get a new, different food in her!

Saturday afternoon, we headed to Fun Zone for our friend Josie's 3rd birthday!  Ellie wasn't too fond of the bouncy inflatables and pretty much clung to me the whole time.  She did however, love the cake and goldfish!

Saturday night, we joined Rusty and Alyse for dinner and let Ellie play at Fliparoo! After dinner, we went to Yolo for yogurt.  Ellie has a new name for Rusty...FROSTY!  It was the funniest thing.  She really took to him and he made her laugh and laugh. I had to share this quick video.  Please ignore my obnoxious voice:)

Sunday we went to church, kept 14 WILD two year olds in the nursery, folded 800 loads of clothes and had dinner for BB's birthday!  Fun, busy weekend!

2012

Last year I did a whole 2010 in a nutshell post...but I hate to say I don't think that's happening this year.

I do think I wrote something about hoping 2011 would be uneventful...HA! All I can do is laugh about that:)

2011 was FAR from uneventful, but we made it through with smiles on our faces.  It has been a fun, busy, stressful at times, and interesting year.  Ellie has grown, learned, and blossomed into such a sweet and funny little girl that keeps us on our toes at all times.  Don is continuing to teach and coach at the high school level, and I am still plugging away at my current work-at-home position.
All in all, we don't have much to complain about and LOTS to be thankful for.

We rang in the new year in Memphis this year.  If I learned one thing this weekend...it is that I am OLD!  You can tell we are in bed by 10 at our house every night:)  I was ready for bed as soon as the guitar dropped!

We started off our New Years festivities by taking Ellie to the Children's Museum of Memphis.  She had a blast!  We were pretty bummed because they closed at noon due to the Liberty Bowl but we squeezed in as much as we could in our short time there.

We fished, grocery shopped (cleaning out the produce aisle!), built with blocks and so much more!

After the CMOM, we left Don at the Liberty Bowl (it's kind of his NYE tradition now) and DeDe, Ellie and I headed to Chick-fil-a and do to some shopping for a big 2nd birthday party that's coming up!

Ellie also got to spend some time with Granny and Grandonna and had a big time!  They bought some play food and a shopping basket for her and she was in heaven.  Play food is a big favorite of hers right now.

Later that night, we headed downtown for the Tiger basketball game.  I was so glad Ellie was able to wear her "Little Memphis Princess" dress one more time!

She begged to see Pouncer, but wasn't so sure by the time we made it down there!

We ended our NYE with dinner at the Majestic Grille and a carriage ride downtown.  Matt and Rachel let us crash at their house and Rachel made breakfast enchiladas covered in Pancho's cheese dip Sunday morning.  Don was in heaven!

Here's to a new year, full of fun and adventure!

I'm not even going to hope for uneventful...that's just not how we roll!