Miss DIVA

Tonight we had Taylor's dance pictures and I was dreading the "hair" portion of the night :)

Last year my attempt to fix her hair was a total FLOP!  Luckily Sloane's Mom (Taylor’s friend from class) does a great job with "up-do's" and she is able to do Taylor’s hair for the recital.  Taylor loved getting dressed up tonight in her recital outfit and looking so "fancy" as she called it!

This afternoon, I got out the small curling iron and went to town with some hair spray and lots of clips and pins!

I actually think it turned out OK...

Practicing her pose

NO CLUE what she is doing with the phone pose, but we both laughed and it was cute!

Lovin’ from Daddy when we got back from pictures

Love these two!!!

9 MONTHS- Update!

I must say I think we are getting BUSIER as the girls get older. Rob and I were just talking tonight and asked ourselves; what did we used to do before the girls?! Right now we have busy times but great times filled with lots of laughs and tons of memories.

Ella went for her 9 month check up on May 24th. WOW little Miss had a big growth spurt! Ella was 18lb. 14oz. (53%) and was a little over 28 3/4 in. tall (78%)!!!! Dr. MacDonald asked me if she wiggled at all during her height measurement because she had grown so much from her 6 month check up. We laughed because that was actually the ONLY time that Ella stayed still as the nurse Susan did that first. Ella was still checking Susan out and wasn’t squirming’ all over the place yet during that measurement.

I always like to compare where the other two girls were at this age too.

Taylor, 9 month check up was on May 22, 2007

Weight, 18lb. 11oz. and Height 28 in.

Caroline, 9 month check up was on May 21, 2009

Weight, 16 lb. 11 oz. and Height 27 3/4 in.

Ella is ONE HAPPY baby though. She LOVES her big sisters and just LOVES to laugh!

Taylor dotes on Ella all the time. As you can see Ella is really into grabbing a hold of your sunglasses…

And…PULLING HAIR!!

Taylor is really into “posing”

Wild lady Caroline. This picture of Caroline makes me laugh! She is such a character.

Picture time is NOT easy, ever!

I just give up! I will do individual shots for a while and try to sneak in a group picture. I still (as Caroline says…) LOVE YOU BUNCHES AND BUNCHES girls!

**Now Ella stop growing so fast! I am NOT ready to plan a first birthday party :)!!!

Mother’s Day

The girls were so sweet with their cute artwork that they made at school for me. I was able to enjoy a nice cookie snack with Taylor and her friends at VK and then muffins with Caroline’s class. I had a wonderful Mother’s Day and so grateful everyday of my three sweet girls!

I also wanted to give Grammy and Mimi a special gift too from the girls. These two ladies have been great Mother’s and now fabulous Grandmother’s! They definitely deserve a special day. I bought some finger paint (washable—thank goodness!) and some construction paper and made some keepsake artwork for Grammy and Mimi.

The girls loved this arts and crafts project!

(I just decided to take Caroline’s shirt off to avoid an even bigger mess!

We just hope the Grandma’s enjoyed the finished product!?!

Scariest Moment as a Mom!

I had the scariest moment as a Mom on Wed. with Ella. She woke up that morning with an awful sounding cough and didn’t seem quite like herself. I got a call from daycare around 11 saying she had a temp and was definitely not feeling well. Since Ella didn’t have a good night as she was up a few times (that is not normal for her either) I decided to make her an appointment with the Dr. for 2:30 that afternoon. Once I got to school she seemed very lethargic with a high temp and no appetite. By the time I got to the house her breathing was extremely labored and it was almost like she couldn’t breathe?! I called Rob in a panic thinking I should head straight the ER. Rob talked me out of that and suggested that I run up to the Pediatric office. I was so hesitant because I knew the Dr.’s office was closed for lunch. Well I was beyond panicked at this point so I ran into the office like a crazy Mom. I was crying and apologizing for running in during their break. I explained that Ella was not breathing well and didn’t know what else to do. They were AWESOME! They immediately took Ella back, evaluated her, gave her a strong steroid shot and set her up on a breathing treatment. She had croup and WOW was that just scary! The Dr. explained to me that croup in young children attacks so hard and fast. An infant’s airway is already as small as a straw or smaller so if that is inflamed and swollen then really it is extremely difficult to breathe.

Of course Ella hated the shot and hated the breathing treatment even more! She screamed and screamed—which was helpful to get the medicine from the breathing treatment in her—and screamed until she finally gave up and fell asleep! Whew!! I felt horrible for Ella. I was trying to hold her down in this tantrum while administering the treatment. I was sweating bullets and still trying to get a handle on what had just happened within the last hour. After the shot and the breathing treatment, her breathing was still not 100%. As precaution, Dr. MacDonald sent us over for some chest and throat x-rays to rule out more swelling or pneumonia. Luckily that all came back normal.

Ella was on oral steroids and breathing treatments for another 4 days. Finally on the following Monday you could see a significant improvement in Ella although all this junk turned into a bad cold that lingered for several days.

I am SO THANKFUL Ella is ok and appreciate all the hard work and dedication there is at the pediatric Dr.’s office!

Love this little girl!!!!

Back to April, Easter…

We had a wonderful Easter weekend. The girls pretty much had a FULL CANDY FILLED Easter week and they just loved it! By Easter Sunday they had their egg hunting skills down pat and racked up at Grammy and PawPaw’s house.

Grammy’s friend made this fabulous cake!

The girls are on the move for some serious egg hunting!

PawPaw helping out just a little bit

Next year sweet Ella you will be right out there with them!

We had a wonderful time celebrating such a special time with our family. I tried to explain to the girls the true meaning of Easter. They listened although I am hoping next year at least Taylor will have a better comprehension of it all…well if anything hopefully they won’t think the only meaning behind this special Holiday is the Easter Bunny that comes with goodies!

Ella is growing like a little weed!! She has some new tricks too. She can sit all by herself, waves bye-bye, and is trying to crawl! She is doing the whole army crawl thing. Ella is so close to putting it all together. She still gets up on her feet, doing a downward dog or a great plank! (I am telling you she has always had the strongest abs!!) I have been working the furniture market the past week so Rob has had a lot of alone time with the girls. He and Ella hung out Sunday while the older two went to spend the afternoon with Grammy. Rob said Ella was getting even closer this weekend. I know she wants to move along with her busy sisters but am I ready for her to crawl?! I would prefer that she just walk. I know that isn't easier to keep up with but then she isn't on the ground, hurting her little knees, picking up dog hair and anything else that lands on the floor that I can't quickly get to. Either way, my baby is growing up and I know I am not ready for that :)

Rob took some pictures of Ella sitting watching TV...I think that is her Daddy's favorite thing!

First Beach Trip

We made it to the beach a couple of weekends ago for a weekend get away with my parents. I had to wait until Thursday night to tell the girls we were going to the beach on Friday. I knew they would be extremely excited and would ask me every 20 minutes if it was time to go yet?! Friday afternoon we headed to Ocean Isle for the weekend. Needless to say, it wasn't a pleasant trip in the car with Caroline! Whew, terrible two's are just not fun in the car for FOUR LONG hours. (Although I will say that Sunday's trip back wasn't nearly as bad! Friday she did not have a nap and was fighting sleep the whole time we rode to the beach; I am sure that did not help matters!)

There was a good amount of sunshine on Friday and Saturday but the temps could have definitely been warmer! The girls loved playing on the beach and running into the water. If we would have allowed them to put on their bathing suits, they would have loved it and gone all the way in the water. The cold temps didn't seem to even phase them!

So who do you think was VERY excited about the NEWS of heading to the beach the next day?!

Oh and Ella just can't beleive it :-)

These girls were in heaven going walking on the beach with Grammy in hunt for some seashells

Now how funny is this picture of Caroline?! She is REALLY into her sunglasses!

Ella's first trip to the beach...

Some girls love the beach in any type of weather... Taylor told me she found shark's teeth?!

El- Next year you will be running with them too!

Rob and I were impressed that Taylor took this good picture of us; maybe we will have a future photographer on our hands!