Ellie is ONE!

Today, our sweet little Ellette Michelle turns one.

I think this last year was the shortest year of my life! It was definitely a good one, but it went by way too fast. This sweet little girl showed up and instantly melted our hearts and wrapped us all around her tiny little fingers.



She grew up into this sweet, sassy, adorable, loving toddler who has changed our home and our family for the better.



Her brothers adore her, and she thinks they're pretty awesome as well. I love to hear them play together and make each other laugh.



 Ellie is quite the chatterbox. She walks around talking to anyone who will listen, including strangers at the park, or the library, or wherever. She still doesn't say a lot of words that actually mean anything, but she sure has a lot to say. The extent of her vocabulary is still just "ma" (more) and "uh oh", but she's using these words more frequently now. When she is crying about something she doesn't like, she cries "na na na na", so it's possible that her third word might be "no".



Ellie will fold her arms for prayers, sit down by the front door if you tell her it's time to put shoes on, give kisses, throw a ball, turn the TV (or Wii, or Xbox) on and off and on and off and on and off, push toy cars around making car noises, and attempt to comb her hair if she gets a hold of a comb or brush.



Running is Ellie's new favorite thing. She loves to do it just because it's fun, but she has also started running away when she does something naughty.



She also LOVES the park. She hasn't gotten brave enough to climb on the toys (which is fine with me!), but she loves trying to walk around on the wood chips.



Food is another one of Ellie's favorite things. She will eat pretty much anything and she has an appetite about as big as her brothers'.





Last, but not least, here are the rest of the birthday pictures I took the other day.

Happy birthday, sweet baby!

Goofballs

My camera is back! Of course that meant I had to take it out for a test run. :) I actually decided to get Ellie dressed all cute and do a birthday session with her to test out my newly repaired camera. You'll have to wait 'till Saturday to see those, but I wanted to blog these pictures I took of my goofy boys. I just love these two. They make me smile. :)





I had nothing to do with these poses. Evan started doing silly poses and Asher followed along. It's their favorite thing to do in front of the camera these days. Silly boys.

This one, on the other hand, WAS prompted by me. I think they're kinda cute. :)



After pictures, we spent the lovely, sunny evening playing on the playground.




I can't believe how big these two are looking lately. Ben and I watched Evan saunter down the hallway the other day and couldn't help noticing how TALL he is these days. They're growing up right before our eyes.

MMMmmmmmm...... corn!

I was holding Ellie after dinner the other night and she was begging for food (She says "Ma!", which means "more") even though I had finished all mine. I offered her my corn cob and she dug right in! She was really going to town on that thing, so I told Ben to grab the camera and snap a few pictures.



Look at that determination.


This expression cracked me up. It's like, "Whatever Dad. I'm busy." (A look we might be familiar with in about 16 years?)



Messy corn face.


She was sure mad when I finally took it away. Silly girl.

Chairs!

We moved here a year and three months ago and we have been without a dining room table and chairs ever since. Until Mother's day! My present for Mother's Day was a dining set.

We had a dining set picked out at the furniture store, but as we were getting ready to buy it someone from church called to let us know they had a table they were getting rid of for free if we wanted it. Talk about great timing... and you can't beat free! All we needed was chairs.

We decided to buy the unfinished chairs from IKEA and finish them ourselves. As is the case with most IKEA furniture, the chairs came in pieces, so they had to be primed, painted and assembled.



After much deliberation, I decided on aqua for the color and, in the spirit of making our decor more interesting, we decided to do each chair a different color for sort of an ombre look.



Ben and I both love this painting by Ben's Sister, Aariel, so that's what we used for our color inspiration.



I love how they turned out and I really love the colors! I was worried I wouldn't like having the four different colors, but I love it.





Yay for having family dinners again! Happy Mother's Day to me. :)

In the city

Yesterday I spent the afternoon in Seattle with two of my photographer friends. (Oh how I wish my camera wasn't away for repairs! There is just SO much to see in downtown Seattle and so much of it is begging to be photographed. I was a bit jealous of my friends who were snapping away the whole time. My phone pics will have to do.)

We started out with lunch in the restaurant at the top of the space needle.



The whole restaurant slowly revolves so that you can see the entire 360 degree view while you eat. Seattle and the surrounding area is so beautiful. The views were breathtaking.





The food was yummy and when you eat in the restaurant, you also get to skip the big huge line of people waiting to go up to the top. (Plus parking is cheaper. Bonus!) We went up to the observation deck after we finished lunch to have another look at the spectacular views.



After the space needle, we went down to Pike Place Market to have a look around and sample yummy foods, like the best smoked salmon I've ever tasted and some really yummy doughnuts!



We also made a stop at the famous (infamous?) gum wall.



Yes, that's gum stuck to the wall. Lot's and lots of gum. It's fantastic and horrifying all at the same time.




By then, it was time for me to go rescue Ben, who was home babysitting the kids for the second day in a row (thanks, honey!). It was such a fabulous afternoon in the city.

Now one of you needs to come visit so that I have an excuse to go back with my camera! ;)

The Small Stuff | Weeks 21 & 22

A much needed haircut

Evan first decided that he wanted long hair because he thought it looked good on this kid the movie "The Spy Nextdoor":



Is he really old enough to have an opinion about his hair already? (Am I really old enough to have a kid who is old enough to have an opinion about his hair?)

 Since then, I've had to beg and plead to even trim his hair for him. About two months ago, I finally convinced him that because he gets so sweaty so easily, he should get a summer haircut. He told me June 1st was the day. No sooner. (I tried to get him to let me cut it last night, but he wouldn't have it.)

So, today was the day! June 1st. The day of the big haircut.

Before....

 

After....

 

 I think he looks handsome and so grown up. Besides, his sweaty head will be thanking me this summer. :)