Sisterly Love

This one perfectly captures Ella's hugs which can be somewhat painful at times!

I was cleaning the kitchen the other day and Ashley and Ella were over in the corner giving each other kisses and "big daddy" hugs (that's Ashley's phrase meaning the biggest thing in the whole world), and laughing hysterically. Ella thinks Ashley is the funniest person to walk the face of the earth, and Ashley loves the fact that Ella thinks she's so funny. They have their moments of fighting, but overall they really are each others best friend. It is so fun to watch the two of them play together because Ella copies exactly whatever Ashley does and Ashley loves bossing around her little toadie. I'm so glad we have our two sweet girls!!!

A Few More Fun Ones...

Here are a few more pictrures of my sweet girls - gotta love them!

Just Some Fun Pictures...

Here are just a bunch of random pictures I've taken of the girls lately. You know they just have to LOVE having a mom who's trying to practice her photography skills!!!

Tap Dancing Girl

It has been ages since Ashley has been in kind of classes - we had her in three classes

a week at one point because she loved them so much, but it ended up burning me out. She has been begging me for a long time to sign her up for more classes so we finally did. This time she decided on a tap dancing class and she is absolutely loving it! It is pretty cute to see all those 4 year old girls running around with their tap shoes on, dancing their little hearts out!

Aren't We Stylin?

Ashley has been having a little trouble grasping the concept of modesty lately. There have been reports of Ashley at Nanna and Boppa's house randomly stripping off all her clothes because she was "too hot". Plus there are the occasional answering the door in undies and other events that have brought to our attention the need to explain exactly what modesty is. Anyway, I came up with a family home evening lesson to explain all of this and part of the lesson was a game where we had to put on a bunch of clothes as fast as we could. Ashley beat Derek and Ella and I tied. The modesty issue has been getting better, but I think we still have some more work to do. To all of you who live close to us, please be understanding when you come to the door and it is answered by an undie wearing princess!

I Think My Ella Bella Might Be Back!

Ella has been going through a phase where she is just unhappy no matter what I do. If she's walking around she wants to be held, then when I pick her up she's mad because I'm touching her and wants me to let her go, but then when I put her down she's mad again because I'm not holding her. Needless to say she's been a hard child to please for the last 2 months. Anyway, I took this picture recently and everytime I look at it I'm reminded that there is still a sweet little girl in there somewhere. I think the teething thing has been the culprit. Actually, it has been getting better over the last week so I'm really excited to have my Ella Bella back!

Yes we're still alive!

Okay, it has been almost three months since I've posted anything at all! I don't know how the time has gone by so quickly, but here we are mid February. I need to start somewhere so I guess I'll start where I left off right before Christmas.

Every once in a while Ashley wants to "make a restaurant" and surprise Derek when he gets home from work. She gets all into it and tells me what needs to be on the menu and how much everything will cost. She always insists the name of our restaurant should be Veggies (which I think originated from Chevy's because she thinks it is called Vechies - now our restaurant has made one more morph to become Veggies) and loves being the waitress. She takes waitressing very seriously and knows all the lingo and everything. I have to say the whole thing is pretty cute. Here are some of the pictures from one of our "Veggie" nights.

The beautiful entrance to our restaurant (yeah, these pictures are old - can you tell by the Christmas lights and wreath).

Ashley bringing Derek his food after seating him.






This is the menu we came up with.

Our cute little waitress bringing Derek his dessert.