St. Patty's Day/Birthday Celebration

We spent St. Patrick's Day celebrating Gage's birthday! I can't believe he's already a year old! It was a St. Patty's Day theme and everyone was wearing green . . . so cute! I made his smash cake and Ellie and I (and everyone else) thoroughly enjoyed watching him eat it. He was covered in green icing!

Ellie had so much fun. She'd been talking about his party all week. Anytime she'd hear the word birthday, she'd shout, "Happy Birthday, Gage!" She's also been talking about it since. She really loves Hayley (Gage's mom). The whole time we were at the party, she'd start asking for Hayley as soon as she went in another room. Today she said, "Gage ate his cake and made a mess. I love Hayley. I love cupcakes. Where's Jordan?" Not sure how all that came together . . . but I love how she remembers and knows that Hayley, Jordan, and Gage go together. So sweet!

Gage's smash cake Ellie, Dad, and the birthday boy!

She was very serious when we first got there. Takes her a while to warm up.

She looked so precious!

Happy 1st Birthday, Gage!

He enjoyed his cake!!

Sadie, Ellie, Colton, Haven, Gage, Brynn, and Kinley

My best girls surprised me with a cookie cake and gifts! We didn't get together for my birthday this year, so they planned this surpise. Love you Hayley and Sherri!

Another birthday!

Thursday was my 31st birthday. Not a big one, but it was a great one! I have to admit, I celebrated for 3 days! It helped keep my mind off the fact that I'm another year older . . . ha, ha, . . . Actually, I don't mind too much, but it was fun to do some shopping. On Wednesday night, I got some new tennis shoes and maternity clothes from my mom and Kyle's mom.

On Thursday morning, I woke up planning on going to my Thursday morning bootcamp class and then to the library with Ellie like we do every Thursday, but my sweet husband had different plans for me! He had an appointment made for a manicure/pedicure, and gift cards to Old Navy, Marshalls, and Gigi's Cupcakes! He came home early from work to watch Ellie and I got the entire day to get my nails done, shop, and eat cupcakes! It was such a fun surprise and he earned some major points! After all that, we had dinner at Ted's with my mom and nini (YUM!) and I would've been asleep by 9:00, but Ellie had a sudden burst of energy and stayed up until 11:00!

On Friday, we went to Dave and Buster's with Kyle's family. We had dinner and played games until Ellie and I were exhausted! After all our tickets had been counted (1,293 of them), we ended up with a Dallas Cowboys bear, a soccer ball, a kazoo, and a pack of Sweettarts. Ellie got 2 Sweettarts and then cried the entire way home for "just one more piece!"

It was a wonderful birthday and thank you to everyone for my awesome gifts! I am a very lucky girl to have such a thoughtful family!

Family pic Waiting to eat at Ted's
I begged Kyle NOT to tell them it was my birthday . . . obviously, he didn't listen! Ellie thought it was very funny!

Playing games at Dave and Buster's

Big Girl Room!

Ellie has officially moved up to her big girl bed! We bought her furniture used and it was hideous! It was pink, all scratched up, covered in crayon and marker, and missing knobs. But it was nice and heavy and made of solid wood, so we bought it. My husband is very handy and I knew he could make it look new . . . and he did! Ellie loves it and says, "Big girl room" when she goes in there. She slept in her bed last night and did great! I set my alarm for every 2 hours to go and check on her because she is a wild sleeper. Once, she had turned sideways and had her feet on the wall. If I didn't think I'd wake her, I'd have taken her picture.

She is really liking to get up there and read books. She read some books to her doll, Lily, this afternoon. And, of course, she like to jump on it!

Now we've moved her furniture into the extra bedroom which will be a nursery as soon as we know what Baby #2 is going to be . . . find that out 3 weeks from today and we can't wait to know!

Dad and Ellie resting after getting everything moved in and set up She was saying "Hooray!"
Her new bed and night stand

New curtains and chest of drawers

New dresser and mirror (please ignore all the sticky handprints on the mirror. We just put it in there . . . how has she done that much damage?????)

Ellie and Lily reading "Goodnight Moon"

This is very bittersweet for me . . . it was fun to get to redecorate and add some fun colors to her room, and I'm anxious to get started on the nursery, but it just seems too soon. I feel like we just brought her home! I felt like she would be in that crib forever! I know this won't be the first time I feel like this, but it's still hard. My girl's growing up!

Feeling better!

Ellie is finally feeling much better and I'm so glad . . . for her, of course, and because we don't have to do the inhaler anymore. She did great with it and actually seemed to like it, but it made her CRAZY! I can't even describe how different she acted the 4-5 days she was on it. She was bouncing of the walls hyper, easily irritated and frustrated, and difficult. I did some research and it seems that this type of inhaler does that to children, only I wasn't warned! I didn't know what had happened to my sweet, mild mannered, go with the flow little girl! Needless to say, I'm glad she's back!

Helping Daddy with her inhaler

She felt like such a big girl doing this ;)

Another pretty day . . . she looks so carefree!

This is the life . . .

Helping Dad plant shrubs

Sunny Day!

After our long week, we decided to take advantage of the nice weather (a high of 77 degrees on the first day of March!) and get out of the house. We went to Hobby Lobby (Ellie yells "Hobby Lobby!" when we pull in the parking lot and the cashiers know her by name . . . probably means I shop there too much!) and Target to look for things for her new room. After lunch, we went outside and played on the swingset. Ellie asks to go outside everyday and then she'll say, "too cold," since that is the response she usually hears. I was glad to tell her we could go out today.

Her poor nose is still running and she would tell me everytime. She'd say "nose is running," so I'd know to grab a tissue. Once I guess I hesitated too long because then she yelled, "snots is coming!" She was right!

Anyway, we had fun enjoying the beautiful weather. Here are some pics of my beautiful girl.

Climbing the ladder . . . she can do this all by herself now

Love that smile!

Enjoying a Starburst

Loooong week

It has been a rough week around here! Poor Ellie has been so sick. She'd had a runny nose for about 5 days, but no other symptoms and this seems to happen every couple of months, so I didn't think much about it. Last Friday, she started to get a little cough that was a little worse on Saturday and A LOT worse on Saturday night. It started to sound like croup (which she had 3 months ago), so I knew what to do: sit in the bathroom with the hot shower running for 20 minutes, turn on the humidifier, and give her warm apple juice. All of this bought us about 2 hours of sleep. Then she woke up with fever and coughed non-stop until we headed to the doctor at 9:30 a.m. The doctor opened at 10:00, so I got there a little early expecting to get right in. HA! After 12 pages of paperwork and over 2 hours in the waiting room (with no toys, books, or good snacks), we finally saw the doctor who confirmed that Ellie had croup again. She gave her the same steroid as last time and we headed home.

Kyle gave her the first does of medicine which she spit back out at him. He said the told her that she really needed to take the medicine to feel better, even if it didn't taste good. She went and got her cup of juice and said, "Daddy, put it in here." I put her vitamins in her juice, so I guess she thought it would make sense if he put her yucky medicine in there, too. Kyle thought it made sense, too . . . but it was too late. Sunday night was another awful, sleepless night for us all. On Monday, I put her medicine in her juice like she asked, but she only drank half and then refused to drink anymore. Monday night was pretty much the same as Sunday night . . . she was so sick, feverish, irritable, and probably hungry since she hadn't eaten much of anything all weekend. I called Monday morning and made an appointment for Monday afternoon. I thought of a genius way to get Ellie to take her last dose of meds before we went to the doctor. I gave her "coke." It was actually Sprite, but she calls it coke and was SO excited. That lasted about 3 drinks and then she refused the rest. *sigh* BTW, the medicine tasted horrible and she had every right to refuse it.

Once we got to the doctor, we found out that her croup had turned into bronchiolitis. She was perscribed an antibiotic (bubblegum flavored, thank goodness!) and an inhaler with a huge mask that we have to hold over her face. We have to do this every 4 hours until her cough is gone. She's actually handling it much better than I thought she would. I will have to take a picture of her next time. Today, she has felt better and had no fever, but is still very whiny, snotty, and has the horrible cough. Crossing my fingers it's better tomorrow!

We officially have cabin fever! Besides going to the doctor and the pharmacy, we haven't left the house since Saturday. I never thought I'd be sad about not being able to go workout! Even Ellie told me she wants to go to the Y and see Micah (a boy that's always in her class). Hopefully, we can get back into our routine next week.

Another exciting thing going on here is that Ellie is getting her new big girl bedroom furniture moved in this weekend. I can't believe it's happening, but it is! I'll post pics of that once we get everything moved in.

Here are a few pics of my little sickling . . .

This night she cried for 2 hours and would not let us pick her up or touch her in any way. She finally fell asleep in her chair like this.

This was Friday night before going out to eat. She still felt pretty good and looked so precious! Her daddy dressed her and I must say he did a good job!

This past week

I'm a little behind on posting pics from Valentine's Day. Last Tuesday, Ellie and I surprised Nana at work with some flowers and candy. Then we went to lunch with Daddy. When we got home, Nini came over and brought Ellie her valentine. That evening, we had chicken fajitas for dinner and opened up our gifts. Ellie was excited about her markers and coloring books, although not quite as excited when she found out they were color wonder markers and only wrote on the paper that came with them! On Thursday, Grandma came over and brought Ellie another valentine! She's one lucky little girl!

Visiting Nana at workEllie and Nini
Our Valentine dessert . . . heart shaped chocolate brownies . . . YUM!

Toy Story ring pop!

Markers, paper, and a new Dora book

On Saturday, we went to check out a place that I had heard about from a friend. It's the Dynamo gym near Rockwell and Hefner. During their regular hours they have a 3 story play gym that anyone can use. It's $5 per kid and parents are free. And parents can play on most everything! It was a little overwhelming with the amount of kids there and there were some kids that were way too old and way too rough to be playing, but Ellie had fun and next time we go, I think I'll take her during the week while the big kids are at school.

Climbing up to the slides (that's her in the polka dotted skirt)

Sliding down with Dad

Sliding down with Mom

I think she really wanted to play in the ball pit, but there were too many kids (one that was about 13 and took up the whole area). Plus, the boy with his hand on her head is not being nice. We had to watch out for him the whole time!

Getting braver . . .

In the bounce house

On the balance beam

We had fun, but Ellie was also having a bad allergy day. We're going to go back and check it out on a day when she's not so cranky and it's not so crowded. I'm considering having her birthday party there!