Ella's Fabulous Fifth Birthday

Ella my cute, blue eyed, blondie. You are 5 today- July 7th. When I put you and your favorite sister Sofia to bed the night before, she BEGGED me to let her help with your bday decorations that we were putting up Saturday night for your morning enjoyment on Sunday. Well we put you both to bed and just before midnight, your sweet Sofia came up and said "Mom! I have stayed awake till I KNEW Ella was asleep. Can I help now?!" Oh how she adores you!

Per your request, we made a chocolate cake with green frosting...and sprinkles. You SQUEELED when you saw it. Even though your dinner of choice was mac and cheese, I think you were ok with the roast we had. You love some good ole meat and potatoes! We sang Happy Birthday and  I teared up a bit while doing so. You are growing up little one.
I thought I should put in a few more of you and Sofia at Maya's party. You girls got a hold of a Doctor's kit..HILARIOUS!

Some things you may/may not remember about your 5th Birthday:

• You get smothered with hugs and kisses quite a bit by me, but on your Birthday? You don't have a chance. \
• We recently cut your hair back into an A-line, since we just think you ROCK that haircut. You look so cute with it and get a ton of compliments on it.
• You are one of the most polite little kids I have ever met. Always saying thank you, even for the little things...Like making your chocolate cake with green frosting and sprinkles.
• You would have been pleased if I had given you a baggie with chocolate chips in it for a present. You don't expect anything and are over the top excited with whatever you get.
•  You are still such a momma's girl. Through and through. You like us to come and lay down with you for  few minutes as you go to sleep.
• You talk in your sleep- just like your Papa. Its hilarious to hear sometimes what you are dreaming about. Especially when I hear you say as you are falling asleep- "Thank you mama for sleeping with me...Its my favorite..."
• Also when I lay down in the bed with you, without fail, I will soon have your feet inbetween my thighs to warm them up. You shimmy those feets in every single time.
• You also sleep with your hands tucked under your chin and cheek. Much like a photographer would do to "pose" a newborn. Its adorable. And you ALWAYS sleep with you mouth wide open and snoring.
• You have the same pattern while you are going to sleep and I always know when you are ready to sleep. Its funny how it runs like clockwork. You start on your right side with your feet in between mine, hands under cheek and chin. Then a few minutes later you roll over and then I know you are almost asleep. You will reach out and touch or stroke my cheek sometimes, just to be sure I have not left early.
• You live in your own little world and we chalk it up to your blonde hair. HEHE.
• You say I love you to me ALMOST as much as I say it to you. And always say I am a good mom. It melts my heart every time.
• You are a radio and sing constantly. You have great pitch and can scat better than any 5 year old I know of! When we get bored of hearing a song, we just tell you- "Ella turn the channel" and without skipping a beat, you are on to another song.
• You have some favorites right now- Kelly Clarkson "Catch my breath", One Direction "You dont know you're beautiful" and most of Adele are what we hear most often. Im sure there are many more, but I'll have to think a bit. And those are probley included in your journal that I am keeping for you.

Ella, we are SO thankful to have you in our family. You bring such a fun and sweet spirit to our home and you are our blond haired, blue eyed, breath of fresh air. Happy Birthdy my sweet girl.

 

Splash Pad Day!

If I have not mentioned a hundred times before how amazingly awesome Betsy is...well she is. She makes the Summer SO fun for the girls and has "theme days" every week for them. They have had "Dr. Suess Day", "Safari Day", "Sleepover Day" and so many others, I cannot even remember. Here are a few from the latest "day" SPLASH PAD DAY!

 

Maybe they are not a myth after all!

Betsy spotted these 3 cutie patootie mermaids near her pool the other day...it was ironic how much they resembed MY 2 beauties, Ella and Sofia..And even MORE ironic, that it was on the EXACT same day as Ella's "Rainbow Unicorn and Mermaid" party that she requested from Betsy when asked what theme day she would like for her birthday...So cool right?!

 

I guess mermaids are not a myth after all. Keep your eyes peeled...You may get lucky enough to spot one too!

 

Maya's Rainbow Dash and Splash 5th bday!

***Thanks again to Cuncle Josh for taking the pics!!***

Ella and Maya are both our July Bdays, so it is fun to not only watch them grow up together (they are 5 days apart-Maya is older ;), but it is so fun when Maya's Birthday comes around, we get excited since Ella's follows soon after.
This year Maya had a "Rainbow Dash and Splash" party. It was funny since Rainbow Dash is a fave of Ella's too.

The weather did not exactly cooperate, so the splashing was short lived as we were hustled inside due to the small rain and thunderstorm that came through. Did it ruin the fun?  AS IF!!

Is that cake not AWESOME? Jessie made it and it came with Rainbow layers of cake.

Everyone was so cute and Ella got her own cupcake with a candle to blow out. She is a doll. Everyone kept on saying- "Happy Birthday Ella!" and she would respond, "Happy Birthday to you too!" hehe. I explained that it was only a few special people, like her that had a birthday today so she could just say Thank you. Well it worked for a few minutes, but the next day on her actualy b-day...yep. she was right back to saying, "Happy Birthday to you too!" again. Love that girl.

Sofia with the Birthday girl, Maya.

Have I convinced you enough into coming with us sometime? No? Well here you go!!



  An oldie but goodie pic of the cabin...This was Fall when it was taken.

 The girls on the stair on the way up to the bedrooms. And I dont know why, but I LOVE this pic of the cabin....

A few more of the awesome slide our "cabin neighbors" have. They are so great!

We are SO going to go a few more times this Summer. Please, we cannot ask enough- Come with us!The girls said as we drove away that they thought the cabin would be sad with us gone...I think they are right. Come and play! We know you will love it as much as we do.

More Cabin pics!

 Two things that dominated this stay at the cabin. Sofia reading up a storm ( I LOVED IT!!) she read the entire collection of Berenstein Bear books that were there...and Hi-Chew's. It must be a Pederson trait, cause Paul and Liane got us hooked on the Hi-chews and between all of us -we DOMINATED that bag! There were only a few left when we took off homeward bound...mainly the grape and apple ones...Betsy why would that be?! ;) . LOL! She was not a fan....

There is a family who has a cabin just 2 up from Grandpas and they have a slide and tire swing at theirs. They are so nice to let us come and play whenever we want. SO FUN!!

 

Since open fires were FORBIDDEN with the heat and the dry that was upon us, we had to improvise and had our smores-grill style. Seriously?! They were AWESOME!! They browned, not burned and did it in half the time. I am completely sold on it!

 

  Oh yes we did. We gave Adrick a JUMBO marshmallow and he went to TOWN!! It was awesome. He was like a veral dog when you tried to get it from him. HEHE. The second pic is of him on Betsys lap literally shoving her fingers in his mouth and sucking the chocolate and marshmallow leftovers off her fingers. LOVE IT!!

This was Ella trying to close her mouth over HER smores...the girl LOVES her chocolate, but even this one was a bit much for her and I had to end up finishing it up..And then going and rinsing her clean. WHAT A STICKY, GOOEY, UBER FUN MESS.

The Cabin with Betsy!!

We had our first jaunt of the Summer and headed up to Grandpa's Cabin. And we convinced Betsy & Tanner, Renee & Steve and Adrick to come along! The girl's were BEYOND excited and I was just hoping we would escape some record breaking temps for the month of June. It was still about 90 degrees at times up at the cabin, but that was better than the 104 degrees it was in the valley!!

This was a CUTE collage that Betsy sent me thanking us for having them there. ANYTIME my friend!! My absolute FAVE is Tanner rocking Ella to sleep. It was adorable. Betsy summed it up best "-My favorite was Sofia telling Tanner that she wanted to cut the corner of his beard off and keep it forever, and Ella telling me it was so wonderful of me to rock her b/c it is her favorite!" Then a millisecond later, she was ASLEEP. Love that girl...

Too many pics of the cabin to post here- Ill put the pics on the next post!

 

Pool buddies

THIS little guy would be the reason why Sofia asks me DAILY when we will get a new brother or sister...Oh little lady, I wish I knew!

Adrick, thank you for being such a sport while Sofia practices her "little mommy" skills on you! She never leaves his side when he is floating in the pool. You two are ADORABLE!!