getting the girl to smile.

All I wanted was a photo of Elliot smiling. Just a single photo of her looking at the camera, or at least in the vicinity of it and smiling so I can feature her in a post for her 3rd birthday. Being a 3-year old, this is what I got:

Seeing what I was dealing with, I decided to have some fun with it. I told Elliot to give me a model face. Look at that pose! The next Top Model, right? Work it girl!

She’s such a goof, but I now know that in order to get just one good photo, I need to take about 300 of them. But the 299 of the rest of them are pretty fun to look at, too!

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a typical [mon]day.

I am very lucky to have an extra day during the week to enjoy being with my girls and now that it’s nice out I try to take full advantage of the day. This morning I thought it would be fun to “Go, go, go, go on an adventure” (yes, you may sing the Cat in the Hat jingle as you say that), so starting at 8:30AM our day begins with a trip to McDonalds for breakfast. A plate full of pancakes, hashbrowns, syrup, orange juice and ice coffee later we are seated at our table. (That’s lovely, Cora).

The novelty of being somewhere new for breakfast lasted a total of 5 minutes, 3 bites, and a container of spilled syrup all over the table, the floor and Elliot’s hair and hands. Seconds away from a tantrum, and a toddler squealing to get out of her seat, I started to second-guess my fun adventure idea. Needless to say the group of retired people gathering at McDonalds didn’t seem too pleased with us interrupting their morning so we decided to take our food and have a picnic instead, hoping that a different place would help entice their appetite. It didn’t work. The playground was much more intriguing than cold pancakes.

Though we started early, and they may be acting tired, the girls were definitely still raring to go, so close to an hour later and a full sun shining, we went home to lather on the sunscreen and play in our own backyard.

This is the neighbors tree – it’s so pretty for a couple weeks!

A little more playing, fighting, and relaxing (if I can call it that) and it’s time for snack.

Lunch break. Can you guess what we’re having?!

To continue the day, we head off to another park after lunch and an outfit change. Cora’s excited!

 

A sky full of ominous clouds and a few raindrops later it’s time to head home for a nap. I think Mommy needs one too!

somebody is three!!

Where in the world has three years gone? It seems like yesterday that I was ready to pop and anxiously waiting for my little peanut to arrive. It’s all so amazing, so unbelievably amazing, that I cannot even begin to capture the magic of this age with you in words. You are a complete sweetie-pie little girl one minute giving hugs and kisses to Cora, and a spit-fire of a child the next, falling to the floor in a tantrum over not being able to hold a green balloon. (Everything and anything green is your favorite right now!)

You are such a little helper trying to help me with everything; making dinner, changing Cora, feeding the critters.

The funniest things come out of your mouth and sometimes it has no real context what-so-ever; Dad: “Elliot, get off that box, you’re going to break it.” Elliot: “Just give me a fighting chance Dad!”

You have entered the never-ending question-asking, the desire to understand why why why and how how how?  Your dad and I try our best to give you reasoning so you will understand, in which your vocabulary is developing (“What would you like to drink, Mom? An Americano?”) The girl knows my Starbucks drink!!

You continue to grow at such an unbelievable pace and you’re on track to becoming an amazing, intelligent, creative young girl – I can’t wait to watch the journey continue. Your dad, sister and I love you very much!! Happy Birthday Ellie-Bear!

Here’s some photos of the puppy birthday party. The last photo is of “Lala”, her new ginormous stuffed puppy that makes it’s way up and downstairs about four times a day so she can be with it constantly.

sweet spring is finally here!

The term cabin fever is real. It is what has happened to my family for the last 6 months and the girls have been itching to get outside into the fresh air. Luckily, lately it has been pretty nice to do just that. We took advantage of every outside opportunity that we could, even if it meant sitting back, and trying not to see the shovels of dirt flying over Cora’s head as Elliot throws it… there’s always bath time, right?

We were even able to have a family bonfire that Elliot has been begging for since January. The girls enjoyed it, for say, seven minutes before they found more interest in building a beautiful “rock garden” in the planter.

And we’re off to another park again today…

So glad the warm weather is back and we can start our family walks and enjoy being outside again. The windows are open, the faint breeze blowing through… this is what we have been missing!