My goal this summer has been to leave work on time, drive straight to Gran's and spend some time outside with her and Ella. It's almost July and that goal hasn't come to fruition too many times. With Josh out of town a lot, it feels like I spend most of my time during the week working in the yard, folding laundry, vacuuming the floors, bathing babies and disciplining dogs. Since there are only a few short weeks of summer left to be had, I'm going to try and be more purposeful about the time we spend together during the week. In honor of Father's Day, we persuaded SD to stay an extra night this weekend and he didn't head back to work until this morning. Since K & Cory were at the beach and missed our impromptu celebration Sunday afternoon, we decided to coordinate a little shindig at ...
family
Summer Is Here
Tonight we grilled out at Garan & Poppy's and I watched my girls swim. Both of them. ...
Weekend List
Friday we ate Mexican for dinner, bought some books at BAM and took a stroll around Wal-Mart because Ella wanted to go to another store. We didn't buy anything there. Saturday we did the lunch date with Ali. You saw that here. Then we went to Ross and bought really big throw pillows for $5.99, bought a yard of fabric at Hancock for another project, got Ella a tiny table from Homegoods and a pedestal table from Wal-Mart (you can see both of those in Friday's post). K & Cory came over for dinner Saturday night. We had lasagna, salad and yummy bread and watched Seven Pounds. Excellent movie, I highly recommend it. Sunday morning I got us ready for church and Ella had a major belly-related come apart. It was better not to subject the general population to her drama, so we put our pjs ...
Coming for dinner?
I decided to play along with Kelly's party this week and show off my dining room. We live in an 86 year old rock cottage, which we love. The day we brought our daughter home we grew out of this house, despite it's three bedrooms, because in 1923 they didn't think to build closets. Our house has no hallways or wasted space, but where it is overflowing with character and spacious rooms, it is definitely lacking in storage space. To combat that problem, all of our rooms do some "double duty" and we have to have lots of interesting ways to display and store things. Above is the entrance to our dining room from the living room. There is a large arch between the two rooms and we treat them as one. You can see one of the original light fixtures that I love hanging in the room. We shortened ...
MD Roundup
Remember that fabulous Mother's Day I was talking about this morning? Well, it went almost according to plan. Except that it was raining this afternoon when I took a nap and Ella had a meltdown or twelve. In fact, we had the pleasure of listening to the demon that possessed her sweet little curly headed self tonight for about 25 minutes while she screamed from her bed. Ah, it's the small things in life that make motherhood wonderful. In spite of that little outburst, I had a wonderful day. And I couldn't wish for anything more than a cranky little girl screaming to close the day. Just kidding. Well, almost. Happy Mother's Day to these three women who make my life so much better: Nana, Gran, and Granmom. ...
Spending the night
On the last day of our Disney trip we drove home. Eight and a half hours. It was a long day and Ella wasn't thrilled about being in the car that long while she was awake. Luckily since we drove down in the evening she slept all the way there, but on our return trip it was all sunshine all the time. What we really needed to do when we got home was to sleep about 75 hours. What we really did was visit. We stopped to see Gran & Poppy and boy were they happy to see us. We also saw Heather, Phillip, K and Cory. Then Molly and Heath came over for dinner. I don't know about you, but when I see two girls having a fabulous time I kind of hate to separate them. So against my better judgment, I suggested that Molly spend the night. Despite Ella's multiple breakdowns due to lack of ...
Grand Finale
Alrighty, the masses have spoken. Well, four of you, but who's counting? Prepare yourself for a long post, because this one is chock-full of Disney goodness and a few never-before-seen photos. The one above is probably my favorite from the entire trip, despite the fact that it doesn't include any of us. I took this while waiting to ride Dumbo for the last time and was remarkably impressed with the fact that it is in focus and not totally blown out. These are Ella's three favorite things in Magic Kingdom. Cinderella's Castle. The Carousel. Dumbo. Above are Ella and SD on the tram from the car to the transportation & ticket center. The few below are of dinner at Casey's Corner. If you're looking for a good hotdog in the MK it is the place to be. Good stadium style dogs with a bar of ...
Sporadic
That is the word that describes the internet service at my house right now. We just attempted to watch 24 on-line and while that normally would decrease the amount of time it takes to watch, since the commercials are omitted, it actually increased that time exponentially. Ugh. Moving on... The Shred is still killing me. I have to admit, however, that it is at least mildly entertaining if for no other reason than it gets all four of us {dog included} in one room and we look so ridiculous that we can't help but laugh at ourselves. Josh is using my hand weights, so I have to use water bottles. I know, I'm weak. Ella wants to join in the fun so last night she used her sandals and tonight she used ink pens. I wish that's what I was using. If I'm not skinny before too long I'm going to want ...