Ella is Three Years Old!

My beautiful baby girl, you are three years old! I can not believe it! It feels like I just had you yesterday and we were in the hospital and I could not stop crying because you were perfect and beautiful and I couldn't believe how much I loved you already and knew I would do anything to protect you and make you happy.

We went to the doctor on Friday and you weigh 38.4 pounds (over 95th percentile) and are 40-3/4" tall (100 percentile). Yep, you are a big girl. You used to be chunky, but you are tall and slim now. You wear size 4T, but they are starting to get too small so you have started wearing 5T and a size 4/5 in the Girl's department! You wear a size 11 shoe.

You love all things girly. You LOVE to wear dresses and always want to wear one, even to bed. The dressier the better, and I LOVE it. You wear your princess dresses all the time. Lately when you wake up you tell me you want to get dressed up. When I start getting ready for the day you tell me you want me to get dressed up and wear a dress too. That is fine by me because I like to wear dresses the most also.

You love anything that sparkles and has sequins and love to have your nails and toes painted with sparkles.

You can count to 16, know your ABC's and can recognize the number 1-5 and a few letters. You know all your shapes and can draw them pretty well. I love it when you draw Mommy's picture and you get so proud of yourself. Most days at school you make a picture and when you get in the car you show it to me. You always say "Look Mommy I made it for you. Will you put it on the refrigerator?" I used to hate having clutter on my fridge, but your artwork makes you so proud and me so happy to see you so proud.

You love to read books, sing songs, play outside and watch cartoons. You still cuddle so much a I love it. lately you have been asking us for "squeeze hugs". You love our baby sister and are already protective of her and love to make her laugh. You tell everyone "That is my Layla, my baby sister!".

You are strong willed, opinionated, bossy, stubborn and demanding also. You get a very serious face and point your index finger and give instructions! And you mean it!! We know we should discipline you when you do it, but it is so hard not to laugh!!

You are funny. You do and say some of the funniest things that make your Dad and I just laugh! You are a ham and LOVE to be the center of attention.

You are also very compassionate. You always kiss our boo-boo's and always want to make sure people are happy. If I tell you I don't feel good you say "Mommy it will be okay, I will make it all better".

I am so blessed to be your Mom. I love you more every day and am amazed at how beautiful and smart you are. You are such a mess and I wouldn't have it any other way!

Ella's Third Birthday

Get ready for a lot of pictures!!
On Friday, January 6th my sweet baby girl turned three years old! We had her birthday party on Saturday at our house with our families. Ella decided it was present time a little early, so that is where the pictures begin. Her cousins were eyeing them, so she decided to go ahead and open them!

Ella has the best Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles and cousins who got her some great presents!

My Mom and Ella always watch the Princess and the Frog together at my parent's house. My Dad will even sit and watch it with her because he knows that is cuddle time. She got the movie for Christmas and Ella kept telling me she wanted the green dress from the movie and a "Tinani" doll. Yes, her name is "Tiana", but Ella says it Tinani and it is so funny, so I only recently corrected her.

The night before her birthday Ella said "Mom, I want a Tinani doll and dress and I know my Granny will get it for me." So sweet!! Little did she know my Mom had already gotten her. She was so excited when she saw it.

Her Aunt Jennie and Uncle Moo (otherwise known as my brother, Kyle) got her a Bitty Baby. She has been sleeping every night with her baby and Tinani.

She loves her babies!

Already wearing her dress! She loves to play dress up right now. She is also obsessed with Princesses. 

What was Layla doing while all of this was going on, you ask? Well, she was being passed around the room and playing with balloons.

My sweet, sweet friend Melody came to the party. I love this girl like she is my sister and Ella was very excited she was there.

My sister was out of town, so she couldn't make it. She always wears necklaces that Layla loves to chew on, but since Corey wasn't there Layla had a good time chewing on Lindsey's. I am so glad someone thought to wear a necklace for her! 

While Lindsey was busy fending off my child her little one Raelyn was running around and playing hard!

Layla, still chewing on balloons, with her Grandma.

Finally, all the presents were opened and it was cake time! I LOVE her cake. I found a picture and gave it to a girl named Melody, who is the sister-in-law of one of my friends, Amanda. Melody is amazing! I have gotten three cakes from her and they have each been EXACTLY what I wanted and looked EXACTLY like the picture. That has never happened for me before. You can see her blog here.

It is always so hard for me to cut them when they are so cute though!

As soon as we finished singing Ella went straight for the crown.

And Hunter went straight for the bow and shoved the entire thing in his mouth!

We all ate our delicious cake and then it was play time! My Dad made the mistake of asking a wound-up, sugar-high, crazy three year old to run and give him a kiss. This is what happened!! Ella's aim was a little off!

But, she got it right!

The babies went down for a nap and the big kids went outside and had fun letting all of the balloons go. It started out as one or two, then we just decided to let them do all of the balloons. I think there were about 40?! 

It was such a great birthday party. Ella had a blast and took a great nap after everyone left! We go to the doctor Friday for her three year old check up, so I will have all of her stats then. 

Layla is 7 Months!!

Well by now you are 7-3/4 months, but regardless, you are still 7 months! My goodness I love you so much!  Your little personality is coming out more and more everyday and I love it.

Let's see. You still wear a size 4 diaper. You have a big round bottom! It is sweet and squishy! You wear 18 months, although some are too small depending on brand, you also wear 18-24 months and a lot of 24 months. You are at a weird size. You have rolls upon rolls on your thighs, so everything fits tight on them, so 24 months work better, but if it is a dress a 24 month is too big. It is tricky! You weigh 24.9 pounds according to my scale.

You are still nursing and unless something major happens that will continue for at least another 5-7 months. Sometimes you will eat your oatmeal or rice cereal for breakfast and sometimes you won't. It's funny how one day you love it and the next you make the funniest faces and turn your head and won't even allow it near your mouth. You LOVE pears and bananas and you just moved up to the 2nd stage foods and you are eating a lot of mixed fruits. You HATE peas, you spit them out if I can even trick you into taking a bite. You eat puffs and yogurt melts and are doing a wonderful job of getting them into your mouth.

For the last month I have been saying you are going to crawl "any day now". Well, still no official crawling, but you still do your inchworm or military crawl and can get around like that with no problem. You get up on a four and rock back and forth and I just know you are about to take off crawling, but them you go back down on your tummy and propel yourself forward my pushing off the ground and stretch your arms out and move forward. You also can roll very strategically and get exactly where you want.

You have started trying to pull up. I see some bumps and bruises in our near future!

If I take something away from you you throw a fit and start crying. If I give it back to you you will stop. It is amazing to watch this happen with a baby. Already working her parents!

This week you have started saying "Mama mama mama". You usually say it in threes and there is absolutely no association between the word and me. So, yes you saw Mama, but it is just jabbering. You don't make hardly any d sounds, so we haven't heard Dada yet.

You love to play patty cake, peek-a-boo and have Mommy clap your hands. If you are crying I can sing "Jesus Loves Me" and you stop. Ella sings this to you all the time and you love it. You LOVE your big sister. You love seeing her in the mornings and just laugh when she runs around the house acting silly.

You are still such a good sleeper. You go to bed at 9 p.m. and wake up at around 9:15-9:30 a.m. (Sometimes you sleep until 10 a.m.). You take a nap from 11:30- 2:30 and another evening nap from about 5:30-6:45.

I love you sweet girl and can't wait to see what next month will bring!