We got back this afternoon from a great vacation at the beach with Nana P & Paw-Paw Kelly!  More pictures and details about our beach trip coming soon…

on your NEW JOB, Aunt Ashley!! We are so excited for you!! Yippee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(I love this picture of Uncle Matt & Aunt Ashley so I wanted to share it plus I don’t like posts with just words and no pictures)

Come again another day

 Little Ella wants to play

Rain, Rain

 Go Away!

Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Paw-Paw…Happy Birthday to YOU!

Ella LOVES her Paw-Paw Sanford and gets the privilege of spending lots of time with him while Mommy and Daddy work. Paw-Paw is CRAZY about Ella! He loves that “Lil’ Taylor” and she loves him too! Paw-Paw lets Ella do whatever she wants…popsicles for breakfast, Blues Clues instead of his favorite Westerns, and so on. He says that she’s the boss! We are so lucky to have such a wonderful man as a grandfather and great-grandfather! He is truly an AMAZING man and his family means the world to him. He means the world to us too!

On Tuesday night, we made a birthday dinner for Paw-Paw which included Roasted Pork Loin with apples, fresh green beans (Ella even helped string beans!), potatoes that Ashley dug from her garden, corn on the cob, yeast rolls and banana pudding (sugar free just for Paw-Paw!). Even if I was one of the cooks, I have to say it was an incredible dinner!!! An incredible dinner for an even more incredible man! Ella even baked Paw-Paw a cake in her little kitchen :)

We hope you have a very Happy Birthday, Paw-Paw Sanford!!

WE LOVE YOU VERY MUCH!!!

Nana P said it comes highly recommended from some of her friends at work and since Ella loves books so much it was a great gift!  So after bath time tonight,  Ella and I sat down and read the book.  The little girls name is Prudence and Ella immediately started calling her “Poopance.”  I could hardly keep a straight face!  After we read the book, I ask Ella to read the book to me.  She opened the book and said…"Once upon a time girl Poopance used the big girl potty!”  It was all I could do to keep from laughing!  She was so serious.  Then she flipped a few pages and came to a page where Prudence had an accident in the floor…she said “Poopance done pooped in the floor!  Nasty!”  At that point, I could no longer hold my composure and I busted out laughing.  Daddy then had to check out this book we were reading, so he read it a couple more times to Ella.  She really enjoyed the book so tomorrow we’ll watch the DVD and see what happens. 

This picture makes me laugh because I can tell by Cory’s expression that he is trying to keep from cracking up at Ella!

Thank you so much Nana P & Paw-Paw Kelly for Ella’s book and DVD!  Hopefully Ella will learn a few things from “Poopance”  Haha!!

YES!…it’s still the same blog we just got a make-over!  Traci, at Sweet Cheeky Designs, did an AMAZING job giving our blog a “face-lift” :)  If anyone is looking for a new blog design, I HIGHLY recommend her!  She is so easy to work with and comes up with the most fabulous designs!  Thanks Traci for our new look…we LOVE it!!!

I think Ella is equally as addicted to chap stick as I am (or “chapit stick” as she calls it!).  I have every kind of chap stick imaginable and am always buying new kinds to try.  Right now, I am hooked on Bert’s Bee Pomegranate chap stick.  Ella likes her strawberry kiwi LipSmacker :)  I had to buy her some so she would leave Mommy’s chapit stick alone.  I cleaned out my purse the other day and had 5 different kinds of chap stick not counting the various tubes in my make-up bag.  I blame my addiction on the fact that I don’t wear lipstick so I have an excuse to splurge :) 

We chugged down to Winston this weekend for a fun, train-themed birthday party to celebrate Crawford turning 2!!  We had so much fun hanging out with old college friends and new blog friends!  It’s so funny how much we know about each other from reading blogs :)  I love it!  Ella had so much fun playing in the bounce house with all the other kids.  The decorations were adorable and the kids had a blast!

Crawford, the birthday boy, trying to get the ribbon off the balloons.  It was so cute…he was trying so hard.  At one point, he was dragging a balloon with the chair still attached.  Another little boy picked up the chair and then they were dragging each other all over the yard :)

Ella playing with the train decorations

Ella “falling down” in the bounce house.  She jumped and jumped and jumped!

Crawford’s train birthday cake…cute and tasty!

I think this is one tired little birthday boy!

Ella was asleep before we even got out of Winston!

Happy 2nd Birthday, Crawford! 

Thanks for allowing us to celebrate with you!  We had so much fun!!!

I’ve read countless articles about potty training and everyone recommends a different approach and swears that their recommendation is the best.  So, who do you listen to?!  I was left feeling confused and didn’t know where to start, so I came up with an idea that might just work for Ella.  And let’s just say it’s not a conventional potty training method…especially for a little girl!  My little prissy girl is obsessed with Thomas the Train and Friends!  So, I skipped right over the pack of pink princess panties and bought the toddler BOYS Thomas the Train briefs.  I came home with them and you wouldn’t believe how excited she was when she saw “Thomas panties!”  This morning when we got up, Ella put on a pair of her new Thomas briefs panties and we told her that she shouldn’t pee-pee or poo-poo on Thomas.  Well…poor Thomas got soaked not once but twice today.  Maybe tomorrow we can keep Thomas dry :)  I think we’re making progress though…before when we tried putting panties on her she didn’t want any part of it.  Today however, she was excited about putting on her Thomas panties.

…we’re making some little progress.  But I have to admit a lot of it is our fault.  We’ve been really busy lately and haven’t taken the time to work with Ella.  So, we’re changing gears and are going to focus hard on this potty project! 

Since we’re talking about the potty, I have a funny potty story to tell…

Ella was at my mom’s house and she has a little pink princess potty there.  My Mom  put her on the potty and was sitting in the bathroom with her.  Ella “tooted” and it echoed in the potty.  My mom said “Oh Ella, you made thunder in the potty!”  Immediately, Ella jumped up off the potty and ran yelling, “MIMI, me scared of the thunder!!” 

Hopefully we’ll have some success stories coming up soon!!