Ella-isms

Last night, Nick's good friend and college roommate, Eddie, came back in town for his birthday.  Nick met him for beer & wings to watch the Cards game.  Here's the conversation to explain this to Ella.

Me: We have to hurry up and get home so we'll be there with Eli when Daddy leaves.
Ella: Where is Daddy going?
M: He's meeting his friends, Jeff and Eddie tonight.
E: Who's Eddie?
M: He is Daddy's good friend.  They used to live together in college.
E:  Eddie is Daddy's friend? And they got to live together? Do they like spending time together?
M: Yep.
E:  Do they love each other and kiss?
M: No......No, not like that at all.  (I didn't say this with a mean tone, but I wanted to be sure to emphasize this so she doesn't get mixed up and start "outing" her dad to people!)
E:  Ehhh, but I thought Daddy was stuck like glue to us!  I don't want him to leave!

Awwww.....

I love that when Ella puts on lip gloss, it covers her entire chin and cheeks, dimple to dimple. :)

I feel like I have so much more to write that I'm forgetting!  If I remember, I will edit this post later.  In a nutshell, almost everything she says, I find hysterical and/or adorable. <3

Mother's Day

We went to the Cards game on Friday with my parents, and Nick's parents took the kids up to the camper.  Because there were no kids in the house, I SLEPT IN UNTIL 11 AM!!!!  It was amazing.  Then, again because no kids were around to see me do it, I ate cotton candy for breakfast!  Again, amazing.

But, sigh, it was so good to see my kids again on Saturday afternoon.  How can 24 hours away from them make me miss them so much?  There is just something that makes my heart flutter when Ella looks up and sees me, yells, "MOMMA!" and runs into my arms or when Eli smiles so big his pacifier falls out, and he reaches out with his eyebrows raised up.  They're both so adorable. 

My gift this year (and I hope every year) is quality family time, without any of the work of the family.  I get all the hugs and kisses and enjoyment of being around, but don't have the responsibility of changing diapers, feeding, administering medicine, etc.  The best part is walking away from a tantrum and feeling guilt-free about it.  Because on this one day, I'm not responsible for catching it, nipping it in the bud, and making a teachable moment out of it.  I know that on this one day, Nick will step in before me.  I love it.  I think it is the best gift I mom could ever have (I mean, aside from her children of course).  Nick made me Goosefeathers, an awesome breakfast pastry.  I hope this is a Mother's Day tradition. :)

Ingredients

2 pkgs crescent rolls, room temperature 2 pkgs (8 oz each) cream cheese, softened 1 c. sugar 1 t. vanilla 1 stick butter, melted cinnamon to taste

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spread one can of rolls into a 9x13 pan. Do not spray or grease the pan. Cream together cream cheese, sugar and vanilla. Pour creamed mixture on top of crust.

Use second can of rolls to layer on top of cheese. Just remove from can and lay on top to cover cheese.

Melt butter then pour on top of crescent rolls. Sprinkle cinnamon on top. Bake for 30 minutes. I don't have any pictures from Mother's Day, but I thought I'd just add in a few pictures of my babies who gave me my own holiday.  Ella likes to wear her robe and put an animal in it so there's a  "baby in her belly." Sometimes she even makes us touch it and the baby will kick.  She has quite the imagination. :) I took this pic because when I put him on our bed, he was sitting, playing, and the blankets were pretty far away.  I thought it was ADORABLE that he grabbed his blanket and snuggled with it to go to sleep.  He really had to want it to reach that far for it.

Mother's Day Photo Book

SHHHH.....Keep it a secret.  This is the book that I'm giving to Mom for Mother's Day this year.  I was noticing the other day that she doesn't have very many pictures of Eli (since he's the newest I guess).  I made a book of all the grandchildren with various pictures throughout the year.  It won't be shipped in time for Mother's Day, but I thought that if I posted it here, she'd at least get a preview of it. :)

Happy Mother's Day Ma!  <3

Click here to view this photo book larger

Photo Book Tip: Create an adventurous travel photo album at Shutterfly.com.

GRADUATION! and other stuff

Okay, I might actually be caught up on my blogging now. :)  If only I can keep this up all summer.

On Tuesday, May 1, Kristin and I graduated together.  I received my Master's and she received her Specialist's.  Kristin didn't want to participate, but I sort of talked her into it.  And I'm glad I did.  Otherwise, she would've been bored, sitting in the stands, thinking, "I wish I did that too."  I'm happy we did it together.

It was SO BRIGHT!  Terrible picture, but we're together.

I'll draw your attention to the sleeves--

and the hood. :)

Waiting for it to begin!

I can honestly say that I love learning.  I especially love learning about teaching.  But going to school while working full time and being a mom to 2 small children has been exhausting on me.  I am unbelievably happy to be done with it.  Of course when all things end, I cry about it....starting with the National Anthem (What is it about that song that makes me tear up EVERY TIME?!).  When I was preparing to walk across the stage in the midst of thoughts of "Make eye contact.  Shake with right hand.  Pick up degree with left hand.  DON'T TRIP!"  I heard Ella shout from the second level, "I LOVE YOU MOMMY!" and blow kisses and wave at me.  *Sigh*  And just like that she can melt my heart.  She can break through my thoughts with one sentence and remind me of everything that is most important to me.  Then when everyone was clapping for us, I made eye contact with Kristin while she stood and applauded and almost lost it.  I love my family.

Now, onto preparing for Eli's birthday party.  Thanks to my AMAZING friend Lindsay, we have awesome invitations.  She made 3 to choose from, but here's the final one we sent out:

 I took the invite to a copy center, then bought envelopes and addressed and stamped them all.  Yesterday, I went to stuff the invites....THEY DIDN'T FIT INTO THE ENVELOPES!  SERIOUSLY?!  How could I let this happen?  I even thought of it the night before, but said to myself, "No....I'm sure they'll fit...."  Carla: Get your butt up off the couch and check!  Too late....I had to go get more envelopes last night, then re-address them, cut the stamps off the old envelopes (I was unwilling to take a $20 hit on postage as well!), and tape them to the new envelopes....how hoosier.  Bottom line, the invites are FINALLY in the mail.  Sorry Eli...I tried.  Love you babe!  I'm sure your party will still be fun.  Ugh....I need for school to be out so my brain can finally get a break!

Holy Week

Morning Star had a lot of celebrations going on this year for Holy Week.  I love participating in these.  The first event was the Seder Service.  Kids, if you ever get a chance to go to one of these, do it!  It was such a cool experience.  Seder is the Jewish celebration of Passover....weird that I'd go, since we're Christian, right?  It was SO NEAT!  The man who led the service grew up in a Jewish home, but was Christian.  Basically, he went through the entire Seder meal with us, as we were able to taste a little bit of each item.  He explained the symbolism behind each food or drink.  Next, he related it back to how Jesus fulfilled each Jewish prophesy and  was the symbol.  After the presentation, it seemed so obvious that Jesus was fulfillment of each prophesy.  I was thinking, "How does everyone not get it?"  I feel like I am not doing this justice in my explanation.  All I can describe is just how awesome it was, truly, in every sense of the word.  I was able to serve as a greeter at this service too, which is stepping outside of my comfort zone, but made me happy to do it.

Good Friday service was PACKED.  So much that it was hard to find a seat.  I think that says it all.  I hope that as the kids grow up, we are able to really instill the importance of Holy Week to them.  I want them to know that it's important to not rush through the season and focus on the Easter bunny and candy, but to stop and look at the events that really took place before Easter.

Easter fell on April 8 this year.  We celebrated as a family by going to church on the 7th.

Side note: I love our church.  I love 1.) that we have services on Saturdays and 2.) that members are encouraged to go on Saturdays for the holiday weekend to make room on Sunday for people who don't normally come to church.  It makes me feel like I'm being a good servant by doing simple good deeds.  I greeted at this service too....maybe I should start serving on a more regular basis....It felt good.

After church, we went back to Memaw and Papaw Revenaugh's house.  We had dinner and an egg hunt.  I'll leave you with pictures of that day.

There was not a single good picture of the girls in their pretty dresses.  It's almost as if they coordinate when one looks and smiles, the other looks away....this was the best one.

Since it was SUCH a busy day, Ella did not get a nap....a decent part of the day went this way. 

Here comes Brady!  LET THE EGG HUNT BEGIN!

Eli found one!

Nashville (cont.)

After blogging yesterday about Nashville, I went home and felt like I hadn't quite done the trip justice.  Here's a more detailed break-down of what we did on our trip.

Thursday: We left St. Peters in the early afternoon and made it to Nashville by the late evening.  We went out to dinner at a place I'll not go back to, but we had a nice time together.

Friday:  We went shopping at the Opry Mills Mall and ate lunch at the Rainforest Cafe.  We toured the Aquarium restaurant (SO COOL! sharks, eels, sting rays, all kinds of fish!)

Since Amanda & Uncle Craig had come to Nashville several times before, they were sort of our tour guides around town and helped us find all kinds of cool stuff to do.

Who knows/cares what she's pointing at?  The whole place was cool, but the point of that picture is to show how excited the kids are to see all of it.

It was the Grand Reopening of the mall since the big flood had hit about 2 years ago, so it was really busy.  There was live music at the mall.  Nick & I got into an argument for most of the day about something dumb (who really remembers that a month later?).  We took pictures at the Opry (see the post from yesterday) and bought our tickets for that night.  The CMT awards were in LA on Sunday, so no big names were in town.  Still we went to the Opry and saw Patty Loveless and a bunch of other performers.  It was neat to say that we'd been there.

Saturday: We went back to the mall and the Opry to pick up the souvenirs that we hadn't bought the day before.  Amanda got some super cute boots that she's going to wear in the wedding.  After that, we went to downtown Nashville for more shopping.  We ate lunch at Margaritaville (more pictures in yesterday's post).
                                                     
We shopped all day.  After naps (for everyone) at the hotel, I took the kids swimming.  Then we went downtown to the Wild Horse Saloon.  It was a blast, maybe my favorite part of the trip.  Ella's favorite dance is the Cupid Shuffle, so of course we did that.  She & I also learned a new line dance called Boots.  It was a lot of fun.  I've never been to such a family friendly bar/night club.  This was also the night of the terrifying flat tire incident.  The awful screeching....I thought for sure we would be murdered on this deserted stretch of road.  It was scary, but we tried to make the best of it (again see the picture in the other post).

Sunday: We went to breakfast at Shoney's and then to the American Pickers store.  The trip home was full of detours (thanks a lot state of Illinois--you ALWAYS have construction that causes me at least an hour delay!)  Here's a video at the pinnacle of frustration in our car.  You can't see anything....just listen.

The entire time, driving was the running joke on our vacation.  There were just so many wrong turns, and yelling (in the other car of course....we were just following every wrong turn....), that at a certain point it became hysterical.  Even though it was stressful then, I think I'll always look back on that part of vacation as a joke.  Funny how time can do that to memories.

Anyway, I just wanted to be sure that I did justice to our mini-vacation.  It was a great time with the Johnson family.

Nashville March 29-April 1

Whoa, what's that?  Two blog posts in one day?  Yes....I'm trying to get caught up.  Over spring break, in addition to taking the kids to the zoo, we also went on a family vacation to Nashville.

Chase the Cheetah, Ella's class pet got to go with us.  That was VERY SPECIAL to Ella.  

At Margaritaville, there was a GIANT pirate on stilts making balloon hats for everyone.  Of course, this terrified Ella.....

...until he bribed her with a balloon hat of her own.  

Terrifying moments for Mommy & Ella:  Flat tire @ 1 AM, the road is deserted and there is some bird screeching in a very eerie (or "spooky" as Ella said) way.  Here is us trying to make the best of the situation with Chase the Cheetah.  (He's sitting on our now useless tire.)

The TV show, American Pickers has a store, Antique Archaeology in Nashville.  This is us visiting the store  and the perfect photo op.  It was nerve-wracking in there though with two kids and super expensive, old, sometimes rusted, always fragile memorabilia!

We went to an aquarium restaurant at Nashville Mills Mall.  We did not eat there, but just toured around it.  Both kids loved it!

 

We actually ate lunch at the Rainforest Cafe.  Here, Chase the Cheetah is seated with the gorilla, who we sat by.

The pool at the hotel was a BIG HIT with both Ella and Eli.  The water was cold, so we didn't stay long, but they had so much fun splashing Mommy!

Ella the Cowgirl all decked out in her new hat and boots, courtesy  Memaw Johnson.

Wild Horse Saloon--possibly one of my favorite places in Nashville .  It was a family friendly bar (how is that possible?) that had line-dancing.  It was the best!  

Cupid Shuffle--one of Ella's favorite dances to begin with, but also fun to be dancing for a crowd with Mommy.  We got so many ooos and aaahhhs over her dancing with me.  The crowd loved her!