Family

We just got back from a whirlwind trip to SoFla to see our wonderful-funderful family. Mike was stateside for his best man's wedding, so we had to go down to see him, but conveniently, this wedding happened about 10 days after darling little nephew Jakey was born. It was such a fun time. We got some great photos at the beginning of the week, and then ran out of camera memory at the end, which means that Mike, who is our least often enjoyed family member, was also practically our least photographed. Doh! I always goof up that photo documentation thing. Meg can you help me out? : )

Anyway, we arrived in style . . .

The fun of wearing sunglasses and purses in the airport could only be overshadowed by the arrival of . . . Gramma! to pick us up. The flight went great on the way down too. It was not so great on the way back. But let's not dwell on that.

Later that day we got to snuggle little Jacob for the first time, and ohmygoodness what a sweet little guy. He is so cuddly and makes all this adorable little newborn chatter. We love him.

The pretty proud mama:

On Sunday, we had an AWESOME time planting flowers with Granddaddy, while Uncle Joe worked on his car.

Have I mentioned before that my Mom is setting the psalms to music? Which ones? Oh, all of them. Yeah, she is on 138 and they are ALL memorized. Her mind must be glowing and reverberating with glory on the inside. We love to hear her music and let's be real here, a piano is a great thing to play with under any circumstance when you are two.

More Jakey love (and Aunt Megan love, sorry Meg, it's totally true, your own cuteness becomes practically invisible to the world once you reproduce. ; ) ).

See anything funny in this picture?

Ella's hiding spot was WAY more obvious in real life, but boy did she have a great time playing hide and seek with Uncle Mike. The next picture is of her bursting out of her spot in excitement, after having also been excitedly pointed out by Nora, all before Mike could even get around the corner from counting. What fun! : )

We spent a lot of time just hanging out and discussing things. And watching our kiddos play and rescuing them from terrifying (to greater and lesser degrees) doggies.

It was a great time. Wish I also had photos of our insanely windy day at the beach, our game of questions after dinner, Ella's first time getting her nails painted, and our fun brunch at a new breakfast place in town (we love breakfast places), among other things. But it was a happy week! 

Fair

We went to the state fair yesterday! I have previously blogged about my ambivalence toward the fair, but how it started to grow on me. Well it is still growing on me! I had the best time I've ever had there this year. It was a combination of experience teaching us how to do it right and seeing it with some of Ella's (and even some of Nora's) wonder. You could say my appreciation for the fair this year was almost as big as this tree-guy. . .

What a cool costume! I am not a big costume girl. I tend to take the whole thing far too seriously. But I really really wish I could wear this tree costume. Is that weird? It was awesome.

Ella's take on the situarion:

Anyway all that excitement was only in the first five minutes or so of our trip. There was much more fun to be had. Nora took it all in while assuming her best observation pose:

And resting when needed.

We saw all kinds of hobbyists, gigantic produce, mother and baby cows, lots of slicer/dicer thingy demos, and Ella was positively plastered in free stickers by the time we left.

Everywhere we'd turn she'd shout, "Woook!" There was a lot to see.

The last thing we did was watch Daddy throw darts at balloons to win a monkey. Ella looks a bit bewildered in this photo, and I think she kind of was, but today she correctly recapped where the monkey came from. And her full summary about the fair . . . "That was fun!"

Outfits

 I have two girls, and am so incredibly blessed by that situation. One of the little things that makes it really fun is, being honest here, getting them dressed. There are many days when they wind up in whatever happens to be clean, or when Ella begs to wear polka dots with polka dots with polka dots. But some days, it just works out. I loved this outfit day. (Thanks so much Auntie Nic and Uncle Mike for the dresses! Too bad Isobel couldn't participate in the look as well.) And, also fun, Ella chose her own hat! What fashion insight!

About 1 hour into our day, Ella sat in some muffin, which made a really gross looking brown spot in an unfortunate location on her bottom. I didn't worry about it for most of the day until we were getting together with some friends in a public place in the evening. (Even they admitted, the stain looked really bad.) So we changed her into another pair of grey leggings, but with, wait for it, rainbow polka dots.

What happens when you have 20 minutes to kill at Target

Also file under, why we can't hang out at Target to kill time very often.

Results: two pairs of funny glasses, hello kitty/pumpkin stickers, and, (not pictured) magnets and a bathrobe. The only necessary item we came home with was paper towels. Sometimes you just have to celebrate life. And Target. : )

Tent-fort

 It turns out that tent-forts are just as fun as I remembered them. I helped the girls build their first one today, and they were completely transported by it. I totally remember that feeling from when I was little, that inside the fort was like a complete other place, like my own house in my own world. We built a lot of forts in the Malone household. And the other thing that I vaguely remembered about forts that turned out to be right was that they create a giant mess entirely disproportional to their small size. The thing is, since being in a tent-fort makes everything special and fun, you have to bring absolutely everything you normally play with into the fort to play with, and make it special and magical too. We had babies, blankies, a picnic from the play kitchen, plastic animals, stuffed animals, furniture (besides the furniture supporting the tent) and legos, among other things, in there. What a mess, but totally worth it. (The mess was only just beginning when these photos were taken.)

Sweet little sisters

No regrets

We went to a street party at Bull City Burgers on Saturday. I guess it was an Oktoberfest or something, I don't know. Paul was going on a dude outing and us ladies were not invited, but then his friend's girlfriend came, so we got a call and were given permission to join as well. But it was fun! They had music and sidewalk chalk and a bouncy house. And tattoos. Ella was really excited when she saw a table where people were dipping sponges in water and squeezing it out on their arms, legs, etc. She wanted to get in on that and having a tattoo was the way to do it. Once she saw what was on her arm, she wanted Daddy to have one. Then Nora. So I had to, too. I mean that's the rule right, if everyone else is getting a tattoo . . . ? That's what I wanted the girls to take away from the experience. So I went along with it. And here we are, a rough and tough Bull City Burger posse.

Delicious secrets

There are so many funny and sweet things Ella says these days, but one of my favorite running topics is her chatter about about "secrets." I think she got this from one time when I had snuck a package of fruit snacks and was eating them surreptitiously, but she caught me. I told her they were secret mommy snacks, and she didn't ask any more questions. That's the only basis I can think of for how she has determined that these little pretend boxes of food that came with our grocery cart from  the British Malones (thanks guys! we love it!) are full of secrets. She loves to pretend to eat the secrets and tells me they are really big secrets, chocolate secrets, or even ones with pink sparkles. She always makes sure Nora and I both have boxes to eat along with her, and has convinced Nora that secrets are delicious too. They both love to snack on them. It is pretty hilarious. Of course I am trying to keep the game going. But we are all enjoying it. Who doesn't love a good secret?

Orange!

This morning Ella came in from her room saying, "four, oh, six, seven, oh, eight, oh, weven, twelve." I looked at her, trying to figure out what she was saying and Paul explained that he had been trying to teach her how old she would be on her next birthday. "How old will you be on your birthday?" he asked. Ella replied with happy confidence, "Orange!" Nailed it. : )

Super Ella!

 Ella has been really into finding and wearing hats again lately--as fashion statements, not just as in funny hat. This morning she put this one on, inside out and backwards (it is this giant-brim bonnet, actually ADORABLE the right way), and decided to wear it to breakfast. We soon found out this one was chosen for a reason even more important than fashion, though. As we got to the bottom of the stairs, she held on to her hat and ran off with "My super-Ella!" (Ella says "My" instead of "I'm"). Super Ella indeed!

While I was chopping meat for dinner,

Ella was busy serving herself. This is a pile of ketchup. It is the reason I normally like to wait 'til Paul is home before I get raw meat all over my hands.

Blue sprinkles

Ring around the leader

It's ring around the rosy meets follow the leader! Excellent innovation girls!

Familyness

 I mentioned we had a great time when Paul's family came to visit us last month. And then we had another great time when we went down to Florida to visit my family. Seriously, they were just precious times of being together with people who we love and don't see enough. Maybe the just family-ness of being together made me not think to take pictures? Or maybe it was the craziness? (As my sis-in-law reminded me, you know you are a SAHM when a family vacation feels like work, and a trip to Target alone feels like a vacation. ; ) ) Anyway, I do have a few little reminder photos of our times here and there.

Oh how we love the pink tutu dresses. The only thing better than my two little babes in pink tutu dresses, is my little babes plus their baby cousin in pink tutu dresses. : ) And dancing, at that. : )

In Florida we did a lot of fun things too, but one well photographed fun activity was making hats out of foil and pipe cleaners with my mom. I get the play cafe thing honestly! My mom was a preschool teacher and has such a knack for having fun with small ones.

Also, here is my new sis-in-law, Liz! Hi Liz!

And here is a photo of my children covered in spaghetti sauce, half naked, playing with rocks outside of Olive Garden in some random town we drove through on the way home. It was a long drive folks, and we started to forget to act right by dinner time. But the beauty of it is that no one who looked at us amusedly, but pityingly, will ever see us again! : )

12 months of Nora!

I've been meaning to post this for a while. Nora is actually closing in on 14 months now! Yikes! What a wild summer we have had, in other words, a normal summer. : ) Anyway, here is our sweet baby Nora through her first year. Sighhhhh. It goes so fast!

A few days old

One month

Two months

Three months

Four months

Five months

Six months

Seven months

Eight months

Nine months

Ten months

Eleven months

One year old!

Summer vacation

There's something about summer fun stuff that just makes you forget about regular things like blogging. We had a great time with almost Paul's entire family in town last week and we hardly sat still for a minute. I will have some photos up soon with some of our adventures. But for now let's just say it was a ton of fun! Ella has been asking for her cousins a lot since they left. And next week we are off to Florida to see my family. Oh, and opening a play cafe meanwhile. : ) I was talking to my Dad today about how we both thrive when life is crazy and we have 5 things to do at once, with a cup of coffee in hand. Here's hoping I can squeeze in more blogging in the craziness to come!