MOPS and POPS date night

I know I have some catching up to do with Easter, but I had to share this little story about Ella while it was fresh in my mind.  Tonight was MOPS and POPS night for my MOPS group, which is basically date night.  Our MOPS groups sponsor an event with $5 childcare, and for $15 a couple, we enjoy fellowship with other MOPS women and their husband, Pappasitas dinner, and entertainment.  It was a blast, and the entertainment was Sportz Comedy, an improv comedy group geared towards sports.  It was hilarious. 

We were asked to wear our favorite team colors, so of course, Bart and I were decked out in LSU.  I squeezed into the largest LSU shirt I own, and since a lot of people have been asking for a photo, here it is - me, nine months pregnant. 

Anyway, after we picked up the girls from daycare, they were wired. Being that we didn't get home until 10:30, Amelia went straight down for the most part. Ella however was a challenge. We said prayers once, and then she wanted to say them again. So, we blessed every child in her class, her teachers, and she continued to bless her window, her fan and her doors. Moving it along, I said, "Amen." Then she started singing this song that I didn't quite catch the first time, so I asked her to sing it to me again.


It was to the tune of Frere Jacques....it was:
"God Our Father, God Our Father
Once again, once again,
Thank you for our blessings, thank you for our blessings,
Amen, Amen"

I just about started crying....it was so sweet!! She was so sweet when she was singing it too.
Happy mommy feeling....I love being a mom.

Neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt

Our neighborhood had their annual easter egg hunt this Saturday, and it's always a nice event for the kids.  Our friends Greg and Rebeca and their boys IV and Max came out to meet us too, so Ella was in heaven.  She looooves IV, and as you can see, he loves her too...he held her hand while they walked to the spacewalk and events.  Soooo stinkin cute...

 Amelia enjoyed her first egg hunt....she wasn't all that into it, but she gathered up some eggs.  The prizes were pretty lacking (seriously, bubble gum for 2 yr old and under?), but all in all she had a good time.

 Ella has some learning to do too.  She was a tad confused.   When they gave her the ok to start hunting, she would pick up an egg, open it, look to see what was inside and THEN move on to the next egg.  We tried to explain to her to object of collecting as many as she could FIRST, then checking out her loot, but she has her own little way of doing things....

 There was a hula hoop contest, and Ella was hellbent on particpating (even though we don't own a hula hoop, nor has she ever seen one..)  She actually did pretty well though for a 2 yr old.

 Ella and IV catching a snack before the next contest....

 Amelia was obsessed with the Easter bunny...every time we couldn't find her, she'd be following him around.  He didn't need to talk to her....she just wanted to be next to him.  It was the funniest thing.  So much for being scared of characters in disguise....that is one thing my children are NOT! 

 It was a great day...the girls had a blast, and it was such a nice thing for our neighborhood to provide.

Toy Story on Ice

This Friday morning, we had tickets for Toy Story on Ice with Kim and Meganne.  All week I had been telling Ella we were going, and all week she said she did not want to go.  What!?  What do you know about what you want!!??  So, we went, against her wishes.  Kim made her and Meganne the cutest Toy Story pillowcase dresses and bows.  They were the cutest little girls in that arena!  As we handed out tickets to the front gate worker, I could see the growing concern in Ella's eyes.  She was beginning to realize that this plae, the Reliant Center, was the same place that the rodeo was held, and we all know the drama that took place for that event.  You know, where we missed Brad Paisley AND the championships for the rodeo because Ella freaked out during the opening ceremonies due to fireworks??  Well, I was not giving up this time.

 We walked up to our section, and when we hit the steps to go down, Ella began crying. What happened to my little daredevil girl who was not afraid of anything!?! She cried, saying, "get me out of here, I wanna go home..." I told her we would only stay for a little while, and that Mickey might be there. Fair enough we were a little late too, so it was already dark in the arena. But she sat on my lap, tears in her eyes, and watched. No smiles, no laughs...just tears. And after every performance, she would clap.....and then tear up again. I felt like I was torturing her, but somewhere in there, I knew she was enjoying it.

At intermission, I got her a light up toy....all during intermission she played with it.  I thought for sure I had solved the problem...no such luck.  At one point, she laid across me and wanted to take nap.  Really?  She perked up a little at the end when Mickey came out.  It was so unlike Ella....

The good news is when we got home, she told her daddy she had a wonderful time seeing Buzz and Woody, and she was sooo excited she had gone.  So weird.  Oh well....

Amelia Has Tubes!

After much contemplation and question (and a second opinion!), we decided to put tubes in Amelia's ears.  She can hear just fine, but her ENT, Dr Staton said that she would just get tons more ear infections.  So, we decided it would be best to go ahead and get them.  Mama was a nervous wreck!

Daddy brought Ella to school while Amelia and I drove down to the NW Surgery Center early in the morning.  I was soooo nervous because I had never been there before, and Amelia was a little whiny because she was on her second antibitotic for an ear infection that week, poor baby.  The place was really nice, and while I was filling out paperwork, the nurse gets a phone call that Amelia's aunt was there.  My WONDERFUL friend and neighbor Dixie showed up at 8am to be there with me....what a wonderful blessing and surprise.  Between the two of us, we managed to keep Amelia fairly calm considering the doctor was a tad late.  She cried when they took her back, but after 10 minutes (yes, TEN minutes) the doctor came out and said she did wonderful.  He also said it was a good decision to get tubes because her ear was full of ickiness and infection.  Made me feel better.

They called me back once she came to, and she was a little disoriented but doing fine. She was a real trooper...she was whiny the whole ride home, but she slept for three or four hours once we got home. Mommy survived too!! I don't like seeing my little baby girl like that...she didn't take long to come back around.

Little Garden Green Thumbs

Daddy planted his garden again this year, with a little help from his girls. They planted bell peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, okra, a few strawberries and corn. He also planted some cilantro and green onions for mama. :) Ella Pearl was all into helping her daddy....so sweet.

Girls woke up bright and early this morning at 7:30am.  Ella was singing MOM-MY and DAD-DY from her room.  Somehow after breakfast, the girls ended up outside in the backyard with dad at around 9:45am, and Ella walks in the back door with a half eaten chocolate covered chocolate chip cookie in her hand and THIS is her face:

How does Bart pull this off so early in the morning?!?!

Well, in his defense, this was the works of our neighbor "COY," as Ella calls her...she's worse than my grandma!  She's always equipped with a cookie or treat or snack.

This afternoon, we took the girls to the neighborhood splashpad since we flaked out on them yesterday.  Amelia has a runny nose and cough, so we really had no business bringing her, but I just couldn't let her miss out.  She'll hopefully be getting her tubes put in this Thursday.  They had a BLAST!  Amelia might hate having water poured over her head, but she surely had no problem running underneath those sprinkling fountains.  Ella hit every square inch of that pad...except for the buckets.  She kept telling me, "I no like the buckets, mom."  The buckets fill up and pour over....she's not a fan.

After that, we went eat at their favorite "farm," as they call it, Clays.  It's a restaurant with a huge deck and farm animals for the kids to play with.  Today they even had pony rides.  The girls ran and played and completely wore themselves out - and fed the ponies.  There's nothing like feeding farm animals and eating a meal all in the same hour to really make your stomach turn. 

We tried to RUN IN to Wal-Mart on the way home, as we were DESPERATE for wipes and diapers.  We tried to split up, which didn't work at all.  After a little while, Bart took Ella to get our paint (for our room) mixed while I took Amelia to get some quick groceries.  She cried for DADA and would NOT sit in her seat without going nuts, so I held her for half the way.  Did I mention I am nearly 8 months pregnant!?  After I could take her on my hip no longer, I put her on my shoulders - can you get the visual of me, hugely pregnant, walking around with a one-year-old on my shoulders maneuvering my shopping cart with one hand, actually SHOPPING?!?  Let's just say I got a few looks, but I got the job done. 

The girls were exhausted and so am I...early night for me!

Let the Nesting Begin...

I have officially begun "nesting" in my third trimester.  We were thinking of driving to Louisiana today for Bart's grandma's 90th birthday party, but the kids were in a very active mood and I was not looking forward to driving five plus hours today and five plus hours tomorrow to come right back...especially since we're going home in two weeks for Easter, so we decided to stay home.

But rather than be unproductive, we worked our tushes off!  Bart installed our new fan in our bedroom, and we both worked all day cleaning and moving things out and dusting and vacuuming.  It looks SO GOOD, and now we can start painting and hanging curtains and all the fun stuff.  All this for a new little baby??  Well, that and the fact that momma just needs a change!

This afternoon, we were all hot, so we got the girls dressed in their swimsuits and decided to take them to the community splashpad.  They were sooo cute and sooo excited to go.  We drove down to the area, and it was closed!!  :(  We called the YMCA and they closed at 6pm too, so we knew the girls would be so disappointed if we didn't do SOMETHING.  So, what did we do...Bart ran the sprinklers in the yard, and the girls went WILD!

 Even Zoe got in on all the action.  Zoe likes to stick her face in the sprinkler and try to eat it.  Hilarious....and she was soaked.  Probably the most movement that pups made in a while!

 When the sprinklers ran their course, our next door neighbor Necoy improvised some more water action.  Takes so little to impress my girls.

 After some backyard fun, we ordered takeout Chinese food, and the girls had their favorite (and messiest) RICE!  Amelia learned how to say CHEESE, so when I point the camera at her now, she smiles and says CHEESE!!  It is SOOO cute with her little lisp.

Ella is a MESS!  She won't say CHEESE....in fact, she barely looks at the camera. Such a little stinker.

We had a great day...the girls went out easy peasy, and I spent the rest of the night going through ALL the girls toys.  We just needed to throw away the happy meal toys and the destroyed stuff, put some stuff away for the baby, etc.  It took FOREVER, but totally worth it.  My den is next on the list of things to organize.  Let the spring cleaning begin!!

7 weeks till baby Farrell #3 will be here, so we gots to start working!  I can't wait to see her beautiful little face.

Sisterly Love

This morning, while loading the kids into the car for Bible Study, Ella looks over at Amelia in her carseat and says to me, "Mom, Amelia is my friend?"  I innocently tell her, "Amelia's your sister, Ella."  She looks back at her, then back at me, "Momma, Amelia is my sister AND my friend." 

Awwww.....warms my heart.

Why my dinner was not what was expected...

I will be honest....I don't love to cook.  I liked to cook more when I wasn't pregnant and didn't own a business, but now, not so much.  I try to have a fish sticks, mac & cheese and peas night only once a week, but that still leaves me with six days out of the week to figure out what the heck we're going to eat.  The thing I really hate most is thawing out stuff...I don't know why.  I hate to wait.  I am a spur-of-the-moment kinda cook, I guess.  Anyway, this past week, I have been working a lot to get my embroidery orders done, and we've had take out quite a lot.  So, this week I decided to cook something every night of the week.  I had fresh ground meat and potatoes, so I decided to make meatloaf, homemade mashed potatoes and a veggie.  I love my meatloaf, and the whole family loves it too.  It's one thing I do well. 

Before Bart even left with the girls for the gym for an hour, I had my potatoes peeled and cut, and my meatloaf was in the oven.  I had to run to Hobby Lobby to pick up one piece of fabric, so I could just boil my potatoes when I got back. 

Baby Farrell had another idea though, as she continues to suck all sense from my brain.  I drive down to the Hobby Lobby, and as I go to grab my wallet and keys out of my purse, I realize I forgot my wallet at home AGAIN.  This is the second time in one week!!  What!?!1  I needed this fabric badly, so I drove all the way home, get my wallet and go back to Hobby Lobby to run my errand.  This set me back almost an hour.  By the time I got back to the house, I started boiling the potatoes and I threw the quickest veggie I could find in the microwave:  carrots.  I am way behind here! 

Soon after, Bart arrives with two starving girls...

Potatoes are not close to being done, so I served them carrots and meatloaf, except as I am cutting my meatloaf, it seems really soggy???!!  I still don't know what happened, but apparently, I didn't read the recipe correctly, and I put too much milk in it (for the first time in five years).  Bart actually spit a little of his back onto his plate during dinner...politely OF COURSE (yeah right)!, because it tasted funny.  And the carrots??  They were freezer burnt and tasteless too.  Ella put one in her mouth, chewed it, and spit it out as well - YUCKY!  It was a disaster!!

Ten minutes into our "meal," the mashed potatoes were finally ready.  Those at least were a hit, and even the girls, who rarely like mashed potatoes, scarfed them down (probably because they were starving!) 

A little sidenote:  Ella is all about helping in the kitchen right now.  If I am cooking, she wants to stir.  If I am adding items, she wants to pour them in.  If I am serving, she wants to serve. 

Since the pot of mashed potatoes were on the table, I decided to let her serve everyone seconds on the mashed potatoes.  She plopped a spoonful onto Bart's plate and then onto her plate, but the glob of potatoes didn't quite come all the way off when she served hers.  So, she swung the spoon back and forth to get it off....shooting a big dollop of potatoes behind her.....right at Amelia's face. 

In her eye to be exact.

I could contain my laughter no more.  I was laughing.  Bart was laughing.  Ella was laughing, and Amelia was screaming!  She started to rub at it, getting it more in her eye and all over her face.  I finally helped her wipe it all out, but it was just what this disastrous dinner needed to make us all laugh as a family.  It's moments like this that instead of crying (which don't get me wrong, sometimes I do!) I laugh...hysterically, and embrace the chaos and craziness that is my life.

Bad, bad mommy

Ok, I am officially fired from being Super Mommy Blogger! 

It has been a LONG time (since last fall) since I have posted on my babies blog, and I should be ashamed.  In all honesty, I have been EXHAUSTED!!  I found out I was pregnant in October AND my business went into full swing all in the same month, so the blog was last place on my priority list.  More time passed, and I knew I had a lot of catching up to do.  Then it kinda became that tee tee game....you hold it and hold it because you know once you go, you're gonna have to go all the time.  So, I held off on posting....and here we are 7 months later.  I have SO MUCH to say and update on here, but rather than trying to backtrack, I am just going to press forward with the present. 

With that said, here's a quick intro:

Yes, I am seven months pregnant for a baby girl.  We just had an ultrasound yesterday, and she is healthy and beautiful.  We have a few names in mind....Sophia, Olivia or Isla.  We really kinda know what it is, but I like to leave something for that big day!  Plus I have no clue on a middle name just yet.  It's fun to refer to her by a name though....especially when talking to Ella and Amelia.  They point to my belly and tell everyone that she's in there, and they like to put their hands on my belly and feel for kicks.  Since I know they have the attention span of a cocker spaniel, I fake some bounces and Ella gets so excited!

My embroidery business has really taken off since last August when I started.  I haven't even had my machine a full year yet, and I have put some major miles on it.  My friend Kim and I have done three craft shows in the Fall, and we did one this Spring in Louisiana, all of which were successful.  It has been so much fun and rewarding making cute little things for people, and of course, I love making clothes for my girls.  It gets quite busy and hectic at times though....especially with the pregnancy.  I usually was sewing at night after they go to sleep, but I've been so tired after they go to bed, I would crash too.  It's much better in this third trimester....I'll be happy to get my full energy back.  I'll need it!! 

Ella is in a mother's day out program called Lamb School at The Met church.  She goes two days a week, and she loves it!  She knows all the kids in her class, and most of her best friends are BOYS!  Ha ha...next year (September), both girls are registered for a similar program at Bear Creek Baptist.  Two days of mommy and new baby time a week....whatever will I do with myself??!!  Ella's working on potty training, and she's becoming such a big girl.  I love that she can speak so well now....it's so nice to communicate with her.  Most of the time.  She's an average two-year-old: headstrong, opinionated and bossy!!  But she makes me laugh every day with the new stuff she comes up with, and she's so beautiful.

Amelia is growing at a rapid pace.  She talks ALOT for a 16 month old - she's a regular little parrot, and it makes life a little easier to somewhat communicate with her too.  She tells me if she likes something, and has no problem telling me NO if she doesn't.  She has the most adorable head of light brown curls, and people talk about it everywhere we go.  She's loves her big sister, and they wrestle (no, not like cute little wrestling...I'm talking, legs wrapped around the head, wrestling), which is hilarious (and a bit disturbing) to watch.  She has the sweetest smile and personality, and she is as big as her sister.  Literally, they are one size apart.  She is so beautiful as well. 

Bart's doing great...keeping busy with his job.  He likes the position he is in now, and they had a good year, despite the Gulf shutting down most drilling (thank you, Obama).  He joined a country music band, and they practice Thursday nights.  It's definitely a different atmosphere for him, but he loves to play no matter what, so he's enjoying it.  He loves his girls, and they LOVE their dad.  I would have no business it if weren't for him, and he helps me SO MUCH with them.  I could NEVER be having a third child if it weren't for the relief he gives me as a momma.  I am so blessed to have him as a husband, and the kids are lucky to have such an active father as a dad. 

And we're quite settled into Houston now.  We love our neighbors and our new friends.  Life is pretty busy with 2.5 kids, so it's hard to get homesick, although we still do now and then.  Louisiana is just a quick five hour drive away though, and even though we don't go home as often as we used to, we still get to see friends and family often enough. 

Now, I am committed to get back to this blogging.  Baby number three is entitled to some blogging love, so I promise to start getting back into the routine.  Every day is a new story to tell, and I know I will write a book one day.  Hopefully this will help me do it.  Thanks to everyone who has been urging me to get back into it!!

Love, MamaFred