Fall always means new beginnings

Hello fellow blog readers....
I know I have been a complete failure in the blog department.  I have not written a single post since APRIL which is just a shame considering I gave birth within that time.  In my defense, I have been a little busy raising three babies.  I won't lie, it gets a little challenging sometimes, so time is not always my friend.  But it's September, fall is among us, and with fall brings new beginnings.  Rather than wait for a New Year to make a resolution, I decided to make mine now and try to post at LEAST once a week. 

I'm not going to spend my time apologizing for all I have missed.  As most of you know, I had my precious little angel on June 1st - Olivia Levet Farrell.  Tomorrow she will be three months, and she has been SUCH a wonderful blessing in our lives.  She is SUCH a great baby, sleeping up to ten hours at night on some nights.  I couldn't ask for more, really....and she is cute as a button.  She is starting to get a little personality, and she smiles and smiles.  And she's getting so big....she's almost in 6 month clothes already!  Such a beauty.  I'll elaborate more on her soon.

Ella Pearl and Amelia meet their teachers tomorrow, and next Tuesday, they start "school," which is really just a Mothers Day Out program on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  They're going to Bear Creek Baptist this year, a new place, and we're really excited to have them both there.  Amelia needs some classroom time!

Amelia is growing so much right now too.  She is a CHATTERBOX, talking just like her big sister.  She is a character, and she's starting to play a lot of pretend.  She loves to play dress up and sing and dance.  She reads books like her sister used to do, mimmicking reading and turning the pages.  It's a sight to see!  She has got the most gorgeous head of curly cue hair I have ever seen...I just gave her a haircut because it was like a giant fro.  No doubt though, it's beautiful, and she'll surely be the envy of all straight-haired girls she meets.  She has a little temper on her, approaching the terible two's a tad early...she loves to pull hair and throw a tantrum or two.  Hoping school will shape her up and out of that phase!

Ella Pearl is doing just great too.  She's growing up way too fast for my taste, and I am amazed daily by her intelligence.  She can do 24-piece puzzles all by herself right now, and while Amelia naps, she and I have been working in fun little workbooks, finding letters and numbers.  She is so smart.  She also loves to sing and dance, and well, we all know about her Thomas the Train obsession.  She loooves her train table she got for her birthday, and she loves playing with her sister.  Our newest news is that she is completely potty trained!!  Woohoo...it was everything I thought it would be and more!!  She still wears a pullup at night, but it's been panties all day every day for almost a month now.  So exciting!

We start gymnastics next week as well....Amelia and I will do a mommy and me class, and Ella will do her little class.  Really excited about that.  Girls are so fun!

Anyway, that's where we are right now...I PROMISE to start updating this blog more often.  It will be a little ritual for me....too many funny parenthood stories for me NOT to share.  I also learned to blog from my phone, so that will make sharing photos much easier.

Here's my first photo shared via cellphone.  It's a birdhouse me and the girls painted today.  They painted all the solid colors themselves, and they decorated the side walls themselves.  The roof sides and back have a handprint from each of them...will be such a great keepsake.  Thanks Krystal for the fun birthday gift.  It was Amelia's first time painting, and she loved it. 

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!