Just a few pics

My girl is PB crazy. I have a pick of Jack doing this about the same age. I'll have to find it!

The weekend of Jojo's funeral, we staying at Granna and Papas. Jack was smitten with Julianne! Wish I had more pics!

On the way home we stopped at the zoo!

How attractive are my kids? Seriously!

For Daddy's first night of gradschool we made Trix cereal rice krispy treats. They were pretty good but so pretty!

 Ella loves marsh mellow! Just like her mama! She licked the bowl!

Just a girl and her blankie. But look at those long legs!

Playing at JI County park.

Check out this sweet girl in the big girl swing! She really just sat there. :)

Ella loves getting into my makeup bag and sometimes Jack does too. On this day, he got a hold of Aunt Katie's lip gloss. Apparently, he was going for a full look b/c he went outside the natural lip line. ;)

This might be my new favorite picture of Ella. How funny is this girl? I can't even deal with the cuteness. And that little wink, just like her mama! :) The lazy eye is a strong gene. haha! And in the other picture they are all snuggled up to daddy to watch a movie, probably Tangled.

 Ella in my apron helping me make corn cakes. Be still my heart! In that last month so many people have told me how different she looks. She's not a baby anymore. I remember when that happened with Jack too. I'm so emotional thinking of how my babies are growing up so fast! Time slow down! Ella has always been strong with her verbal development. She's spoken in full 4-5 word sentences for some time, but the other day she was walking around the living room, picking up dolls, putting them in the cradle, saying "Night, night, my baby." I could just melt!! Other things she says a good bit are, "Nice to meet you," as she's shaking or holding your hand--always so soft spoken and gentle, like she's not confident that she's saying it correctly or has the hand shake gesture down pat. I love it!

Excuse this horrible picture of me, but I just had to show how sweet Jack is. He is always cuddling or snuggling. Ella is content just to sit beside me or in my lap but isn't really much of a snuggler. Neither am I (except with my babies), I have to make an effort to be affectionate or touchy-feely, but Jack must get this from his daddy because he naturally leans on, touches, pats, loves on, plays with hair etc. I just LOVE IT! 

 Then he caught on that I was taking pics!

 This is toddler time at JI rec center. It's every Monday and Friday with a bounce castle, balls, huge blocks you can build with and then climb on. On our way one day Jack said, "they have choo-choos mama?" "No, I said, it's a gym with lots of stuff to play with but no choo-choos." Disappointed, he says, "I think they do have choo-choos." "No" I reassured, "but we will have so much fun." Undeterred, he says, "Well I just going to check and see." I'll be durned if they didn't have a train set and a gymnasium. It's like the kid has a nose for trains. I even spots them blurred out in the backgrounds of magazine photos. I said, "HOW DID YOU KNOW THAT JACK??" He was so proud of himself, "I just good" he boasted. LOL! Ella had fun too!

Afterwards we went to chick-fil-a! Our favorite!

Ella loves to help out in the kitchen. She's looking cute in her pigtails but confused by the spice grinder Katie got us from Turkey :) Another funny story is the other night, I was trying to make a recipe Britt gave me for zucchini bread. "Bread" is a bit of a misnomer. This is a very thin bread that is perfectly cut up into little squares, thinner than brownies, not really sliced like bread. You get the idea. Well I measured out ingredients and was letting Jack dump them in, but I left the bisquick beside him. I'm busy slicing zucchini while he dumps ingredients and Ella helps stir. Then I get something out of the fridge and when I turn back around, I notice the batter looks a little different. "Did you add more bisquick?" I asked. "No," he reassured me. Well that turned out to be a big fib because when I went to get the zucchini squares out of the over, it was HUGE! billowing out of the glass dish! LOL! It turned out being bread indeed. Still so delicious!

 Jack sneaking a bite of my breakfast sandwich! Daddy makes the best breakfast sandwiches!! And pumpkin spice lattes came back. All is right in the world.

I was cleaning out the freezer and found some frozen cookie dough left over from Ella's birthday party. This was such a good dough recipe and so I decided to let that be an afternoon activity. They had a ball. And I made royal icing that they could paint on the cookies. The icing color was so vivid and beautiful. It looked very Easter-like, but they were almost too pretty to eat!

Ella ate more icing that got put on the cookies and I didn't get an after pic of the completed cookies, but they were beautiful and delicious! Jack has an apron too that he ended up deciding he did, in fact, want to wear. No pics of it though.

Jack is such a boy. He loves all things creepy, crawly! And totally fearless! We have to keep him away from ants, millipedes, and occasionally spiders outside. Which is weird because he's been having night terrors where he says snakes or spiders are in his bed!!! They don't happen often, but they are terrible. Then the next day, he's back to messing with any insect/lizard/creepy crawly he can find. Weird.

Any who, one night we went for a walk while daddy was at school and near a pond, there must have been 50 tiny new frogs. He kept one and carried it all the way back home. He was so joyful to have this frog and kept it very safe in a cup. Then when we got home he said it needed to go get some dinner so he put it outside and let it go and instructed it to "go get some dinner frog!" Ella, didn't care so much for the frogs. As in she screamed if Jack held on near her! LOL! She's so cute, and she'll annouce, "I SCARED! I SCARED!" If there is something that frightens her (bugs, the dark, the garage door) or "I EXCITED! I EXCITED!" (Pronounced "ess-ited") for things like Frozen/Tangled/cookies/candy. :) They are so much fun at this age!! Doesn't get any better than this!

And thank you uncle john for the best toy swords EVER! But look what we're teaching our son...he plays dead. Yikes! Its a very dramatic end. Maybe I'll catch the performance on camera one day! :) Hope you all are having a fabulous start to your fall!!