June photo favorites

Ellie made these forts all by herself. She gets it from her dad - the fort making machine.

^ More silly food faces brought to you by Ellie. 

^ Ellie was really excited for Paige's birthday and she wanted me to help her make a countdown calendar for it. She enjoys crossing off the days and her excitement built each day. 

^ I had to document us two at Paige's 3 year well check - wearing masks. This was her first time wearing a mask and she did so well with it. However, she is still pretty terrified to get her height and weight taken (clings to me and cries). Though she did much great with her other checks in the room with the nurse and doctor (but did not let the doctor look in her mouth).

^ We finally got Ellie a bike with training wheels and Paige has the strider bike now. Both girls love them and want to go out often. Paige (below) gets pumped and then gets easily distracted with flowers, bugs, grass, trees...the list goes on - needless to say, biking is short-lived! 

^ "Mom, take a picture of me and my babies!" - Ellie 

(She still dreams of having twins and brainstorms names for her future children).

^ Good night hugs. 

^ This is one example of how thoughtful Ellie can be. Steven does not like onions or mushrooms and Ellie made sure the "soup she made him" was free of those two items. She even drew a crossed-out mushroom and onion picture on her own. 

Steven and another guy friend (who also has two girls around our girls' ages) came up with the idea to do a daddy/daughter adventure once a month together. This was the first one and they went exploring on trails (and off trails) and they all loved it.

The next six photos are from our Summer Party! 

Ellie had been asking when summer was going to be here and had been kind of counting down the days. She also asked if we could have a party to celebrate the first day of summer that included popsicles (their first of the year I think). I said of course! Steven suggested the idea to have a picnic in our backyard too and the girls were fans (he had to work)! 

This year I've been trying to incorporate different things we can make traditions out of each year and this definitely was added to the list! 

^ The girls are saying "POPSICLES!"

^ Ellie "made me a latte". Cheers!

The first water park of the year. 

More exploring fun...

(Don't worry, she didn't go much farther!)

Paige at age 3 + a birthday party

Paige, oh Paige. We've joked around saying that we finally had to start parenting (Ellie was so easy) because she challenges us and pushes the boundaries quite frequently. We are always learning to have more patience and tough love with her. Life wouldn't be as silly, entertaining, and loving without her though and she melts our hearts all the time.
Here are some special highlights of our littlest big 3-year-old girl (up until her birthday on June 3rd)...

- Picks pants, a long sleeve shirt and socks out basically every day, even on our warm spring days
- Asks 'why?' constantly
- Started biting her fingernails (we started using nail polish that deters nail-biting, which has been working!)
- Wakes around 7am every morning, takes about an hour and a half nap (falling asleep within a few minutes) every day around 12:40pm, bedtime around 7:30pm (takes her about a half-hour to fall asleep), and still sleeps through the night
- Just started sleeping with a stuffed animal, a Panda named Pandy (a birthday present from Ellie)
- Transitioned to a big girl bed on her birthday and has done really really well (insert praise hands)!
- Smothers our faces with kisses when she wakes from a nap
- Loves cuddles on the couch/being held right after nap
- Counts to 10, but misses number 5 often
- Knows all her colors
- Has to hold the book we're reading before nap/bedtime, gets upset if you want to hold it
- Asks so many questions about the pictures in books
- Carries books all over the house; she loves books
- Takes a good 30-45 minutes to eat a meal
- Eats/tries food well
- Coming out of her shell around new people
- Enjoys doing any school work/projects
- Copies pretty much everything her big sister does
- Is excited about her strider bike, but gets distracted easily on bike rides, so it's short-lived
- Says "I love you o (so) much" and/or "I love you all day" several times in one day
- Scared of dogs, of any size
- Wants to do a lot of things herself, with no help from any of us
- Her first freckle turned up on the inner left side of her index finger, on her right hand (we think it's food or marker residue all the time)
- Favors Frozen movies over all others
- Wants to be sung Frozen songs at bedtime
- Started praying a whole prayer on her own at mealtimes and it's so sweet
- Her belly laugh is such a delight to our ears

We were able to have a little party for her on her actual birthday, June 3rd! I picked the lemon theme because it seemed to suit her; sour and sweet! It was outside in our backyard with some dear friends. The girls were SO excited to have people over since we hadn't had anyone over since Coronavirus/quarantine happened. When someone said "Happy birthday Paige!" her reply would be "Happy birthday!" She was brave and blew all her candles out herself and there were many giggles that evening. It was a special day!

^ Cookies made by my bestie Shaina!

^ Enjoying the ice cream cake!

May photo favorites

                 

^ Just wearing moms sunglasses and sandals

Always wanting her picture taken!

(And in the photo below she's wearing a bag clip headband she made with some pipe cleaners.)

^ Going on an "airplane ride"...this was either to Alaska, Oregon or Hawaii - some of our favorite places!

^ Ellie on a class zoom meeting (doing a science experiment). You can see Paige was into it also, as she was with every other school activity/project we did, which was really neat to see. Paige wanted to be right there with us - she was giddy and talkative on the zoom calls and wanted us to help her do all Ellie's school work with her as well. 

^ This is a (sweet) candid photo on my phone taken by Paige, which she shouldn't do...but she has a hard time listening...

^ Lots of rock painting!

Lots of homemade gifts for Mother's Day this year - love and cherish. 

^ Steven got the idea to take the girls on a "rollercoaster" ride in a hamper. They were squealing, loving it!

^ Food face brought to you by Ellie. The things she comes up with often just crack us up. 

^ Fry eyebrows also brought to you by Ellie. 

^ Ellie wanted to do this letter matching activity with Paige one morning and it was really sweet. 

A scarf head dressing Ellie put together herself. Apparently, it was also like a backpack. 

^ First playdate with a friend, since quarantine. 

The girls were so happy to get together with someone!  

Ellie's preschool had drive-thru graduation for the kids. It was definitely bittersweet. It already would have been bittersweet, but with the Coronavirus, it made it even more so with how different things had to be. We are beyond grateful for her teachers though and all that they have done, and all the love they showed Ellie (and even Paige!) this year. 

Also, Ellie asked me, "Could you curl my hair, and can I get dressed up because that's what I would want if I had my normal program?" I replied "Yes!" 

^ Paige has been into lining up books all by herself. It's pretty impressive if you ask me. 

^ These girls get so nice when there's a photo op. But don't let this picture fool you, they aren't always this nice to each other. They are the best of friends and the worst of friends. 

The photos below are before and afters of yard work Steven and I (and the girls some) did in our backyard...

^ BEFORE

^ Ellie wanted to get in on helping laying out the sod

^ AFTER

^ BEFORE (there was an old/ugly vegetable bed in here, which I did not get a before picture of)

   

^AFTER

^ BEFORE (I didn't get a good before picture of this space either. In the far left corner, that dead hanging plant came out all the way to that bare tree and there was a lot of dead leaves and branches all on the ground. It was a jungle and scary to clean out. Thank goodness we didn't come across any snakes, or other wild animals back there!)

^ AFTER

Altogether, with the new grass, it feels like a park out there! There's so much space to run around and beauty!

^ Ellie made this picture with stickers all by herself of our family.