Daily life

This summer Ella is getting to experience some things for the first time (now that she is a "big girl"). One thing that we gave her for the first time the other week was a Popsicle, she loved it. Here are a couple of pics.

She also is starting to really understand the word treat, and wants one all the time now. However, she can only have a treat if she eats a really good lunch or dinner. We have little arguments with her about weather or not she gets a treat (of course we win). Actually, by the time she is done saying "yes" and "teet" to us and us saying "no", she usually forgets about it completely and just wants to get down.
Lately she also wants to walk everywhere, by herself. She doesn't want mommy and daddy to carry her anymore, she wants to walk. She also wants to do the stairs by herself. Everyday at the gym she insists on walking down the stairs, which I'm fine with, but we do hold up traffic a little.
One more little tid bit of information. Ella loves Elmo! Elmo everything. She asks to watch "Elmo toon" everyday (which she doesn't always get to do), we read Elmo books at least twice a day (if not four or five time), and she also has a little Elmo doll and an Elmo backpack. We actually need to get more Elmo books, because I'm getting a little sick of reading the ones we have!
Here a few cute pictures from the last couple of weeks or so.

Aren't I cute!

Two forks is better than one!

This is how we found her sleeping one night.

Ella's New Favorite Thing......Water!

Ella has discovered the water at our playground. The playground that we go to almost everyday has a small water area with a large water spout thing that acts like a sprinkler. Now that it is warm out and the water is on, Ella is loving the water. She doesn't usually run all the way in, but she definitely likes to test it out and get splashed.


I love watching her play in the water. She gets so excited when she gets close and gets splashed, and then she runs away shrieking. She is very into her swimsuit as well. We go to the park in her regular clothes, and then I ask when we get there if she wants to play in the water or not. So far 100% of the time she does want to go in the water. We change her into a swim diaper and her swimsuit and she's off. Then of course I can't get her to change back out of it and she insists on playing on the play equipment in her suit!

At the end of a hard day playing, she is usually pretty tired. Here she is relaxing after a hard day!

Father's Day

Marc's second Father's day was good. We really didn't do much, which is what Marc wanted. He spent the morning doing his favorite thing, playing video games. Then after Ella's nap we spent some time at Costco (also a favorite of Marc's). He wanted to grill steaks for dinner, so we went to get some at Costco and made a couple of other stops before coming home. Then we spent time outside, playing with Ella on the deck. Marc grilled the steaks and they were great as usual. I think he had a good day. Here is a picture of Ella and her daddy!

Wrigleyville Summerfest

So, I've been slacking lately on updating the blog, and tonight I'm going to catch up. Father's Day weekend, our church put on a street fest called Wrigleyville Summerfest. Marc was part of the planning committee this year, so he was working at the fest all day on Saturday. His brother John, his girlfriend, Katie, and John's son, Johnathon, all came over for the day too. John helped Marc out at the fest, so Katie and I had the kids all day. We had fun though. We took the kids to the fest in the morning and they had a great time. There was some kids music when we first arrived, and Ella really enjoyed that. Johnathon was a little crabby at first, but he soon warmed up to the activities. After the music we went to check out the other stuff they had for the kids. There was a petting zoo, and both kids loved it. Here are some pictures from the petting zoo.


They also had pony rides for the kids and Ella went on one!!! She actually loved it, she cried when she had to get off.

After we came home and Ella took her nap, we took the kids to the park and then for ice cream. It was a fun day and the kids were exhausted by the time it was bedtime. Katie and I also had fun, and were probably equally tired.