Ella's Six

I can't believe it, but Ella is finally 6! We all woke up bright and early (thanks to a little help from Ella), and got right to it opening presents. She was very sweet and let Livi "help" (which was awesome until Livi realized she didn't, in fact, get to keep the presents she opened). Ethan, too, had a hard time seeing Ella be the center of attention, but he came around (about 2 days later).

After all the presents were opened Ella was surprised with one more... the bike she was dying for.

She got to wear the birthday crown at school, we brought in cupcakes for her class and I read the book she picked out to them. After school we took Maddi and Caleb with us to Sonic for treats, and then played at the Bagley's. We had peach cobbler with scrambled eggs for dinner (considering I nixed the ideas of coffee cake for breakfast and doughnuts for lunch I felt I had to give in for dinner) and chocolate cake with vanilla ice-cream for dessert. Happy Birthday Princess Ella!

As much as I love singing "Happy Birthday" to my kids, it is Livi's contribution that just made me smile:

Having Too Much Fun

I am supposed to be doing something productive, like getting files ready or learning Quickbooks, but I am procrastinating by doing laundry and blogging.

We've had 2 birthdays and a trip to Lincoln lately and I should probably post about them. I tried to find ONE decent picture from my birthday, but they made me cry and I had to eat cookies (although cookies are the reason I didn't like the pictures in the first place so I've really hit rock bottom). So, yeah, I had a birthday. I'm old. Thank you to everyone who remembered me! We were all sick, but I had a great birthday anyways sitting around relaxing and eating 3/4 of Melissa's yummy blackberry cobbler all by myself. It was awesome, but no you will not be seeing any visual representation.

So I guess that leaves Lincoln and Ella's birthday. I'm too tired right now to fix the red eye in Ella's birthday pictures, so I guess you get to see pictures from our trip to Lincoln. Eric was there to go to a law conference on estate planning so we tagged along to have a little fun. We ended up all getting horribly sick, but we had a great time doing it!

We started out spending almost all day at the Children's Museum. It is amazingly fun and I took a thousand pictures but I'll just share a few favorites (and by favorites I mean my kids doing weird things).
First off the kids LOVED the water zone and walked away completely soaked. Not just a little wet. SOAKED. At one point I had to explain why dumping water on herself was not a good way to play to Olivia. I didn't really care but I was getting a few looks from other moms.
2nd: Here Ethan is in the construction zone. Most kids make paths for the trucks, or castles. Ethan made a representation of the Jedi Battle from Star Wars Episode 2, of course.
3rd: We travel 7 hours one way, spend tons of money on this vacation and what does Ethan want to do? Play on my brand new ipad. To be fair he was feeling a little under the weather and was super tired after playing at the museum for 5 hours, but still.
4th: I don't know why this cracks me up, but it does. I know about perspective, yada yada, but seeing the two older look so tiny on this giant chair but Livi looks big cracks me up (she was too scared to scoot all the way back on the huge thing).
We spent a lot of time in book stores (which I've decided is a sickness of mine, buying books. We have 9 bookcases in our house right now. 9!) and we got to see the movie Rio, and then we went to the Lincoln Children's Zoo. Ethan was a big hit with the gibbons (no surprise there, they are practically related (in a none evolution way)) And my sweet caterpillar and butterfly, which just seemed fitting.
The highlight of the whole trip though...swimming at the hotel. I think we could have just checked into the local Holiday Inn Express and the kids would have had just as much fun. We went swimming all the nights we were there and every morning when we went by Livi would cry that she wanted to "go swimming ight now" (not a miss print. She has a hard time with "r"). The morning we left she cried when she said good bye to the pool. It made me think a pool would be a good idea in our backyard, until I realized we would be able to use it all of 2 months out of the year.
We had fun, and I will leave you with what I watched for 2 hours. No joke:

Ary, Ary, Ary

We have a wonderful video of Ethan when he was about 3 seeing a frog that Eric had brought home from fishing. Ethan looks in and says "Ary, Ary, Ary," while signing "scary." (translation: "very, very scary").
It's been that kind of week for me.
Eric quit his job...
His wonderful benefits, government job...
In the worst economy we have been alive for...

I do understand why we are doing this. I do understand he isn't paid enough. I understand there is no room for growth at his job. I understand he wants to be his own boss. I UNDERSTAND all of this on an intellectual level, but it is still "ary, ary, ary."

So to lighten our (my) moods here is Ella's class doing the BEST rendition of "I'm a little teapot" I have EVER seen!!!! No joke! Ella's on the top row, and I think her snobby, British pose is the best!

Copy Kitty

I always wondered what it would be like that have a sister just a few years younger than me. Now watching my girls I realize that things worked out for the best. I could never be as patient as Ella. She is a great older sister. Me? I would have been the girl who punches the younger sister while she is interrupting my performance (as seen in all the Funniest Home Videos).

Little Livi Love's Lisping Lips

Hmmmmm, I'm not sure if I want one or not: