Our Weekend

Lucas had to work Saturday, which is never fun. But that meant pancakes for breakfast! Unfortunately my husband is not a big sweet eater, especially for breakfast, so that means more for us! As you can see Elliana loves pancakes just as much as I do. 

After our late breakfast (due to sleeping in..YES!), we headed out to the water park! 

Elliana has the best time there when we go. She tries so hard to keep up with the big kids, and most of the time she does. When it's just me and her I try to keep her at the little kid area as much as possible..the keyword there is TRY. But either way we have fun. It's also nice when you go and run into friends! She got to see one of her school buddies there and splashed together for a while. 

"1, 2, 3! HOP!"

After the water park it was nap time. The more fun Elliana has, the better nap she will take! During nap time, is when I usually toss a load of clothes in the washer, or unload the dish washer, but it was a Saturday, so this mama took it easy and relaxed. (: 

Lucas called and said it was going to be a late night (love those...NOT!), so miss priss and I got ready and went to my best friend's house to hang out with her family. Elliana could not have been more thrilled when I told her we were going to see Tyler. She loves that kid like no other, and it is so sweet to see them play and talk together. Sadly, Tyler was not in the mood for his overly affectionate girl that night, and was really wanting her to not hang all over him... Hopefully this will not be a problem with her when she's older. 

Sunday after church we had lunch with Lucas' parents. They were at the beach all last week, and really wanting some Elliana time, so she went home with them for the day while Lucas and I went home and did absolutely nothing! NOPE! I wish, but we spent the day cleaning. I keep the house clean through out the week but we had something we were getting ready for and had to make sure every spot was spick and span! Since Elliana was going to be with her grandparents for dinner we thought this would be the perfect time to make a homemade pizza. I've never made a homemade one before, and I'm pretty sure my husband was confused when I said "homemade", because after I bought the dough from the bakery at Publix he said "Uh..you know they make pre-made pizza crust, right?" Yes, yes I do honey. Anyways, since I never made one before I searched for the best homemade pizza recipe, and luckily I found one right under my nose at my friend's blog at Life of Whitt. You'll definitely have to check it out, and try this pizza. Lucas even added the jalapenos on his side and loved it!

Our weekend continued today since Lucas was off work. Unfortunately he doesn't always work the normal Monday-Friday, but it works for us! He's usually off on Sundays and Mondays so our weekend just kind of extends. We mostly ran errands today and hung out around the house. Since we cleaned from top to bottom and all around yesterday we didn't have much to do. Oh yeah...why did we do so much cleaning yesterday?? Well, we were getting ready for the newest adventure in our life...to put our house on the market!! I'm so nervous and excited about this all at the same time. We are just praying that it works out in God's timing and find something that's more "fitting" for our family. 

Have a blessed week, friends!

Elliana 22 Months

It's hard to believe that in 2 short months our baby girl will be 2 years old! As much as I wish I could keep her little, I do love seeing her fun, spunky personality come out each day. There is no "normal day" in our household, not with Elliana here! But she keeps us entertained and laughing all the time, and I wouldn't want it any other way. 

So I want to start doing a better job of keeping up with memories, funny words and sayings, and just how Elliana is growing up, and this is the main reason I started blogging. 

So here is Elliana's 22 months update...

Clothes: She can wear some 18-24 months, but we mostly buy 2t to make sure she's comfortable in it. I love shopping for her now more than ever! Didn't think it was possible, but it is! She's turning into such a little girly girl and likes to pick out outfits when I'm going through her clothes, trying to figure out what she will wear that day. Her favorite things to pick out and wear around the house are shoes!

Favorite Foods: Bananas, Apple Sauce, Cheese, Toast, Goldfish (or just "fish" as she calls it), Veggie Straws, Corn and any kind of Pasta. It's crazy how their taste buds change, she used to love chicken, and now won't eat it, which isn't fun because we eat a lot of chicken. If she sits down and actually eats a meal, it's been a good day! She's at the age where she's too busy to eat, or doesn't have much of an appetite. But some days she acts like she hasn't been fed in weeks! Oh and she loves snow cones! The snow cone truck came by the splash pad while we were there, and Elliana had her first one! Girlfriend would not give up that spoon!

Favorite Words: Animals & animal sounds, love you, see you (see you later), please, thank you, baby, uh-oh, and if she wants to watch something in the morning she will tell me. It's usually Elmo, Hot Dog & Minnie (Mickey Mouse Clubhouse), Cat (Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood), or Let It Go (Frozen). She's also learning how to put together sentences, her favorite..."Go get it, mama. Please!" At least she's polite about it! She also says "I need you mama" and "Hold you" She loves to sing as well, and I love to hear her. My personal favorite is when she puts "Let it go" and Hot dog" together.

 

Favorite Activities: She loves to be outside! Every morning after breakfast she points to the door and says "Outside??". We live very close to a park with a splash pad so we spend a lot time there. She loves to swing, play at her sand/water table, in her playhouse, and playing with our neighbor's cat. We go swimming almost every other day too. Gosh..I'm going to miss summer!

Favorite Things: Babies, babies, and more babies! I have never seen a kid at this age so crazy about babies! Not just baby dolls, real babies! She has to talk to one as soon she sees him/her out in public, and asks where the "baba" and "papi" is. But she is crazy about baby dolls just as much. We can't leave the house unless she has all (4) of her babies. We are working on getting the limit down to 2, which has been working out pretty well! She's just now getting into her kitchen that she got for Christmas. She's always played with the doors on it, but her imagination is starting to kick in more, and she will "took" like mama. It's so precious. She still carries her "boo" around too, which I love and know I will cry when she stops... Our newest thing lately is going out for donuts, and she has been loving it!

Signature Moves: Dancing, singing & sending herself to bed when she's tired. Giving hugs and kisses to everyone, including the dogs. Patting her baby doll when baby is going "night-night", telling everyone "HI" when we go out. Jumping off the top of the couch on the cushions. It sounds much dangerous than what it is, trust me. We are always close by watching her and making sure she doesn't fall. She did fall one time and it scarred me to death. As soon as I picked her up and starting checking her all over, she pushed off and said "HOP!"...I guess it was time for round 2! 

Other Milestones: She's doing better than ever on her potty training! We've been working on it for a few months, and even though she got the concept of what to do in the potty, I don't believe she understood the whole tell us when you have to go. I never wanted to rush potty training, which is one of the reasons we started her so young. But she goes back to school in September, so I would LOVE it if she was totally trained by then! Fingers crossed! She's learning her manners and I couldn't be more proud. She says "Please" Thank you" and "Scuse me". We are working on counting and right now she can count to three. She also knows certain colors...white, black, purple, and green. 

I love this age so much, and this little girl! She's growing up so fast and learning something new each day! She amazes me every day! 

Beach Trip 2014

Don't you just loathe that feeling you get on your last day of vacation when you realize tomorrow it's back to reality?? Me too! Last week our family decided to take a random weekend getaway, and where else would we go besides the beach?! I was so excited to see Elliana on the beach this year. We took her last year on vacation, but she was so young. This girl LOVES the water like she was meant to be a mermaid (which we saw while we were there!!). 

Her favorite part of the ocean was sitting down and letting the waves knock her over haha. Only my child!! We played with lots of sand toys, and of course to a little stroll to the near by pier. The hotel we stayed at was absolutely wonderful. Very kid friendly, which is my kind of place! We stayed at the pool a lot because Elliana loves jumping in, floating, the lazy river, and the way the shallow end was it was easy for her to play in the water without one of us holding her. But they had other things available too like face painting, pirates who do magic shows, and play games with kids, and of course our favorite mermaids swimming in the pool! 

One night we went to the Harbor Walk Village, a place with restaurants, shops, live music, and other fun activities for family and kids. That may have been the best night because of the live music! Miss Elliana walked straight up to the stage, checked it out, and it wasn't long until she on the stage herself dancing with the lead singer (I kid you not!). It was so cute!

All in all our trip was nothing short of wonderful. Elliana must have known it was a vacation because she was on her best behavior and made it so easy for mama and daddy to relax! I really look forward to next year and years to come as we make many more memories like this!