Happiest Birthday to you, little lady!

This year we celebrated your birthday Sesame Street style - with a touch of Barney and some Mickey Mouse clubhouse. What can I say, you are a girl of variety :)


This year I tried really hard to keep it low key. I tried not to get in over my head with too many little details like last year - like making a dozen different desserts and coming up with ambitious crafty projects I couldn't possibly do by myself. It also helped that Daddy finally convinced me to have the party somewhere other than our house which means less work for me and less clean up afterward. Thank you Daddy! The park we chose was so perfect and we couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day. The only difficulty we had was the wind - made for a nice cool afternoon, but it wreaked havoc on all the fun decorations I had hand-made! Luckily I just happened to throw some tape into one of my bags on the way out of the house that day. Thank goodness because we needed it- We literally had to tape or tie every last decoration to the table or it would've all blown away!

"Ella is 2" birthday banner I made with her favorite Sesame Street characters.


Cake made by Kathy Herron in Corsicana: Sesame street, Barney, & Minnie Mouse! It was so cute, and tasted great too!


"Cookie Monster Cookies" aka break-n-bakes straight from my oven :)


Goody bags for the kids


Centerpieces filled with all of her favorite friends- We certainly had fun coloring these all week! I was wishing I had filled these buckets with rocks before leaving home, they did not want to stand up with all the wind.


You actually enjoyed opening presents this year, never mind that you insisted on laying each gift in the dirt once you had opened it.


Your other favorites of the day included playing on the playground with two of your favorite girls - Raina and Ava, whom you talk about all the time at home! You were in heaven and thought you were just as big as they were.


And of course, your other love - cheetos!


We were so blessed to have all of your sweet grandparents there with us:

Grammy and Pop


Maman and Baba



And a couple of pics of her on her new purple tricycle...


Getting a good family picture was a little difficult this year - the bees seemed to really want some birthday cake and nothing would change their minds. So it was a little difficult to get all three of us looking in the same direction!


Sweet girl, celebrating your birthday this year was so much fun - every little detail got you so excited! From cake to balloons to gifts, you loved it all. But your favorite...the tissue paper and empty boxes.

It was too windy at the park to blow out birthday candles so we had to do that later at home. You certainly didn't mind having cake a second time :)

So, Happiest Birthday to our sweet two year old. I am still in disbelief that two years have passed us by already. Maybe its because you've kept us more than a little busy :) You are a blessing to us, sweet Ella. May God continue to guide us as we try to raise you and teach you to love Him wholly. I am crazy excited to see what your third year holds as we welcome your sweet sister into our lives.

All our love,
Mommy and Daddy

Two years old already??

Ella Maryam,
my love,


How is it possible that you are already two years old? TWO years old?? It doesn't seem right to me, after all, you were just born a few months ago. But at least several times a day I look at you and think "Wow, you aren't a baby anymore. You're a little girl." You don't even seem like a toddler to me - it's like you skipped that part. You went straight for the little girl stage. I say this because you are so grown up already. You talk more than many 4 or 5 year old that I know - where did you get this, by the way??


Little girl, you are the joy in our lives. Each day you surprise me with something new you have learned. You've known your ABC's since you were about 19 months old. At two, you can recognize almost any letter when we write it for you. You can count to 11 in English (from 12-20 it gets interesting!) and to 10 in Farsi. You know many words in Farsi as well, you've already surpassed your Momma in that department. You amaze me, my love. But aside from all the things that I, as your Momma, think you are so good at (I know I know - it's the Mommy in me), I am most proud of your sweet spirit and encouraging words. You make us melt over and over with your hugs and kisses (which have sound effects now, mind you). You keep us on our toes, reminding us to "Thank the Father" each night at dinner and when we put you to bed. You are wise already, my sweet girl. I pray your passion for thankfulness continues as you grow older.

I love you "baby love"
Mommy

Back in the game?

Well we all know by now that I'm not so great at keeping up with this blog. You see, I was the girl in college who couldn't study if my room wasn't clean, or the laundry wasn't done. Blogging is much more fun than studying, but you get the idea. As my house is never spotless and my laundry is never fully done, or put away for that matter, blogging just doesn't happen. Besides that, I am so behind in blogging - I never shared Ella's first birthday pictures, her first pumpkin patch experience, last year's Christmas photos, etc etc the list goes on - it pains me to just skip all of those precious memories and start blogging now. But seeing as how I will never catch up, I'm biting my lip and attempting to just jump back in and catch you up as I go. And since I know that my mom, sisters, and a few family members are pretty much the only people that read this - there's no pressure - they were there for the big moments. I just want to keep them up to date on all the little moments that keep us laughing around here. The main reason I even started this blog was not for anyone else, but me - selfish huh. I just wanted a way to keep track of so many precious memories as we lived them. Being that our lives are about to be doubly blessed with a second sweet daughter, I definitely want to try a lot harder to chronicle these moments - because we all know that a Mommy brain is not known for remembering!

So....here we go. My posts may be boring to some, but these are the little "boring" moments are exactly the kind that I treasure.

Sweet girl,

At almost 15 months,

I love that your most favorite things are pineapples,



puppies,



and books.


And most recently: wearing these silly glasses and going down the slide like a big girl.




You have learned a lot of words lately, like:

circle: "gurkle"
duck
quack quack
ella: "lella" with your tongue hanging out, not sure why but it's cute!
hi Pop: "hiBop!"
megan: "may-may"
walker: "knocker" - this one makes me laugh hard!

The funny thing about your vocabulary is that you learn new words but only use them for a little while, then you decide to save them for later. You are also very stubborn about performing on demand. You say your words when YOU want to. Wonder where you got your stubbornness??

Where did time go little girl? I blinked and you went from a tiny baby to a big girl who insist on climbing UP the slide! Wow has it been fun :)

What's wrong with this picture?

Someone please tell me, what's wrong with this picture?


Look a little closer...


Besides the obvious fact that it's mid-January and we still have the nativity scene out (and the Christmas tree - don't judge me, this child keeps me running!)

I guess the birth of Jesus intrigued more than just the usual "little people" crowd at our house this year. I mean, what nativity scene isn't a little more complete with a circus ring leader and his white dog, a zebra, and even a school bus driver.


This is pretty typical of life around here these days. The Christmas tree still up, yesterday's laundry still waiting to be put away, errands left to be run, and a pile of books on my nightstand still waiting to be read. Sigh. How do you possibly get it all done? I'm struggling to figure out how to organize my time a little better, ok, a lot better. For any of you moms out there, do you have a method to your days? I feel like I'm chasing my tail trying to keep the house clean, the clothes clean, etc, yet just starting all over the next day.

I've decided that I am going to assign different chores to each day. Monday will be laundry day and so on. We've also compiled a list of as many meals that we can think of and from there, came up with a menu for the next two weeks. We grocery shopped together for everything we would need for all of those meals. So far, it has been a huge help. Half of the stress of preparing dinner, for me, is coming up with something to make.

On another note, I REALLY want to make time to organize all of my many pictures of Ella into a photo book. I literally have thousands of pics on my laptop and need a way to keep a fun record of our little family's life.

And did I mention that I got a sewing machine for my birthday? Yet another thing I want to learn to do but must find the time.

So my question to you moms is this: How do you manage to take care of your household and still find time to do things for yourself that you enjoy, like blogging, learning to sew, scrap-booking, learning photography, etc?

While you are coming of with your words of wisdom to share with me, here are some pictures of the sweetest little mess in my life :)

Sporting her sweat suit and twinkle toes:


And for those of you who know E, you know that this is soooo her!



And so is this one - she is always soooo busy, often with more than one toy in her hands, and usually chasing Tuckie with his ball in hand.



But she is happiest when she's free to roam around the backyard. It's during that time that I'm thankful we have such a small yard.


She has become quite the snuggler these days. She looooves to give us hugs and kisses and we just can't get enough of them :)

I could go on forever, lol, but I need to shower while this little turkey sleeps...