Going to the lodge...

For Ellie's 2nd birthday, we took our first family trip as just the three of us to Great Wolf Lodge in Traverse City.  I was a little worried how she would do, but we all had a blast.

First, isn't she just so cute? And isn't our table so messy?

We spent 2 days and 1 night, which seemed to be the perfect amount of time for her age.

Sweet, can't wait to play!

Awesome! I'm short enough to ride this ride!

Whoa, Ellie face!

Playing with Daddy

Splish Splash

Fun Stuff!

Chillin with Momma

Family Photo

Snack while watching the xtra large bucket drop - wow!

Can we take the bear home? Please?

Story Time

Momma and me

Yum Yum at the critter cafe

My parents have to comb through this every morning

And a movie of me prancing through the halls. When asked if she wants to go swimming, she says "grandma's house?"

When asked how old she is, she says "party! cake! balloons!"  We're still working on it.

When we got home (actually on her birthday) we didn't have any presents for her yet. Thankfully Grandpa Mars and Becky sent a present that arrived on her birthday so she had something to open. Thanks!!!  She got a bunch of new shirts, socks, and a xylophone.  She loves to bang on it and sing the first half of twinkle twinkle little star (how i wonder what you are).

itza baby

It is hard to believe I'm over halfway through this pregnancy! 24 weeks!  Ellie says she is very excited to be a big sister sometime around November 2, but she also thinks that everyone (male or female) has a baby in their belly so I'm pretty sure she is going to be blindsided. 

The second time around is SOOO different.  With Ellie, I was plagued with worry the whole time. Some friends at work sponsored an intervention to keep me from googling my symptoms and obsessing and crying all day at my desk. This time around, I don't think about it much. I just don't have time to worry while chasing a toddler around, trying to not mess up daily tasks and figuring out how to fit another kid in our house. 

I must have looked at pregnancy through rose colored glasses.  I was excited to go through the experience again, but now that it is here, i forgot that most of this really blows!  I was sooo pukey and tired during the first tri and and my sciatica has been driving me nuts the whole time. If I bend over, walk too little, or walk too much I can't move for days and poor scott has to kick my bum while I lay on the floor.  I also had to see a cardiologist because my heart can't keep a steady rhythm. And yes - I do have a heart!

Another HUGE difference is the sense of time. When you're waiting for your first child to come into this world, time crawls by so slowly and now all I can think of is "I need more time!" We do have a lot of house projects taking up our free time.  I should say Scott's free time because he is doing most of the work because of my sore bum.  But I think about doing the work which is also very draining.  We're moving our room downstairs to keep the kiddos on one level so we have a lot of moving and repainting. 

Anyway, while I'm being all complainy, I truly and thankful and feel very blessed to be expanding our family.  It is going to be crazy, but I can't wait!

Way too grown up

I've been a blog slacker lately.  I've had this post partially written over a month ago but wanted to include a picture. Well, there isn't going to be a picture!  I could blame it on the pregnancy or maybe I really am a slacker.

Here are some things Ellie is up to.  I can't believe my baby turns 2 in a few short weeks!

Insists on wearing sunglasses all the time
Loves to go to the park and swing and play on slides - she could swing for hours
Bumps into me and says "excuse me"
Walks into the room and says "hello, hiiii"
Grabs a few purses and anything she can carry and leaves the room saying "bye, buh-bye"
Says "give kisses" and then lays on a big smooch
Says "drive safe" before I leave in the morning
Says "good-night, love you, bye bye" before bed
Loves to play with her friend Katie and says "Katie FRIEND"
Puts animals to bed with kitchen towels and pot holders
Rocks bath toys to sleep with paper towel
Patting the ground next to her and saying "sit momma sit"
Growls people's names
Says Sorry Mommy - at usually at the right times
Counts to 10 so softly and cute
Throw tantrums when we're out so in public
Yells at herself for climbing on things
Likes to dance - loves a little hard rock!
Says "Daddy says... Go TIGERS!"
Says "No thats mine!"
Doesn't love to share
Warms up to people in about 10 minutes
Peed in the potty a few months ago
Doesn't like the potty anymore - says she'd rather pee in the tub and then she does!

I could go on and on! She amazes me every day with how smart she is (yes, I'm biased) and her excitement of life is so contagious!  Big kisses sweet girl!

Latest Happenings

I love to ride horsies

I can't believe Miss Ellie is almost 22 months old. 

Here are some things she has been up to:

Counting - she counts fairly well up to 5 and sometimes can go up to 10.  Her favorite number is 6, so sometimes she likes to say 6 over and over instead of going further and also argue with us that a 9 is really a 6.  She usually wins this argument.

Colors - She knows most colors and will now point them out as she sees them.  We are still working on mother of pearl.

Random picture of me chasing butterfly

Repeating - She'll repeat almost anything.  Tonight she said Tye Cobb, Georgia Peach, and Ernie Harwell. 

Eating - She is finally eating well.  3 full meals a day and lots of snacks.  She's even fond of her veggies and asked for 2 servings of peas as her bedtime snack last night.

Ok, maybe not eating but potatoes are great for the skin!

Shapes - Getting better with shapes. She knows star, circle, and square.  Working on hexagon =)

Sings - Loves singing.  Her favorites are ABCs, Old King Cole, and Take me out to the Ball Game.  Daddy can't get away with singing Old King Cole less than 15 times per sitting.

Sleeping - Nothing to brag about in this department. She had been sleeping well and then starting waking up insanely early (5 am) and then she added some middle of the night wake up sessions to the craziness.  We are slightly more under control now by pushing her bedtime back, but she still struggles to go down and would love to be held until she fell asleep.  We're trying not to go there, but some nights we give in.

I'm so cute. Don't mind my shinner on my head!

Sharing - Lots of room for improvement in this category.  Help please!

Easter - We had a great Easter sharing baskets, going to church, and spending time with family

BFFs

Loves me some cereal!

Like many toddlers, Ellie is not the best eater. Each meal is a battle but I try to go with the flow and not stress too much about what she is eating and especially what she's not eating. But me and "no stress" aren't on speaking terms, so this is much easier said than done. Thankfully, one thing she LOVES to eat is cereal.  It is a breakfast staple (usually 3 bowls) and she often asks for it at other meals and before bed.  Scott ONLY eats ultra sugary cereals, but so far Ellie has been cool with stuff I eat like Cheerios, Rice Krispies, and Chex. 

Did I say she LOVES cereal?  She really really does...  She'll show you... Turn up your volume =)

The good, the bad, the ugly

It has been a mix of cruddy fun at the Mars household...

The good... Ellie has been so cute lately!  Just when I think she can't get any cuter, she takes her Elmo, makes it dance on the table, and says "get down please."  She hears get down often from us and wanted to use it on Elmo.  She's been really into animals and loves reading books with any sort of fur baby. She gets really excited and makes lots of cheep cheep, oooh ahhh ahhh, meow, quack, and ruff ruff sounds.  Now that is getting nicer outside, she likes to look at the birds and say "cheep cheep."  She still thinks Elmo lives in the house behind us.  Another good thing is that we got our bathroom in the basement finished! That means our rec room is no longer a hazardous space and we can bring Ellie down to play.  She usually begs to play Just Dance 2 on the Wii.  She says "dance dance!!!" and we say "do you want to dance?" and she says "YEAH!!!"  She doesn't dance for long and prefers to watch the characters dance and do her own solo inbetween songs.  She still loves coloring, giving us tea and making us food, and putting her babies and puppies to sleep.  She also rocks one of her babies to sleep in the Elmo chair.  Anyway, super cute stuff and I'm not doing it much justice but take my word for it... super cute!

The bad... First off, everything turned out normal.  That is why this is in the bad and not ugly.  Ellie had to go to the hospital for follow up testing from her bladder infection. They started with a renal ultrasound and she balled, shook, and bit Scott's shoulder the whole time.  We know it wasn't hurting her, but obviously scaring her more than we thought it would.  We brought her into the next testing room for the VCGU scan (catheter included) and one of the techs said "has anyone talked to you about sedation?" and we said "no, but PLEASE talk to us about sedation!!"  They normally don't sedate for kids under 2 but they made the exception for her.  It was heavenly.  It took about 20 minutes to fully kick in and we just relaxed in the back room with some tv and juice.  I could tell it was really working when she looked down at her juice about 5 times in a row and kept saying "JUICE!" with delight and surprise at the same time.  She was ready to go!  She still cried a little during the procedure, but she's not supposed to remember it and she handled it really well.  Unfortunately the sedation made her extra emotional and she screamed really hard while we were taking her out of the hospital. 

The Ugly... We have all been SO SICK!  Ellie started it, and then I got it, then we both got better, then she got a runny nose, then I got it back, and Scott's been sick all along.  The second time around was so much worse.  We both had sinus infections.  Ellie's antibiotic made her vomit and the dog didn't like that so he also puked.  It was soo hard feeling so lousy and trying to take care of Ellie.  Scott felt the best out of all of us and responds best to drugs (pseudo makes me feel like death so I avoid it) so he helped out a lot.  It has been a few weeks for me and my symptoms are mostly gone, but the grip of exhaustion has not let me go.  I can't get out of bed and I've been going to bed by 9:00 every night.  Hopefully we'll be back to normal soon since the weather is getting so nice out!  PEACE!