The Girls' Best Friend (turned five today!)

Just a little slide show to celebrate how much we love Charlie! He is the best friend a little girl (and her parents) could ever ask for...

Happy Birthday Charlie!

Here you are doing what you love most:
Playing ball and snuggling.



(I added a few adorable puppy pictures of Charlie at the bottom of this page.)

Impromptu Day Trip

Eric is on vacation this week so at the last minute today, we decided to make a trip to Cincinnati to go to Ikea and Jungle Jim's. We have been wanting to go for awhile and with the weather being nice, it just seemed like the right time to try it. We left right at Josie's nap time and so it worked out perfect and she slept almost the entire two hour drive there. Ellie even napped a little.

I was so happy to see this building! I love Ikea and am so happy that we have one even closer than Chicago now. We ate lunch as soon as we got there and then spent another two hours looking around. Josie loved the kids area and Ellie loved pretty much everything! It was like one big play house to her. She wanted to look at, touch, open, sit on, climb on, play with etc...everything! We only bought just a few things (mostly organizational items) but it was worth going just to see everything!

Ellie playing "kitchen".

Josie trying out a crazy seesaw.


Ellie at one of the many kid's stations strategically placed throughout the store. :)

Both girls enjoying suckers as a reward for being so well behaved at Ikea!


Next we went to explore Jungle Jim's for the first time. We knew we were pushing the girls limits by going but they did pretty well. We would have liked to spend more time there than we did (about an hour) but we at least got an idea of what all it has for the next time we go. Again, we only bought a few items.

Josie and Ellie at the entrance.

Ellie with her very own beer! It even has a picture of Charlie on it. :)

A glimpse (not even half) of the amazing selection of hot sauces available. Eric was in hot sauce heaven! (The huge firetruck on top was pretty cool for the girls.)


We had a great day and this impromptu trip was a nice way for us to realize that we can be spontaneous again with children. As the girls get older, there is a lot less planning and packing involved and so we are finally starting to enjoy a little more freedom. I love our family!

Super Ellie!

Ellie likes to wear this cape while watching Super Why (on PBS). To complete the look she puts on her sunglasses and slippers. She is so funny!

This is her "superhero" pose.


practicing flying

Fairy Party

Ellie got to go to a party of her dreams today- a fairy party! She had a blast!

Happy birthday Sophia and Maia!

Speaking of what a daredevil Josie is...I think she learned it from Ellie. Here she is doing backflips off of the ottoman!

Josie (aka daredevil)

This morning, I had my laptop at the breakfast bar while hanging out with Josie while Ellie was at school. I was sitting here for just a minute when I heard a noise directly behind me and saw this:


Josie had climbed up onto the table all by herself! She was so proud :)


I put her down and she immediately ran around to the other side of the table to show me how she did it so I took video:

She climbed up there for cereal.

This girl has no fear!

Snow Fun!

We did it! Today ended up being the perfect day to try sledding again and it couldn't have went better! This time it was in the 40's and the snow had just started to melt enough to make it perfect for sledding. Ellie loved it!




Look how far she goes!


This is the best...



sledding with Sophia


Snow Angel

Throwing snowballs



We built a snowman at the park but didn't have anything to decorate it with- so Ellie gave him her hat, gloves, and sunglasses.


We then cam home and built another one using blueberries, apple slices and a carrot. Ellie came up with the idea to make it a "her" with Ellie's famous summer hat and Cinderella sunglasses.


After the snowman(woman) building, we went out back to play with Charlie. He loves leaping into the air to catch snowballs!



Taking a break

All in all, we were out almost 3 hours and Ellie had fun every minute of it! These are the days we will always remember... :)