The park is exhausting

This is how Ellen looked when we first arrived home.

She slumped to this by the time I got Emily rinsed & in bed.

Girl finds marker and turns into bloodthirsty vampire

Ellen loves food

So much so that she feels it deserves a round of applause between bites.

(I thought it was specifically for my banana bread, but she did it at lunch with mac & cheese with hot dogs, too.)

We win. And I got my picture.

Laundry basket bassinet...gone wrong

Let me preface this by saying we've been battling the girls for the past two days (ish) trying to get Emily to stay in her bed and not climb in with Ellen. It hasn't gotten to the point where we've done any room re-arranging, but that might happen tomorrow.

This was cute this afternoon. And very funny. She wanted to go to bed in it, so I plopped it on top of her bed.

I had the camera because I thought I'd capture Emily in the basket sound asleep. At 9:20 I thought, "Hooray, they went to sleep, and there was no bed mix-up/drama." And I walked in and saw this:

Um, I need to blog. Girls: look cute!

I was desperately trying to get a picture of Ellen's top teeth (without having that "force the lip up crazy photo). This is as close as I could get. See them on top? They're adorable. And have that "Aunt Cindy" gap.

Emily has been taking pictures like crazy with one of our old cameras (that I melted part of on the stove. Did I mention that?). Maybe I should steal her pictures to blog.

Ellen is standing more and more...while hanging onto things.

Happy Mother's Day!

Thanks for the pancakes, Daddy.
(and eggs and bacon)

Sunshine-y days

Last weekend we had some GORGEOUS weather! While we fired up the grill, the girls played outside. Unfortunately, Ellen is still unaware that she can crawl on anything besides carpet & tile (no grass, sand, etc.)

Look at that form, Cindy!

Mother's Day flowers

Emily and Ellen sent me flowers at school yesterday (for Mother's Day). When I got home, Emily wanted to give them to me again. And again. She did it this morning, too. She is VERY excited to give me presents. And I am excited to accept them.

Bath fun

One of Emily's favorite things to do in the bath these days is to squirt water at herself and others using the rubber duck.

Sometimes Ellen takes too long eating dinner, and is forced to bring it with her into the tub. And sometimes Mom just doesn't notice that she still has crust in her hand.

Ellen updates

*Ellen has started to pull up to standing. She's still not taking steps anywhere, and I think it'll be a while, but she's making progress.

*Today after breakfast she gave me her first independent, "All done." She did the sign, and said it. Well, it sounded like, "Ahh duhh." But that's good enough for me. I didn't have to ask.

*Her addictions: graham crackers, milk, and bananas. Not that she's met a food she doesn't like, but she LOVES these three more than anything.

*She's cuter than cute.

One of the best plane stories ever

There was bad weather in Dallas last Monday when we were trying to fly home. Our flight out of Shreveport was delayed an hour. Then we had about five hours in the Dallas airport to kill. And then that flight was delayed 45 minutes. We were ready to get home.

Jon and I were in the second-to-the-last row of the plane. Just behind the little food service "galley" thingie. So there was a flight attendant seated there, and then one about 10 feet away at the back of the plane.

As we were in the middle of our long taxi (we were on the other side of DFW, opposite the runways), the guy in front of me raises his hand, does the "half-stand" and says, "I want to get off the plane." (Insert hyperventilating from me).
Flight attendants (FA): Why, sir?
Crazy guy (CG): I need to.
FA: We need a reason.
CG: My partner in New York is going through a really rough time, and I just need to go back to him.
FA: (At this point, I think one said "No.") Then why did you get on the plane?
FA: Is this something you just found out?
CG: No, I just DECIDED right now.
FA: Do you have checked luggage?
CG: Yes.
FA: Do you realize that it would delay these 150 people about two hours by the time we turned around and looked through all of the bags to find yours?
CG: Well, is there a phone I can use?
FA: You don't have a cell phone?
CG: No.
FA: Here, use mine.
FA: This is not how the airlines WORK.

I honestly don't know how those flight attendants remained so calm. I know all of the guys around us were on the verge of tackling him. Heck, I would have, too. Did he not have time to think about any of this on his flight DOWN from New York? Or in the airport? And how selfish can you be? This isn't a taxi. You don't get on & off when you please. And no, there are no pay phones in planes. And that phone one FA was on? Yeah, Dude, that was her talking to the captain. Hopefully warning him that there was a PSYCHO on the plane. It's not an outside line.

Where we've been

I feel the need to explain my recent lack of posting, and what we've been up to...

March 17-27 Jon was in Louisiana making a new Crawfish Boil video for our old church. Jessie came to watch the girls while I was at work all week. We had all sorts of fun adventures that I neglected to document. Sorry. The 25-27 I headed down to LA, too, and had a quick, fun reunion with some of my friends. We also had a nice getaway and stayed in one of the suites in the Diamond Jacks casino--they're CHEAP on Sunday nights! We celebrated.

This week we've been getting back into the swing of things.

Bailey Hannah Ubel

The four girls: Emily (2 3/4), Brooklyn (19 mo), Ellen (13 mo), and Baily (1 week). The E's are mine, the B's are Jessica & Justin's.

In this picture, I promise you we were telling them all to look at Bailey. Ha!

We didn't have to worry about ME getting the baby bug as much as Emily...

Playing at the Budd's

Yesterday we went over to the Budd's to play & have dinner. The girls had LOTS of fun playing with chicks, toys, going on a walk, and doing all sorts of wonderful things. I had to stop at the "scenic viewpoint" on the way over to try and get a picture of Mt. Hood, because it was gorgeous, but I didn't do it justice.

As you can tell, we had a great time, and the kids were WORN OUT.

SKIRTS!

Jessica makes the CUTEST skirts with a reversible apron. She made this one for Ellen (kind of--it's a long story involving a somewhat greedy Emily).

Ellen was excited, but has refused to wear it until she can walk so that it doesn't keep getting in her way.

Emily is in love with hers. She had to borrow a shirt from Brooklyn so that she could wear it immediately. I didn't get a shot with the reverse of her apron, but it's cute, too.