Granny & Grandpa Visit, etc.

*edited to add photos I forgot we had*

At the Arizona Center for lunch after the Children's Museum, where Ella made her cool hat.

Playing with her cool new peg set. Thanks G & G!

On the train at the RR Park

On a walk with Granny

We had such a nice visit with the Franklins last weekend! Greg actually got off work at decent hours, giving us all time to be together for once! We ate a lot of good food, Ella got attention-spoiled, and we all had lots of fun.

This weekend, the Johnsons were in town for the tail end of their Spring Break, and no one took a single photo. Bummer. The girls played so nicely together, it is a shame we don't have any documentation of it! They were especially tolerant of Ella's latest obcession: Role Play with Bert and Ernie. It goes something like this:

Ella (with Ernie finger puppet on her finger): BBBBEEEERRRTTT...Why you keep waking me up?
Adult (with Bert finger puppet on finger): Ernie, you keep waking me up playing the drums. Go to sleep.
Ella: BBBEEEERRRRTTTT. Let's go to the park!
Adult: Okay.
Ella: Hi.
Adult: What should we do at the park, Ernie?
Ella: Let's swing! (swings Ernie by his arms)
Adult: (puts Bert down and goes to do something less annoying)
Ella: (picks up Bert, carries him to closest adult) Here! (shoving Bert into adult's hands) Hi!!
Adult: (sighs, puts Bert on finger) Hi Ernie.
Ella: What you doing, Bert?
Adult: Just hanging out. What are you doing, Ernie?
Ella: Why you keep waking me up, Bert?
.
.
.

And we are keeping busy preparing for Baby Sister. Her room is officially set up, but not photo ready. The diapers and clothes have been washed, folded and put away and we've bought all the supplies we need for the early days. G-ma and Papa are on-call (maybe even spending the night with us when Greg is on-call so I have a ride to the hospital), Ella has been taking it all in stride, and I'm pretty much just huge and tired and enjoying the last couple weeks of having only 20 finger-and-toe-nails to trim.
On moving day, Ella helped by wearing Baby Sister's pj's as a cape, and her old hat (to be handed down to B.S.), and ran around crazy-style. No, she's not back in diapers...this was just a bad day~ after peeing in her car seat not once, but TWICE, we aborted the panties-only mission and opted for a diaper for a couple hours.

Getting dressed for school

Thankfully I was able to talk her out of the slippers with a promise to find the Ruby Slippers in the dress-up area in the classroom. She then talked about them all the way to school, and went directly to the shoes in search of the "Sparkly" shoes. And wore them the whole class (again). It is a good thing she's the only girl with feet big enough to walk around in them or we'd have a fight!
Here she is the previous week wearing the Rubies. Miss Gretchen is kind enough to let her wear them outside as well!

The Makings of Something Good

Look! Little, tiny strawberries! I planted these last November hoping to nurse them through the winter so they'd have an early start on the spring and time to fruit before the heat wiped them out. After planting them, I gave up hope on ever getting any fruit because of strawberries' pickiness about their soil and garden companions (one source claims they won't flower in soil that has supported tomatos in the past 10 years). But, last week, ta-da! Flowers, and now little fruit!

Evening cuteness

Ella and Dad played "Cards" while they waited for dinner to be ready last night. Ella practiced her straddle from gymnastics class, and Dad encouraged her to find pairs. Yesterday afternoon I tried to play a real game of memory with her, 10 pairs. Her attention span held through the whole game, and she only tried to turn more than 2 cards on a few turns. Our baby is a little girl!
**In the bottom left, you can see part of Ella's first science experiment: She's growing spinach, beets, tomatos, carrots and sweet peppers. Hopefully it will stay cool enough for the plants to mature a little bit more before we have to harvest!**

Vacation Weekend

Greg had a work retreat in Sedona this weekend, so Ella, Hailey and I took a mini-vacation to G-ma and Papa's house. We spent the night on Saturday and enjoyed being pampered (me) and showered with attention (she). The weather here has been amazing, so we spent Saturday afternoon at the park in Fountain Hills. Somehow, after 24ish years of living in Phoenix, I've never seen the Fountain until now. Ella accurately noted it goes "way up high." But when we asked her if it goes to the moon, she looked at us and said, "No." I think she was really thinking, "How dumb are they?" Smart girl. Sunday morning we went to the neighborhood park by my parents' house and Ella had a ball playing in the sand/mud. She got ridiculously dirty which made for a happy Mom (and G-ma).