From the mouths of babes::::::

We recently received out Blog2Print book in the mail. I had no idea how much the girls would love this! For each year of their lives I have created a photo book for them, but they are mostly photos with a few captions of what is going on. The blog book, however, contains all of the funny anecdotal stories of their lives....Ella just laughs and laughs at the things she said as a toddler learning to talk. I started thinking maybe I haven't been noting enough of Aubrey's sayings... So without further ado....

As she is doing this she says, "Aubrey funny face!!"

Aubrey is our trouble-maker these days...no 2 ways about it. Lotions/creams/water are her FAVORITE obsession, not to mention HUGE mess-makers.

Last week, Aubrey had pushed her learning table over to her changing table, climbed up one to the next until she was happily perched on her changing table. Once up there, she found a container of vasoline. (With all the snotty noses around here, we have been putting vasoline on their noses to help with the chapped/painful blowing.) She decided that she needed to put vasoline on her own nose. Ella comes running downstairs, I go running upstairs; mess cleaned, Aubrey time-out. I no sooner get to my tasks back downstairs when again here comes Ella, "Aubrey got into the sunscreen in my top drawer!" Again, Aubrey had climbed up onto Ella's bed, reached over the end and into Ella's dresser. This time Aubrey knows she is in trouble. She looks at me so serious and says "I tubble maker." Yes, yes Aubrey you are that indeed!!!

Yesterday in the car, Aubrey is applying chapstick to her lips (I'm supervising in the front seat). I swear I no more than blinked and she was rubbing chapstick from her lips to cheeks to under her chin. I sternly said "No thank you, Aubrey!" She looked right back at me, furrowed her brow and said "EXCUUSE ME!" I couldn't help laugh, I know I shouldn't...I know it just encourages the behavior---but she was mimicking me! I say that all the time when the girls talk back to me.

***Disclaimer*** While typing this very blog, I had to pause in order to go clean up Aubrey's latest mess on her changing table----powder, vasoline and her Bolt stuffed dog!!! She did try to clean it herself with baby wipes, but you can imagine how well that worked ;-)

I swear I do not leave my children unattended only to surprisingly find them wreaking havoc on my house. Only minutes before this happened, both girls had been happily making music upstairs with their instruments pretending to be the Fresh Beat Band!!!

One of my current favorite things of Aubrey's large bank of witty remarks is regarding when Ella takes something away from her. Aubrey has learned to use Ella's words against her...up until recently, Ella could outwit or just bully Aubrey into giving her back whatever toy she wanted. Now we hear Aubrey say:
"ELLA...GIVE IT BACK TO ME RIGHT NOW!!"
Then we say, "Aubrey thats not how you ask for your toy." So then she brings out her sweet, innocent voice:
"Please can I have it?" 

Ella is not without her own witty remarks. It has been raining incessantly this month (the newspaper said that it has rained every day since March 6th with a measurable amount of rain each day!). During one of the brief breaks in rain, Ella went out outside with Grandpa Rick. She spun around in the easement and said, "Awww, new air. I really needed some new air!"

We have also been trying to instill in Ella the fact that she should  not watch Aubrey make all these huge messes, or even worse, help make the messes just because Aubrey did it first. Today, Ella told me about Aubrey dumping some water on the floor; as I was mopping up the water Ella says "Its a good thing I told you 'cause kids can't clean up grown-up messes!"

Disneyland---From the eyes and mouth of Ella

Ella is our little thinker. She loves to figure out and understand just exactly what is going on. As we are walking down Main Street USA, we point out the castle in the distance. She seems excited at first, but when we finally got to the point where we walked through the castle..she seemed so unimpressed! I just likened it to the fact that she was just taking it all in, I mean, there is SO much to see when you are at Disneyland for the 1st time. It wasn't until we got home and Ella was talking to Grandpa Rick on the phone that it finally all made sense. Grandpa had asked her who she saw at Disneyland. And here was the side of the conversation that I heard: 

"Oh I just saw Ariel and Aurora.

Yeah, they were on their way to a tea party. 

(that's what the princesses had said when they had to stop greeting little girls and leave)

But I don't know where they have tea?

No, I don't know...there are no stairs in the castle.

Where could they be having tea?"

Apparently the reason she was so unimpressed was the fact that the castle appeared to not have any rooms in it. She doesn't let those little details slip by her ;-)

She had never been on any kinds of rides before going to Disneyland (I know...bad parents, right?!). She talked a big talk about going on them, but any of the rides that where indoors and/or dark were a no go. In fact, she climbed onto the boat of Pirates of the Caribbean prompts walked off the other side and left crying. Buzz Lightyear, again hated every minute. Roger Rabbit...probably the most hated of all!! Her favorite ride, surprising to me, was Grizzly River Run in California Adventure. She rode it 4 times in row...literally!!! There was no line at all for the ride, she would get off, head down the stairs, back through the line maze and run for the next raft. At the end she was soaked, and if Aubrey hadn't been so tired, Ella would have continued to ride it =) 

Ella playing in Toon Town.

Riding on the Astro Blaster with Daddy. Riding in Dumbo with Mommy. Taking a spin on the carousel with Daddy.  

1st time in the driver's seat at Autotopia. Ella's favorite ride---Its a Small world =) Then Ella grabbed the camera for a close-up of Daddy. She surprisingly struck the same pose for her Daddy with the camera later that night ;-)

As we were waiting in line for the Fairies of Pixie Hollow, it occurred to Ella that she is a princess. Well, she has known she is a princess for some time...but she realized that she is a princess yet she hasn't signed a page in the princess autograph book =) Of course, Aubrey did not want to be excluded from the princess signing party either. 

Ella and Mommy on Grizzly River Run. She had already rode twice with Daddy, so she was an old pro telling me the ins and outs of the ride.

Ella, the drowned rat, after Grizzly River Run!!!

Now that we have been home for a while, Ella is realizing there may have been things we didn't see while we were at Disneyland. Any movie that has Tinkerbell flying over the castle in the opening credits must be a Disney movie...but why didn't we see all those characters, like Bolt? Then she grabs the park map, "I bet they are right here...in the place we didn't go. Next time we go to Disneyland we can go there and see Bolt." I try to politely explain to her that its going to be a long time before we go to Disneyland again. 

"Well, we can just make a calendar to count down until we leave again." =) 

Oh my gosh!?!?! Its....

As part of many lessons learned as a parent, the 1st one with regards to Disneyland was....pay for the character meals! I had no idea how much of each day would be spend waiting in line to see the much anticipated characters, and we didn't even get to see all of them =( No longer to all the characters wander around the park all day, now there are stationed at their respective houses (Minnie and Mickey Mouse each have a house) or lands (Princess Fairy Tale area- you must wait in line for the better part of an hour just to see which princesses are there; Fairy Hollow- again we spent 30 minutes to find out that only Tinkerbell and Rosetta were here today). We did get lucky enough to see some characters roaming around.

We were still struggling with getting good pictures with that bright orb in the sky, but alas...this is the girls with Ariel.

Things were corrected by the time we got to Aurora (aka Sleeping Beauty...or Shake your Booty as Aubrey calls her!)

Aubrey was a little unsure of going up to the characters as 1st, but Ella went straight for the hugs! In the end everyone loves Goofy =)

I love Ella's HUGE smile with all the characters! Aubrey wasn't nearly as excited to see Mickey Mouse as she was when she talked about seeing him.

They were both excited (and tired) by the time we saw Minnie Mouse.

Aww....Pluto :-)

Of all the characters, White Rabbit (from Alice in Wonderland...of which Aubrey has never read or watched) was Aubrey's favorite. Ella on the other hand, refused.

*Rosetta*                                *Tinkerbell*

On the last day we found Ella's favorite princess..Jasmine (with Aladdin)!! And Aubrey was pretty happy too.

As a pleasant lunchtime surprise, Tiana (from Princess and the Frog) was singing down in New Orleans =)

~~~~>>Nostalgia about our blog<<~~~~

Neal convinced me to do it...Just bite the bullet, pay the extra $12 I would have saved waiting for a coupon and go ahead with printing the blog book. Wow! I had no idea how much blogging I have done since the beginning of 2008. In printing the blog posts from the beginning of 2008 through 2010, our book is 186 pages long!!! I was shocked.... And then at the same time I was so grateful that I had taken the time to do all these blogs. I am a terrible scrapbooker, even worse at filling in prefilled booked (poor Ella has about 1/3 of a 'baby's 1st year' book filled out; Aubrey doesn't even have an unfilled book!). This blog has been a great way for me to remember all those funny and/or irritating things the girls have done. Its a great thing to look back on and laugh, smile and reminisce =) And to think, if Shannon hadn't started blogging I may be still living in the dark ages!

Error...error....

Ug! The joys of blogging about our wonderful Disneyland vacation were thwarted by blogger! Apparently I get a little picture happy when I post blogs. All of these pictures are stored on an online album, but alas...mine is full =( Until I delete some of my old posts I will not be able to post any new pictures. This would be no problem except I want to print all of our blog posts into a book. No problemo there, Blog2Print takes care of that for me. I get my book all arranged (its only a mere 168 pages long!) and ready to print, but my coupon is expired...

So now I just have to wait until another coupon comes along so I can print my book and then delete my old posts. If I were a little more gutsy, I would just delete the posts now since they are saved in the online book...but what if something happened? I don't want to take a chance... So I hope everyone will bear with me and I promise to return again to the wonderful world of picture posts very soon =)

Disneyland- Our February family getaway =)

So I've been trying to figure out the best way to bombard the blogging world with all of our wonderful vacation pictures. The best way I have figured is to show you Disneyland through each of the girls perspectives. In this post I'll do all the family pictures and pictures of both the girls. Then I'll do 2 separate posts, one for each girl and include some stories of each girl's 1st Disneyland experience. And a final post for all of our character hugs =)

That blue sky is not photo-shopped in, we had BEAUTIFUL weather all week long. It was mid-upper 70s all week. We even left with a little pink tint to our skin from all that sunshine!

The girls aren't quite sure what is going on yet. We've arrived at Disneyland but they still don't quite understand what that means =)

Now we can see the smiles =)
'Disneyland is the happiest place on earth' is the catch-phrase for a reason.

Riding on the Casey Jr railroad in the monkey cage.

Driving Goofy's fire truck.

Waiting in line, soaking everything in.

Having some tea at Minnie's house. Ella doesn't let anything slide.
 "How come this stuff is all hard and is stuck to the table?"
"Minnie likes things hard honey, it just is that way..."

You can tell by the expressions on everyone's faces that it was the end of the 1st night ;-)
We were enjoying a relaxing ride on the ferris wheel.

We played a few games on the pier. Ella and Aubrey were proudly carrying their loot.

An attempt to get a picture of their mickey ears. None of our eyes were accustomed to the bright orb in the sky!

Tinkerbell and all her fairy friends have their own special greeting area. After waiting for 30 minutes it was almost our turn to see Tinkerbell and Rosetta!

Everyone is up from their naps and Neal is home from work. I will hope you have all enjoyed the 1st glimpse of our Disneyland vacation. Stay tuned for more characters, smiles and stories to make you laugh =)

Where oh where has the time gone???

Has it really been since January that I last posted? I know February is a short month, but somehow I feel like I got very behind on my blogging obligations ;-) Last I posted, we were counting down the days to Disneyland. Well our trip came and went with a bang! and I have yet to fill everyone in on our fun.

But first I have 2 very humorous stories to share about my little cherubs =)

The day after we got home from Disneyland was my dad's birthday. I told Ella to call Grandpa Rick and wish him a 'happy birthday!' This is the side of the conversation that I was privy to hearing.

Ella:
 "Hi grandpa Rick.
 Guess what? Today's your birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
We are going to get you a present, but mom says we haven't got you on yet.
What would you like for your birthday? How about a football?
We can go to the football store and get you a football. But I don't know where the football store is.
We will have to get you something different for your birthday."

I was dying laughing. I'm not sure he got a word in edge-wise. She has become quite the conversationalist and is so logical the entire time. =)

Now onto miss Aubrey.
Her favorite call is "mommy, where ARE YOU?" She says this when she wakes up, when she doesn't want to go to sleep and pretty much whenever she doesn't know exactly where I am. A few weeks ago, I had walked down stairs without her. She remained at the top of the stairs playing. After I sat down on the couch, she yells "Mommy, where are you? Mommy, get you." I had just started reading, so I told her "Aubrey, you can walk downstairs. Mommy is downstairs." For a good 10 minutes, this conversation seemed to be on repeat. She wasn't crying or screaming, just continuously asking me to come get her. Finally I had finished my reading and decided that since she was being persistent enough, that I would give in and go get her. When I got to the top of the stairs, she wasn't there but the bathroom light was on. I walked into the bathroom to find her STUCK, IN THE BATHROOM SINK!!!

She had climbed onto the counter to get herself a drink of water. For a reason that only a 22 month old toddler could come up with, she climbed into the sink, sitting on her knees in the sink. However, with her feet underneath her, her chubby little thighs got stuck under the spigot! Again, I could barely stop laughing long enough to free the poor child from the sink.

I'll end here and start compiling our Disneyland posts =)