Table Manners

In the past couple months, we have made a strict point to all eat together at the table as a family.  When the babies were younger, it was so hard to all eat at once.  Now that everyone is eating table food (and has been for quite some time) and eats at the same time, we all eat together.  This makes it a bit more difficult and hectic during the making dinner stage.  I generally prepare dinner with babies hanging from my legs, fussing for food, and bringing me all sorts of things like paper plates (they can reach these), the remote to turn on the TV, and a whole array of other things to get my attention.  With Ella's poor eating habits, I also think it has helped her to eat a better dinner.  All in all, I think it will be nice that the kids grow up with this habit of all eating together.  I remember eating dinner as a family every night growing up and want our kiddos to do the same!  This evening's dinner had an interesting ending that I thought I'd share:

When Hannah and Hailee were done with their dinner, they started balancing their plates on their heads.  Hailee had it mastered!

So then Ella started balancing her cup on her head.  No she does not normally eat dinner topless or in the baby seat.  We had the extra baby seat out from having friends over this past weekend, and I believe the whole topless thing was just that dinner time so happened to be in between princess dress changes of the evening.

Hailee thought she, Hannah, and Ella were all pretty funny :)

Princess Play

On Friday evening Ella and I went to dinner with friends and to a princess play downtown.  We went to Lindey's in the German Village for dinner.  We sat out on the patio and had such a nice time!  We then went to the play.  It was a children's play, so all of the performers were kids.  They were so good and the girls even got to meet some of them after the show.  The whole evening was SO MUCH FUN and was so adorable how much Ella got involved and enjoyed herself!  She was clapping and ooooing and ahhhhhing through the whole production.  Enjoy these photos of our girl's night out!

The girls were encouraged to dress up in "royal attire".  Ella took full advantage of that!

Hailee lined right up to get her photo taken too!

Mommy and Ella!

We both matched ourselves to our girls :)  It was unplanned but super cute!  Notice E and G traded headbands/crowns :)

Sleeping Beauty and toddler Sleeping Beauty, or "seeping booty" as Ella calls her.

Ella and the Prince!

Genevieve, Merryweather, and Ella!

Daddy's away, the girls will play!

This past Saturday Paul went to a concert all afternoon and evening.  We had went to a birthday party in the morning as a family, came home, got the girls down for naps, and Paul left.  Well, the girls had other plans.  No one slept all but 45 minutes.  Not really what I was expecting.  I had planned on working all afternoon.  So, I got them up and we had a good ol' time around the house!

Eating lunch at the picnic table :)

Ella

Hannah and Hailee love going inside and outside, inside and outside.  Kind of looks like they are looking in a mirror, huh?

After dinner treat, Oreos!  Shh, don't tell daddy!

Oreos and bunny crackers with a fork.  Hey, whatever works!

Then they all took a bath to get nice and clean!

Love these towels!

Our little duck!

Then we had a jumping in the crib party!!!!  Definitely don't tell daddy about this one!

Kisses for Hannah

Tickles for Hailee

Hailee

Ella wasn't so sure..

FUN! :)

You may have noticed the cute pear t-shirts that the twins had on in the previous photos.  I bought these for the Fall season for them and they say Perfect Pear on the bottom.  Super cute, what perfect twin shirts!  Well, the morning of the party we dressed the girls and made a big deal of their new shirts, saying how cute they are, etc.  Ella then wanted a pear shirt too.  I felt so bad.  I got out all these other new school shirts for her and she wanted nothing to do with any of them.  "Me pear shirt too mommy!", she kept crying :(  This seriously broke my heart.  I knew the day would come when she got jealous of something twin related.  I couldn't help but shed some tears myself.  Paul thought I was crazy for getting so upset about it.  I even went as far as calling the store I got them at to see if they had any shirt with a pear on it that we could go buy really quick.  No such luck.  She wanted a shirt with pears on it so bad.  She finally settled for a new school outfit and probably forgot about the whole thing within minutes.  I am still dwelling on it.  Ha!  Isn't that just how mom's are?  Note:  The outfit in the photos is not the new school outfit that Ella wore to the party.  This girl now changes her clothes about 4 times per day.  No joke.  Every time she goes upstairs and comes back down she is in a different outfit, different bow or headband, different shoes or some princess dress.  Then I go up and there is 3-4 dresses all over her room that she must have gotten out and decided not to wear.  I remember doing this type of thing in middle school.  Hmmm....

Remember the ugly blue carpet we had in out family room for a long time?  It has been in many photos before, like this one:

Well, we finally got rid of it!  I am loving how our new toy organization looks!  The girls seem to love it too!!!!

Misc.

I really didn't even know what to call this blog post.  We have just been keeping busy, doing fun things until Fall comes and our lives become even more chaotic!  When I think about next season it gives me some sort of anxiety thinking about how much busier our lives will become.  As I have it figured now, starting in September we will have one commitment if not two to do every day. Ella will be going to school two times per week, she will continue her dance class, and will start soccer up again.  MOPS will start up again at our church (which I bring all of the kids to) and I also plan to sign Ella up in AWANA.  Ok, so now that I look at things again, I guess Ella is the only busy one :)  Ha!  I do plan to do something with Hannah and Hailee one day per week that Ella has school.  I am thinking a library story time if there is one available at that time.  Plus I'm sure that we will keep up with the families that we try to have play dates with on a regular basis.

We had a play date with friends one day last week.  One of the other moms had blogged about our day, so I figured I'd just repost her link instead of  putting up all of the same photos:

http://78ouncesofjoy.blogspot.com/2012/08/august-3-2012.html

Enjoy these photos from our weekend in review!

We went to the Ohio State Fair on Friday evening.  Ella had so much fun on all of the rides!

I love how she waves to everyone on every ride :)

Ella!

I took all 3 girls on this train ride.

They all loved it and Hannah and Hailee screamed when it was over!

So much fun!!

We ran in to some friends in the kiddie area so Ella got to ride with a partner for a ride :)

Just another day of dress up!

My aunt, uncle, and cousins recently moved down to Columbus.  We love having more family in town.  This was the girls hanging out at their house over the weekend in their new dresses from Uncle Don :)

Hailee and Aunt Leah

Ella and cousin Erika.  Ella LOVES Erika and can never get enough of her!