MiMi Goes For a Swim

During the last few baths, we've thrown Ella's lamb into the hallway and shut the bathroom door to avoid the dreaded meltdown when Ella tries to bring her into the tub. She doesn't quite understand that MiMi is not waterproof and that this lamb takes a bath in the washing machine.

Well today, Ella beat me to the punch. MiMi took a plunge of faith. She "accidentally" got thrown in the bathtub while the water was filling up and Mommy was trying to get our bath things in order. When I returned, I let out a huge gasp as I witnessed Mimi's fate:

 Mimi is resting comfortably and we expect her to make a full recovery.

Birthday in the Park

Tonight we celebrated Jordon's 10th birthday in Cedar Falls. We went to the park, which is a sure-fire way to keep the little ones entertained! I learned today that Jordon is the "sanitation engineer" at his school. How appropriate!

Grandma & Jordon

Ella has been a little under the weather, but she got her spunk back momentarily!

Jordon & Aunt Mandy

Kisses from Grandma

The merry-go-round was the favorite!

Happy OSPD!

Happy Office Support Professionals Day to all of the secretaries, administrative assistants, receptionists, etc! In honor of OSPD, I'd like to share a day in the life of a plumber's part-time bookkeeper.

2:00PM-3:51PM: Translate 3 torn/wrinkled/dirty notebook pages full of indecipherable, sloppy scribbles/abbreviations/symbols into the English language.
3:52PM-4:00PM: Generate 6 Quickbook invoices and enter 2 checkbooks worth of expenses into the register.

Thanks, Dad, for passing on your sloppy handwriting to me....both literally and genetically.

Easter in Elkader

We spent the majority of Easter in Elkader at Derek's grandma's farm. It was the nicest egg hunt weather we've had since I can remember. Here are some pics!

Grandma Betty & Sam driving around the pond!

 A caption cannot do this picture justice.

 Aunt Trista & Ellie

 Hunting for eggs

 Hunting for eggs

 This picure just melts my heart!

 Swingin away

 Eventually everyone found their eggs!

Aiden and the mower that stirred a lot of fights!

 Bubbles

 Bubbles

 Loyal gardeners

 Heathers and Toddlers



Happy Easter!

Happy Easter to everybody!!

Treats Ella brought for her little buddies on Thursday.

Little Helper

It seems like almost every time Ellie has a new and exciting development, she similtaneously has a new bad habit we have to try to break at the same time. This week, both of these revolve around becoming Mommy's little helper.

• Good development: running across the house yelling "Guckie!" (yucky) and handing me something disgusting (like a teeny piece of paper or a piece of banana she found on the floor beneath her high chair).
• Bad development: throwing things in the trash that aren't actually garbage. Today it was a mitten and her Zsu Zsu pet. Luckily I witnessed it and fished both of them out.

Dreaming of Mulch Tonight

It feels like we have been outside all weekend! A much anticipated project we've been wanting to do is our new mulch in the front of our house--replacing our very old mulch with a newer/darker kind. We completed that project this afternoon and are totally wiped! Below are some pictures of our little improvement. Thank goodness for the 3 day weekend we have. We are blistered, sore, and smell like dirt.

 Someone had their little fingers in the dirt with us, also.

Happy Birthday, Jords!

Happy birthday to my nephew and forever Easter baby, Jordon, who turned 10 today! I stopped over there to wish him a Happy Birthday tonight and got to witness this performance:

Me: "Happy Birthday Jords!"
Jordon: "Hey, will you sing me the birthday song? The one they sang at school?"
Me: (Playing dumb and expecting the traditional song as his response) "What song did they sing??"
Jordon: (sung to the tune of 50 cent) "Go Jordon, its your birthday, we're gonna party like it's your birthday!"

LOL

"When It Rains, It Pours"

Monday night was by far the most hectic day I've had in a long time. Everything about it was madness. Of course, the fact that it was Monday is a ding right there. I was running late all morning, and couldn't get Ella out of bed after such a big weekend with the bridal shower (see below). I finally jiggled her awake, got her dressed and fed in 20 minutes, and headed out the door. I got to work and it was ridiculously busy. My phone, desk, instant chat, and email were constantly bombarded all day--all simultaneously. The worst part was that I was actually enjoying being at work because I knew what I had to come home to. Our house was a flippin disaster. Dishes were taking over the kitchen, the toy room exploded into the living room, there were towels and bath toys everywhere in our bathroom, and about 6 loads of laundry scattered throughout the house. I literally tumbled over two toys on my way out the door that morning, almost breaking my leg. I was dreading what I was coming home to. Any sane person would've stopped for a beer on the way home. But I braved for the worst and headed north. I got in the door and immediately started supper--spagetti. Something easy! Fast forward 45 minutes and there I was, cleaning spagetti out of Ella's belly button. Deep. Breath.

Beetza Night!

One of Ella's favorite meals right now is pizza. As SOON as she hears we are having pizza for supper, we listen to her run around and shout "beetza! beetza! beetza!" throughout the house.

Progressive green-thumbs

As first year home-owners, gardening is a new world to us. Well, maybe just me. I'm trying to get my flower bed up and going. Usually I get side-tracked with Ella and Derek offers his help before I completely walk away. Derek is eager to get his garden going when it gets a little warmer. And Ella just likes to play in the dirt.

Believe it or not, my tulips came up this week. I am celebrating the small victories!

Trista's Bridal Shower

On Sunday,  Ella and I got the opportunity to help host Derek's sister's bridal shower in Jesup. We were thrilled to be there for her special day!! Everything turned out wonderful. I hear wedding bells!!

Piggy Tails

We have finally reached the piggy tails phase!

Oven Mitt Catastophe

If someone would've told me 5 years ago that my child's biggest melt-down to date would've involved taking an oven mitt to the baby sitters, I would've laughed hysterically. But this is no laughing matter.

Last week, I could not convince Ella to leave the house without it. It's a little purple floral oven mitt made by Grandma Kathy for her play kitchen. I always let her take one thing to the sitters, and that's because it is usually Lambey (a.k.a. MiMi). But an oven mitt? It just seemed a little unnecessary. I was sure it would be lost. Or they would all want to wear it. Or it would get left there or ruined or fed to the dog or dumped in the toilet.

I tried everything... Being cool and calm. Being sneaky. Being forceful. Being desperate. Everything I did just lead to more frustration.

I could literally hear my mom telling me "Pick your battles, Heth!" in my head.

I took a deep breath and out the door we went. Oven mitt in hand.

Ella: 1. Mommy: 0.

"Are you kidding me?"

Literally, two minutes after starting this blog, Derek poked his head in to check on me. 
Derek: "867?" (Reading the title)
Me "Are you kidding me?"
Derek: "Don't you work at AEA 267?"
Me: "It's our anniversary! As in August 6, 2007? And it is in almost all of our passwords!"
Derek: "Oh. I get it."

Men.

Welcome to our blog!

Thank you for visiting our site! We are so happy to be starting a blog. As young parents (who generally feel old), we are thrilled having a little girl to raise. Unfortunately, not everyone gets to see the funny, awesome things we get to see on a daily basis, so we wanted to find a way to share these moments with all of you. And we love looking back at all of the fun things we've experienced. Parenting has been a humbling experience.  We are still learning.....and often times we just laugh everything off in hopes things will fix itself. Either way... I hope you enjoy keeping up with us.