Ella is THREE

I can’t believe my little girl is three years old!!

The day she was born was so exciting yet so sad since she went straight into the NICU for some support.  She stayed there a few days and I sat in my hospital room…throwing myself a pity party.  I knew from that visit that my little lady was a fighter!

She was my biggest baby at birth being 8lbs 12oz 19inches…and has morphed into such a petite little thang being 26lbs and 3605inches at her 3 year old check-up.  Shes my healthy, good eater (meaning shes not as picky as her brother) and is a tough little cookie! She cries over emotional stuff way more than crying over actually being hurt.
She keeps our family entertained with her sassy little attitude.  I say that now because she’s cute BUT god help us in a few years!

When she turned ONE…

Orange nose like her brother.

When she was TWO…

And now that she’s THREE…

Her birthday landed on a Saturday so it was nice to be able to have her party on the same day as her actual birthday.  She told me she wanted a birthday party at Chuckie Cheese with a bouncy castle.  So Pump It Up sounded like the way to go!

Morning started with presents and birthday breakfast!

Then we headed off to Pump It Up to bounce their energy away with all her friends!

Here are some of the pics that the Pump It Up workers took.

After jumping we all grub some pizza, sang happy birthday, did cake and BOOM the party was over.  It was so quick but really nice to have no mess and no clean up.

Once we got home we did presents with grandparents and Aunt Missy, Uncle Chris and cousins Bailey and Peyton.

All in the month of January she grew up in every way possible!  We took her out of her crib and into a big girl bed.  The dodo fairy came and took her pacifiers and left her mermaid barbie (funny story: when we went camping for MLK I forgot her pacifier…and she didn’t hardly ask for it. I was shocked. So when one of our friends left to get a cord for their movie night I asked them to pick something up from the “dodo fairy”.  Our football coach did a great job getting a mermaid barbie. When we got home from campin Daddy ran in, hid the pacifiers and left the toy. End of story!)  AND we potty trained her…all in the month of January!  She did great with all the change. She is an easy child when she does things on her own terms.  Trying to make her do anything she doesn’t want to do it rough. So we have learned to make her always think shes in control…even when shes not. Again God help us! haha

I love this girl and everything about her. The times when I wanna lock her in a room and take a deep breath to the times she gives me kisses and tells me how much she loves me. My #1 girl always!

Then I asked her to show me THREE on her fingers…it was pretty funny to watch how long it took her to even ask for my  help. She is such a strong willed girl that she always tries and tries before giving in and asking for help. I hope she is always as strong willed BUT doesn’t fight off help with she needs it!

Stay Sassy my little lady. Keep us on our toes because I love this life with you doing that.

MLK Weekend – #souzascampingfun

Its crazy how in California in JANUARY we usually have really warm weather for Martin Luther King Jr. And usually we’re at the beach.

And I obviously like being at the beach in January…pregnant or not for MLK weekend!

This year was a little different..we planned a camping trip with a large group of peeps that work with us!!  Best way for educators to spend a 3 day weekend…together with our families!  Wish we were able to be camping at the beach…it was warm enough to be there BUT getting camping sites at beaches is freaking impossible!  So… Temecula did the job!

We ventured out to Lake Skinner with our newly formed “ERHS Trailer Crew”…5 of the 9 families in the picture above all recently (within the past 12 months) bought a new trailer. I blame Blake…he talked my hubs, Shires, Neimeyer AND Barile all into buying new trailers/RVs. Damn him!! haha No I should actually thank him. I’m very happy with our purchase…its been great creating memories in Sally!

January camping means chilly mornings. BUT once that cloud coverage burned off mid-morning it would get toasty for a few hours and then cool way off once the sun went down.  We got a good mix of all weather.

Thankfully we had nice weather and no wind means eating meals outside! I’m such a fake camper…I HATE eating meals outside if the weather is even a bit off. Wind, hell no. Hot, nope. Cold, see ya! haha  So lunches are usually ate inside…which can be messy BUT I don’t mind. 

Owen was so excited. Kris brought fishing stuff and Owen LOVES to fish.  So they went out and had fun. No fish were caught but thats ok.

Our group was so large we had 2 firepits at night. 

 

One of the best parts about camping…it WIPES the kids OUT!  Ella feel asleep sitting at the kitchen table while watching a movie.  Poor girl was DONE!

Once the kids were in bed the Big Kids…I mean dad’s played to a game of “nerf roulette”   Shooting each other in the face with a nerf gun!  They are crazy!

Maggie was still battling a cough for this camping trip so I had her bundled up as much as I could.

But mornings in the trailer were fun for catching those smiles.  She is such an amazingly happy baby!

I thought it would be a great idea to try and get a picture of all the kids on this twirly slide.  We’d stop a few of the kids so we’d be able to see them on the turns!  haha  OMG it was so funny and SUCH A total fail!

The best part was probably watching Erin and Deanna struggle to get these kids on this slide! I sat back and laughed and kept snapping pictures.  So we changed plans to the smaller slide…and still didn’t get the best picture BUT it did the job!

While the women had the little kids at the park, the big kids (dads) were at the trailers playing a game of “peekachoo”.  Basically it was washers with the face slapping for the losers.  And this was played all evening.

Ella’s favorite camping activity is to play with all the Gerke’s toys…kinect sand, playdoh, batman toys, etc.

Ella had a runny nose for this trip (shocker)…and I was in the trailer feeding maggie a lot…which led our friends to help us out. Miles came in with Ella…her face was an absolute MESS. Boogers and dirt from forehead to chin. It was disgusting. Most people would have drop her and left…leaving the mom for the clean-up.  But our dear friend Miles cleaned her up for me. He’s an amazing guy and cares for kids…pretty damn cool!

Our dinner buffets were pretty damn good!! The big dudes smoked the meats and the rest of us brought the sides. It was yummy!

I hate when the sun goes down when camping…it gets so dark and I swear the kids go nuts!  Usually we shower them and put them into someone’s trailer for movie time. But this particular evening the kids were running around playing hide-and-seek.  Long story short…Owen’s forehead collided with Howie’s upper lip!  Both lost…it scared me.  And the cutest thing..they were both so worried about the other.  Howie wanted to make sure Owen was ok and Owen was worried that Howie’s teeth going to fall out.

So that accident prompted movie night in Shires mansion rv.

And the big kids continued their game of peekachoo!

The next morning Owen was wrestling around with some of the boys in the grass field and hit himself in the mouth with a nerf gun…knocking out the 4th top tooth! (Which I was happy about because that little tooth was ugly and needed to go anyway!)  This picture you can’t see the knot on his forehead but you can see the bruising start.  He ALwAYS has it rough camping.

But it was a fun 3 nights.  Getting to hang with people you see at work in real life is always a good time!

Hoping that we can make this a new tradition…meet up camping regardless of what school we are teaching at.