Eat Your Bone

That is Elia's latest sentence. It is so stinking cute when she says it too! We watched Koda this weekend and Elia LOVED every second. We had a ham for Easter brunch and so Koda got the bone and gnawed on it for a good 2 hours. Anytime Elia went near her she would stop and say eat your bone eat your bone. Saturday night, after sneaking Koda a little bit of her dinner, she said "I love you dog." So sweet. Gianna still took a while to warm up as usual. Elia was kissing her and hugging her and giving her all kinds of love.

Tonight I caught them doing this:

And later, this:

Poor dog. I bet the girls would have tried to dress her up if they could. She is a dang good dog to put up with it!

Uncle Heaven

Last weekend was pretty durn fun, but this weekend, we had double the uncles at our house. Uncle Danny was in town for UD Odyssey weekend and so Sunday Matt, Patrick, and Timmy joined Danny over at our house for a bbq. The girls had a blast watching them play corn hole and beer pong.

Like Chris' beer pong set? TX vs Giants, all collected at actual games!

And Gianna put on a performance in her bedroom, using her bed as a stage. She danced around and sang a little bit and Elia just jumped around. I wish it was on video, because it was so

hilarious. Matt and Sarah brought over their dog Juju and the girls kept calling her Koda.

Gianna is seriously obsessed with Uncle Danny. She wanted to show him everything and he was very patient and played with her all weekend. Sorry my pictures are so pathetic. But I will be posting a pic of our new room soon!

Great Weekend!

We've been doing a lot of driving around our neighborhood at night these days to see all the Christmas lights. The girls love getting dressed in their jammies and bringing their blankets to go driving. So that was our Friday- pretty low key.

Here is Elia all snuggled up! Check out the sweet new boots Aunt Shanny sent her that just happen to match PERFECTLY with the hand-me-down coat from G.

Chris worked Saturday morning. We headed out to John and Sam's kiddo's birthday party. It was sooo fun- bounce house to start, plenty of great food, and then an Elmo pinata!

They did a fabulous job with the party. The kids were dressed for the theme, which was Thing 1 and Thing 2- as their 2 kids are 13 months apart. Love this creative spread:

Both girls had a few swings at the piñata. Piñatas at this age are hilarious because no one gets a really good satisfying blow, so the kids could literally hit the thing all night long. John eventually ripped it open a little to get the goods out.

Sunday was the usual- cartoons, Church, and lunch. Weinpel came over to help with the room so he brought Koda. The girls got to see her once they woke up from naps. I couldn't believe how excited I was to see her- I even let her lick me a couple times! (this is huge guys) Anyways, while they worked on the room G and I made these awesome button cookies. Sooooo kid friendly, and no batter to mix! I'll give you the recipe really quick because it is SO easy!

You Need:

Pretzel checkers or waffles

Hershey kisses, hugs, etc.

M&Ms

Directions:

Put pretzels on baking sheet. Place an unwrapped kiss on each pretzel. Put in oven at 200 for 5 minutes. This will make the chocolate nice and soft. Here is G waiting for them:

Then pull them out, and press an m&m into each. You can mix it up however you want- different flavors and colors of kisses and m&ms. Durn Tom Thumb was out of plain Christmas m&ms so I went with the regular ones. G loved pushing the m&ms into the kisses, and sampling everything of course. This is seriously my new go-to recipe!

So I know I keep saying I am going to put pics up of the room. I might just wait until it is completely done. Baseboards are in the works, and sometime this week we are going to get our bed! Merry Christmas to Chris and I, YAY! This week I am going to be soooo busy getting ready for Christmas and then packing for our trip to StL for Col's wedding. See ya!

Weekend and Room update

Its starting to get cool here in Dallas, finally. That doesn't mean we have turned our heat on yet, oh no! We are trying to make it to December 1. Not sure if that is going to happen!Friday afternoon started out with a trip to Lumber Liquidators. Try to get a 3 or 4 year old to say Lumber Liquidators, its hilarious! They were having a sale and so we totally scored and got enough gorgeous dark chocolate brown engineered hard wood on sale to do our bedroom floor.

So Saturday was spent cleaning out the room. It is so dusty in there from the popcorn ceiling. We moved out the furniture, and then Sunday Chris sprayed texture on the ceiling. We are set to paint the ceiling and walls and then lay floors. Hoping it is all done by the end of the Thanksgiving weekend.

Saturday we said goodbye to Koda with a long walk and lots of hugs. We already miss her. Chris and I are entertaining getting a dog for the girl's birthdays. By entertaining, I mean Chris wants to really bad and I want to put it off as long as possible. But the whole dog-sitting experience was good for me. I am not scared of getting one anymore. Having a dog around is like I said, not that bad!

Here are some pics from the weekend.

Saturday. Writing in their

fave- journals.

We went on lots of walks.

And collected TONS of acorns.

Gianna painted hers black because that is the color of dirt. Duh. I tried to get crafty too!

18 month check up and Koda

Today was Elia's 18 month checkup. She won't be18 months till next Saturday, but I still can't believe how big she is! She weighed in at 26 lbs. We also weighed Gianna, and she weighs 29.6 lbs. Elia is going to catch up with her! Her weight puts her at the 77%. She is 35.5 inches tall which puts her at the 100%. I can tell she is pretty tall anyway because a lot of her 18 month pants are too short. Such a sweetie girl though. The doctor counted 5 teeth coming in right now. So with the 8 she already has, that will make 13 pretty soon(fingers crossed). No shots this time around, so the visit was quick and painless. A couple of cute things she has been doing lately:

Chris taught her to stick her hands up in the air when you poke her stomach and say "stick em' up!"

When you ask her to be a gorilla, she beats her little fists on her chest and goes aahhhh-a-aaaahhh Tarzan style. So cute!

I took these pics the other day when the girls were playing with Koda. We finally had a successful walk this morning without Chris. She is really strong and has been knocking over Elia almost every time I get the leash out because she is so excited. Knocking down Elia= no walk for Koda. I tend to get a little mama bear on Koda when it involves one of the girls getting hurt. I know the more Koda exercises, the better she will behave for me, so I am trying!

Look how excited Elia is! So cute!

The Great Dog Experiment

This week, we are dog-sitting for Weinpel. Her name is Koda, and she is a sweet dog. She is part Great Dane, so she is really tall, but otherwise she is mostly a black lab.

After a few days of having her around the house, I have come to a few realizations about having a dog.

1) Having a dog around is not that bad.

2) Dog poop is gross. So is dog breath. And doggie licks.

3) We will NOT get a puppy. We will adopt or do some sort of rescue program.

4) They provide great built-in exercise. Saturday we spent a few hours at the hiking park with her, and we are taking lots of walks. Here is a pic of the fam at the park.

Elia absolutely loves Koda. She laughs and squeals at her, lets her lick her and tries to feed her food that she doesn't like. Gianna is a little more apprehensive. The first day or so she would run away from her or get up on the couch away from her. Now she is still a little nervous but LOVES to boss her around. We have her until Saturday, so I will probably post again about any other doggie-related adventures.