Cousin Love

Lots of family in town this weekend! Grandma and Grandpa Rowles, Aunt Jenny and her 2 babies Phoebe and Gabriella. Gabriella is a little over 2 months, and Gianna loves her. Phoebe is 18 months, and Elia is having a hard time sharing. But thats ok, they are still cute.

Its gonna be a fantabulous weekend!

A New Aunt!

So Uncle Tim popped the question Friday night. Ashley had her Senior Art Studio Friday night and once all of her dresses were modeled, he got down on one knee and proposed. Here is a video of it. (quality is not that great)

We have all been obsessed with Ashley from the day we met her, and these pictures will help illustrate that point. She is incredibly creative and talented. Here are some other dresses she made:

This was taken seconds after he popped the question. She looks so happy! The dress on the right is supposed to represent a perfume bottle.

This one represents the hair curler. Look at the shoes made out of electrical cords!

This dress represents a blow dryer. Same sort of shoe, just a little different design.

This one is probably my favorite, and Ashley spent a TON of time on it. This one represents eye brow pencils. The shoes are so freaking cool. Wish I had a closer up picture.

Now, an art show is probably about the worst place in the world to bring a toddler and a 4 year old to, but it obviously had to be done. UD's art village has lots of balconies to run up and down, and THANK God I had copiuous amounts of m&ms from Teacher Appreciation week. There was some pretty amazing art, including a few rock and pebble formations on the floor that could have very easily been destroyed by a curious Elia. Thats why I didn't get many more pictures, or if I did, they weren't that great. The girls looked beauteous as usual in their dresses.

The white box they are sitting on was for the models to sit on. They were totally cheesing for the camera at the end of the night on their sugar highs!
Afterwards, Chris' cousin Katie, who is a freshman at UD came over to babysit so that we could all go out and celebrate. Welcome to the family Ashley!

Mother's Day Tea

So I took a 1/2 day on Thursday so I could go to G's mother's day preschool tea. It started out in the church with a reading and then all the little preschoolers got to put a flower by the statue of Mary.

In true Elia fashion, she was horrible since she had to sit still in a church pew. She did manage to make a quick phone call though.

Afterwards we had tea and cake and it was so cute. The student dipped the chocolate pretzel lthemselves!

After that all the kids ran around in a circle until G's teacher miraculously got all the kids to sit in a circle. I could never be a preschool teacher!

So sweet, so fun, and so glad I could take the morning off to spend it with G!

A Rough 2 Weeks

There has been a certain element of stress going on here, and I am pretty hopeful its over now. 2 weeks ago was the taks test, and that was quite the beat down. Tuesday and Wednesday were the testing days and it was seriously no fun. The whole school doesn't get specials, (music, art, pe) and the kids that are testing don't get recess. All the while, students aren't allowed to talk to each other, for fear that they would talk about the test to each other. Total. beat. down. Then school this week was much better, things are a tad more relaxed and I get to teach my absolute favorite- the solar system. It was also teacher appreciation week, more on that later though. This week for the girls was pretty hard. My sitter can only babysit for me on Tuesdays in May so they started a new daycare Wednesday. It was hard to leave them somewhere else, and this was Elia's first time in a daycare altogether. It turned out fine, but then Thursday we had to do it all over again at another new daycare (one that is able to drive G to preschool on Thursdays) and this was also hard on Elia.

I think she is starting to enter into the terrible 2s, and on top of it this newness just isn't sitting well with her. Ive been trying to give her extra love and attention, but it also seems like she is going in timeout more often. Thankfully both daycares are in home, so Gianna and Elia are together instead of in separate classes. I think that makes Elia feel safer.

So what got me through this week was the fact that it was Teacher Appreciation week. It was amazing. Monday I had off, Tuesday each student wrote me a note. Wednesday each student brought me a flower (seriously, I have 3 huge bouquets in my house right now). Also, a few parent volunteers covered each grade level's lunch and recess so that each grade level could go off campus for lunch. We went to Cristina's, it was AWESOME. Thursday all my students wore the color blue because they know it is my favorite color. And then Friday, almost every student brought me a bag of M&Ms because they know it is my favorite. I got 18 bags total, can you believe it?

Even though it was a 4 day (plus I took a half day Thursday) week for me, it seemed like a really long week. Glad its over.

Aunt Shanny

Her visit was AWESOME. Only pictures can really tell the story. We didn't do anything amazing- just hung out around the house with the girls, ran errands, watched movies, and went out to eat Saturday night.

Best part about this Mexican restaurant by our house is that there is a playground outside for the kiddos. Makes for a VERY enjoyable meal. Kids are happy and busy, and you don't have to keep them constantly entertained at the table. How awesome is that picture? Margarita in the foreground and the girls playing in th background. And thats a patron margarita. Cuz thats how we roll. (actually its because we asked for a pitcher and they took that to mean patron. I guess the 2 words sorta sound alike)

Sunday we watched Tangled and just hung out.

Such a great visit!

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!

Easter Part 2

On the way home from church, Elia fell asleep. She woke up so snuggly.

Then we tried to take some family photos. It totally reminded me of the Christmas pictures I tried to take in December.

Love these:

The Easter Bunny brought G a bubble gun so that is what the girls are going gaga over in the pictures. Next up, the hunt. Elia had to be completely guided through it and after a while, she just turned into Gianna's pack horse. Hilarious!

Easter Part 1

I took too many pictures. They are so cute though, that I have to include all of them, so it will be a 2 post ordeal.

Saturday night we dyed Easter eggs. Really not the best activity for a 2 year old, but we survived with only one broken egg.

Easter Morning

Since Gianna gave up ice cream for lent, the Easter Bunny brought them some. Since he didn't want it to melt, he left a note to the girls telling them to follow the tracks to a special treat.

The Easter Bunny knows just where to hide the baskets. Gianna's was in our radio cabinet (passed down to me from my parents house) which the Easter Bunny used to hide my Easter baskets when I was a little girl. And Elia's basket was in the easel, which I thought was very fitting.

He left presents for everyone, including the adults. I got some wine and the uncles got beer. The Easter Bunny also left a communal bowl for everyone.

Then we made a bunny cake (not pictured) and some bird nests. This was so easy and fun! It was just your basic rice krispie treat recipe but using chow mein noodles and forming them into nests in cupcake holders. Then the girls filled them with "eggs."

More on our Easter egg hunt and some cute family pictures in my next post. Happy Easter!