Gardening and More

It's that time of year again!   Seed starting for our summer garden.

This was an evening Daddy-Daughter project while Mommy worked with Walt to sleep in his new space.

I love that they have these special moments together.  Cary is such an amazing Dad!  Ellery is learning so much from him.  

Our garden is one of my favorite things on our property.

We are planting a few new things this year but mostly cold weather things for now.

Speaking of the sleeping situation....it's going MUCH better.  

Walt & Ellery are now napping together and we are staggering their bed times.

The transition wasn't that bad.  We just needed consistency!

He's out AGAIN

Okay so the sleeping transition isn't going THAT well anymore.

The past 2 nights we've put Walt back in his crib, after HOURS of what I would like to call "Super Nanny-ing" it up with him.  He gets out, we put him back, he gets out, we put him back.  Ugh!

Ellery has been a DREAM.  She just stays in bed, watching him crawl all over the place-trying to get in bed with her-talking (very loudly), etc.  She does not call out when he walks out of her room.  Actually I think she looks at the baby monitor camera like "Hey guys!  He's out AGAIN!"

The surprising thing is that when we do make the decision to put him in the crib she becomes HYSTERICAL.  This girl LOVES having her brother sleep in her room.

We'll try it again tonight.  Hopefully it will work tonight considering Ellery will be at church until late and he should be sound asleep by the time she gets home.

I'm pretty relaxed about the whole thing.  Interesting....

New Bed!

We did it.  Made the bed switch.  Notice I said "bed" and not "bedroom."

There has been a LOT surrounding this transition over the past several months but this past weekend he slept in his new space for the first time; and sort of soundly I might add.

I wont even go into the actual BED details, but this will not be the final solution.  For now the trundle mattress on the floor is working just fine. 

Saturday morning is when we made the decision to let Walt sleep in Ellery's room.  The mattress has been positioned like this for a while so they have had plenty of time to play and become comfortable with this new set up.  So Saturday afternoon I took the kids to the Children's Museum and then they headed over to Mar Mar & Papa's house for the rest of the afternoon and dinner (oh yea, we didn't let them take naps).

By the time the kids arrived home, Walt was especially tired and went right to sleep.  He did wake a few times (okay I was up from 2:30-4:30 am) but it wasn't as bad as I thought.  More like simple comforting because I think he was overly tired.  Then we had to deal with Ellery's excitement and wanting to get all up in Walt's face to kiss and snuggle him while he was trying to sleep.

Truthfully I expected a lot more difficulty but thankfully it has not been that bad!

Walt naps in his crib while Ellery naps in her bed.  We'll figure out how to do naps with the baby some other time.  His clothes are still in the nursery and I'm not sure when I'll move those things over.  For now the focus is just on sleeping soundly. 

Ellery Is 4 Years Old!

My precious baby girl is turning 4 today.

 Just over the last couple of weeks, Cary and I have noticed a change in her. She's growing up. She's following directions better (for the most part) and overall we're really seeing her change into a "Big" girl.

We decided to have family over Monday evening to celebrate. I have been DYING to try this Rainbow Cake and finally basically planned my entire day/menu around this cake.

Courtney Cassada told me it took a long time, and it does-pretty much all day!  So in case you missed the instructions on Courtney's blog, here you go:

2 boxes of white cake mix.
Divide the batter up into 6 portions (that works out to be approximately 1 1/2 cups per color).
Mix a bit of the GEL food coloring into each portion (this actually take a bit of time).

I had (2) 9" round cake pans and borrowed a third from my mom.
Bake cakes per box instructions.
EXCEPT-because the batter is so thin in the cake pan these only took about 13 minutes to cook.
They have to cool completely in order to get the cakes out of the pans with out tearing them up (again TIME).

I made white butter cream icing from some Princess Cupcake cookbook I have in the cabinet.  But you can use tub icing.  I realized once I had the kids down for naps and dinner was in the crock pot I time to make the icing.

I found some chocolate icing in the cabinet and decided to use that as my "layering" icing.  This decision turned out to be best because otherwise I would not have had enough white icing for the entire cake!

(You can thank Cary for the updated 29 week belly picture.  I feel so HUGE.  Believe it or not this was the best picture, even though I am showing a double chin.)

I told Ellery she could help with her Rainbow Cake when she got up from nap.  When she saw the cake she was first SUPER excited but then very disappointed it was already done.  That's when I explained she was putting the BEST PART on her cake....SPRINKLES!

If you do try this cake, be for-warned at this point.  The sprinkles did not "stick" to my icing as I had originally thought they would so when Ellery went to town shaking sprinkles they just rolled off the cake and onto the table and floor.  Much to my pregnant surprise I was pretty relaxed about this new mess and just scooped them up to press into the side of the cake.  Oh, well except for the part where I actually had to bend over, that isn't too much fun these days.  Thank goodness for a vacuum cleaner!

Dinner and the evening turned out to be lots of fun.

I served pot roast from the crock pot (DREAM DINNER for those of us who choose to spend all of our time on a cake the day of a party), salad, mashed potatoes & rolls.  Cary's folks brought Ellery & Walt chicken nuggets from the one and only Chick Fil A!

We had helium balloons but also just regular balloons all over the house.  I'm still amazed at how much children will be entertained for HOURS with regular balloons to throw around.

New birthday outfit #1.

So I bought this from the Girls department in Target, as opposed to the Baby/Toddler department which is where I typically shop.  It was one of those items that I walked past, but then stopped and backed the cart up to grab an XS.  I really didn't think it would fit, but when she put it on (in front of all the grandparents) my heart sort of stopped.  It's a super cute dress but it also fits her perfectly and I realized in that moment that my baby is growing up.  We will be shopping in the Girls department now!

THE CAKE!!!  Yes, it's about 7" tall.

This cake is so big and sweet I have no clue how we are going to finish it.  I'll probably take some to her preschool class on Thursday.

I love this girl so much.  She is going to be an AMAZING big sister to her new sibling.  Ellery is very loving with Walt and learning how to teach him to be a big boy.  When we were driving home from school last week (on Valentine's Day) she was just sitting in her car seat talking my ear off and making me laugh so deeply.  I had a moment where I KNEW God placed her in our family.  She is exactly what we need.  Girls can be a challenge but when you experience moments when your work is paying off, OH WHAT JOY!