Mimi

Tomorrow would have been my Mimi's 82 birthday.

It is still so hard for me to believe that she has almost been gone for two whole years.

Sometimes when I see cars like the one she drove I still look and make sure it is not her.

It's crazy really...

And sometimes I think...gosh I need to call Mimi and then I remember she gone.

I think the saddest thing...the thing that makes my heart ache so is thinking that Ellie will never get to meet my sweet Mimi. She will never be able to hear her cackle laugh or taste her fried dressing or watch her make beautiful things on her sewing machine.

We can always tell Ellie stories about our Mimi...but it will never be the same.

After Mimi died...at her funeral I had SO many people come up to me and tell me what an amazing person she was. Everybody had something different to tell me about what she had done for them or what she had made for them or a prayer group they were in together or a bible study they were doing together. It was special for people to tell me this but it also made me even more sad about her being gone because I realized she was an even more amazing women of God than I had known. It was just overwhelming to me how many people's lives she impacted.

So tomorrow I will think about my Mimi and I will miss her so much.

I will wish so, so badly that we could be together eating lunch and going to Old Time Pottery to celebrate her birthday.

And I will be telling my sweet Ellie about her Mimi's birthday and how I wish so badly they could have known eachother.

Come on Spring!

Who is ready for spring?!?

We are!

With all this beautiful weather we have been having around here we have definitely caught Spring fever! We are ready for Spring to get here and stay!

We have been playing outside every-single-day, wearing short sleeves and I even bought some ice cream the other day because it felt like an ice cream kind of night with the weather!

I also noticed this morning when I was driving to work that some of the trees were starting to bloom and I have started to see daffodils on the side of the road!

I sure hope the Winter weather is gone for good!

Easily Entertained

The other day Matt and I went car seat shopping with Miss Ellie.

She had so much fun!

She found a "secret passage" from one side of the shelf to the other and you would have thought she discovered a pile of gold!

She was SO happy and proud of herself.

She crawled back and forth for at least 20 minutes!

It was a great way to occupy her while we decided on a bigger seat for Miss L.

Sunshine Time

The past few days have just been beautiful so we have been outside having some sunshine time!

Ellie LOVES our new deck that Matt built in the fall.

She loves to climb up the stairs then try to figure out how to get back down them...

There is no telling how many pairs of pants she is going to ruin crawling around outside this spring!

On Wednesday I had some bulbs to plant...so she stayed close by to supervise (and climb the stairs)!

But after a while she got bored so...she started eating grass and mulch...

We decided to stop and take a swinging break to get our minds off eating stuff!



( If you look close enough you can probably see grass still in her mouth!)

But like all good thing...it had to come to an end...and Miss Ellie let me know when she had had enough!

Happy Valentines Day!

Little Miss Ellie says "Happy Valentine's Day to ALL!"

She was super busy this morning playing with her new Valentine toy!

Her favorite thing to do was to try and eat the farm animal

Ellie Reese...I hope you have a wonderful 1st Valentine!

We are so happy that you are here to celebrate this year with us!

We love you so!

Beauty Queen

Our beautiful niece Gracie was in a pageant the other night.

We went out to watch her and cheer her on!

She did SO good and looked SO pretty!

Here is a picture with Gracie and her mom.

And here is Gracie and Ellie Bellie.

Ellie LOVES her cousin so much!

Gracie you looked beautiful!

~We love you so very much~

Valentine Truffles

We have been busy this morning making Valentine's Truffles.

The ones on the right are Oreo Truffles and the one on the left at Easy Chocolate Truffles.

They were pretty easy and fun to make.

Here are the links below.

Oreo Truffles - http://www.kraftrecipes.com/recipes/easy-oreo-truffles-95085.aspx

Easy Chocolate Truffles - http://www.famousfrenchdesserts.com/chocolate-truffle-recipes.html

Little Monkey

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Ellie loves to climb...on anything and everything she can!

Everytime she thinks she can climb up onto something she will hike her chunky little leg up as far as she can and see if she can get it up far enough to crawl on top.

It is the funniest thing to see!

Well combine her love of the dishwasher and her love of climbing and...

You have Ellie's dream come true!

Obsession

It looks like Little Miss Ellie shares something in common with me...

her obsession with M & M's (or M-ies as we call them)

The other day we were over at my sister's house and after the girls ate their lunch we let them have just a few. I know its awful to give candy to a 10 month old... but I just know how much I love them. Well now Ellie absolutely LOVES them too.

She can hear them from half way across the house.

I guess there will be no more sneaking m-ies for me anymore!

10 Months Old!

Our sweet little angel turned 10 months old yesterday

Oh how time flies!

I think back to this time last year and remember how busy we were getting ready for our sweet little angel to get here. There was SO much to do to get ready for her. And now she is finally here and she is such a sweet blessing from God. She gets sweeter and sweeter every single day. Some days I think she is SO cute and SO sweet that I could just eat her up with I spoon!

I love you so much my sweet little Ellie Bellie!

Here are some things we don't want to forget about you at 10 months...

* The sweet way you have started to wave at anybody you see.

* How you tuck your arms in and lay your head down on my chest when you want to snuggle...I think that this is so so sweet and it just melts my heart everytime you do it.

* Your sassy little crawl...You crawl around like a little wind up doll...its the cutest thing EVER!

* The sweet, sweet sound of your voice. I just LOVE to hear you talk.

*How you have figured out how to open up Jack's pen and let him out. You are so proud of yourself!

*How you have learned to stand up! You look so big when you do this!

* How you are always standing up in your crib ready to "greet" us when we come to rescue you from your bed.

* The sweet way you sing yourself to sleep. Me and your daddy just love to hear this sound...

I cannot believe that in 2 short months you will be 1!

We have some party planning to do!

New Do!

Elle Belle is sporting a new do...

She is not so sure about it though!

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I think that it looks SUPER cute but I do believe it will take some time to convince her of that!