Ellie has been interested in taking photographs with my camera. I know it seems risky to let her use the camera, but it's under a return-with-no-questions-asked warranty for a few more months so I figured it was okay. Many of her photographs are blurry and it can be difficult to decipher what the subject is. I do love the snapshots above. It shows mostly random things from around our house, from Ellie's perspective. My favorite is the picture of the baby on its side from inside her dollhouse but I also love the picture of headless James. I don't know how much longer he'll have those chubby rolls on his arms and I don't notice them as much when I see photos that show his darling face. Well done, Ellie!
We had an early end of the school year celebration last Thursday on campus. It was a beautiful night and both Ellie and James loved jamming to the band and running across the lawn. Ellie played soccer with Henry and James did his best to keep up with the "big kids."
James was so fortunate to be the recipient of many fun toys for his first birthday. The basket in his room that held rattles and baby toys did not accommodate the new bigger boy toys. The basket seemed to have a toy explosion. We bought him a navy toy box for his first birthday and it arrived last week. Ellie helped John assemble it and I was thrilled to put all the toys in it. Now that it's here, I really feel the need to paint his walls blue. I'm hoping we can get to that this summer.
James turned 13 months old today and we celebrated by taking him for his first haircut. Mullet and crazy sideburns, be gone! He did great through the whole process and had Ellie by his side for moral support. Even though I felt that having his hair cut made his less of a baby, I'm pleased with the end result.
I bought two anchor hooks to be hung in James's nautical-themed bedroom. I think hooks are one of the most useful household accessories and we have them on the back of many of our doors. I didn't think the rustic look would go well in his room so I decided to paint them navy blue.
We hung them on the back of his bedroom door yesterday and put them to use right away. It's so nice to not hang his bag on the doorknob. I also hung them low enough so he can hang his own things in due time.
We spent yesterday in the park. We had a picnic lunch, rode on the swan paddle boats, feed geese and ducks and went to the playground. A good time was had by all.
We had a blast at Gwyn's Circus Birthday Party on Friday afternoon. It was so much fun to help her celebrate turning 5. Ellie enjoyed her first water balloon toss and watching the potato sack racers. James played on the swings and with the waterless water table. The really exciting thing for Ellie and some of the other 3 and 4 year olds was playing with Baker's doggie door.
James's new favorite place to play is the toy kitchen. Now that he likes to spend lots of time emptying the cabinets and standing at the sink/stove, Ellie has a renewed interest in the kitchen. She often likes to make creative food for us. I enjoyed some of the "ticky wicky" Ellie prepared for me the other day.
Our front hall is tiny and really only has one wall. One wall is the front door, one is the entryway into the living room and one is the coat closet. It's tight space and I've had the console table (see above) in it since we moved in. It seemed like such a waste of space because I couldn't use it for storage, only display. After James broke the glass hurricane that was on the bottom level of the console last week, I decided it was time for a change. So I bought the dresser below:
I spent Sunday (when we weren't in the ER, at a birthday party or Johnny Rockets) working on the dresser. I reprimed it and painted it with a high gloss paint and then put all of the hardware back on. Now my foyer looks like this:
I'm excited that we'll have a place to store things like hats and gloves, sidewalk chalk and bubbles and all of the other things that used to get left on the console table.
My poor Ellie made her third trip to the ER in less than a year yesterday. She fell down our outside steps on her bike and had to get six stitches on her face. She was a true champ and was very brave; she even handled it better than I did! We took her to Johnny Rockets as a treat for being such a trouper.
We had Julie and Todd's going away party at the Johnsons' house on Saturday. Even though we were gathering to say goodbye to our dear friends, we all had a great time. Luckily we still have a few more weeks before they leave for Chicago.
We celebrated Will's 4th birthday on Saturday at his pirate themed party. It was lots of fun and Ellie was especially excited to find some treasures on the treasure hunt. We've celebrated all of Will's birthdays (including when he was born) with him. It's sad for us that this was the last one he'll have here before they move to Chicago.
Ellie has been interested in taking photographs with my camera. I know it seems risky to let her use the camera, but it's under a return-with-no-questions-asked warranty for a few more months so I figured it was okay. Many of her photographs are blurry and it can be difficult to decipher what the subject is. I do love the snapshots above. It shows mostly random things from around our house, from Ellie's perspective. My favorite is the picture of the baby on its side from inside her dollhouse but I also love the picture of headless James. I don't know how much longer he'll have those chubby rolls on his arms and I don't notice them as much when I see photos that show his darling face. Well done, Ellie!
