I am starting to get seriously tired of winter. Just when I thought that the sickness had left our house and everyone was over the flu, Ella got the worst cold I could imagine. She has been coughing like crazy since Wednesday and hasn't had much of a voice since Thursday. The coughing has kept her up at night (along with Shawn and I) and it has also caused her to scream and cry a lot and be very cranky. Thankfully, she is finally getting over it.
The other reason that I am hating winter is that I am oh so tired of not being able to get outside and take some photos. I much prefer to shoot outside. The light is better and there is just so much more that I can take photos of - Ella can't hide nearly as well.
Since I have been busy taking care of my sick Ella (and Lily and the three other kids that I have been watching part-time), I'm only posting one photo for today. Ella is going to her grammy's for a few nigths this week, so I do hope to have time to edit some more photos and get them posted then. Until then, here is a shot of Ella feeding Lily. This was the first time she has ever wanted to hold Lily and feed her by herself, so I was pretty happy about it. 
Lily is starting to sit on her own for a few seconds, but I'm too scared to let go of her long enough to take a photo for fear that she will fall down. She is loving laying on the floor, but only if I lay with her and sing her songs. She is truly the only person who can enjoy my singing voice. Her very favorite song is ABCs. I don't know why, but she laughs at it every time. I keep encouraging her to roll over, but she is showing absolutely zero interest. Ella used to use rolling to her advantage and go wherever she wanted in the room so I guess I just expected Lily to roll too. But no, she has no interest at all. I guess that's good for me so I don't have to chase her around yet. 
I'm also convinced that she is going to be a crawler because every time she has tummy time she tries to scoot herself along the floor to get her toys. She isn't quite able to move much yet, but she really tries. 
Little Miss Ella has been in love with anything creative. She is especially loving painting and gluing. The only thing is that she HATES getting glue on her fingers. She starts crying and tells me to "get the yuckies off".
This is Lily's elephant that she is now in love with. She smiles and coos at it and tries so hard to get it in her mouth, but inevitably ends up dropping it and getting angry until someone will give it back to her again. 
And this is Ella's bed. Her teeny, tiny toddler bed. She is convinced that she needs to take five hundred animals to bed with her. Then she complains that she has nowhere to lay, but she will not let me take anyone out of her bed. She even has some of Lily's stuffies in there that she "takes care of" for Lily. Every night I try to sneak a couple out and hide them to make more room for her, but she takes inventory and always demands to have them back. It's starting to get out of control. I think maybe we should have went straight to a double bed and skipped the toddler bed altogether. 
And I couldn't resist putting this photo in because it just absolutely cracks me up. This is Ella and Lily in the ball pit. I love that Ella looks crazy and Lily looks terrified and confused. The poor little thing has no idea what's going on. Isn't it funny, though?
Step 3: Mix well.
Step 11: Add water and mix frosting well. 
Step 16. Enjoy!
Try to get four kids under the age of three to sit still and look at the camera at the same time. Just try it. Don't even think about trying to get them to smile, though, because it won't happen. Even with bribes and threats, it never works out. This was the best we could do and I thought it was pretty good, all things considered. 
My little Lily, relaxing on her pillow in front of the Christmas tree. 
Yay! I actually got a photo of both my girls in front of the tree! And yes, I know, there are a lot of presents under that tree. We all got very spoiled. 
Ella trying on her favorite present from Santa. Hopefully she'll like them just as much when she gets them on the ice. 
Another fave from Santa. I'm thinking Santa should have thought a little harder about how many thousands of times mommy would have to pick these up before he gave them to her. She does love them, though, and they are pretty cool. And hey, I get a new piece of jewelry to wear every day. 
Lily and the world's most expensive teether, Sophie the giraffe. She looks and sounds like a dog toy, but everyone I have talked to swears that she is the best. I hope she is!
Daddy and Ella trying out Ella's new drums before we left for the day. 
This is how you can tell how busy we were. Ella always wakes up the second the car turns off, but on Christmas day (after going to bed the night before at 10:30 and getting up that morning at 5:00) we drove to Alma, pulled her out of the car, threw her on her grammy's couch, and poked and prodded at her with no hopes of waking her up. 
We decided to stay home with our kids for New Year's and invited a few friends over to join us. Here is Hailey and Ella enjoying their special New Year's Eve cupcakes. 
This was taken at 1:30 a.m., just before Melissa and Kevin took their kids home for the night. Isn't it amazing how they don't even look the least bit tired? We thought for sure they would have crashed eventually, but they didn't slow down all night. 
And she LOVES laying under the Christmas tree and looking at the lights, like she was doing at grammy's house last weekend:
I love this one because of her sparkly eyes and her spikey hair:
And here's my one and only shot of Ella for today. I'm not sure how I managed to capture a natural smile, but I was glad to have it. 
I also decided to bring out Lily's jumperoo today since she has been so excited about standing on her feet. As soon as I put her in it she started screaming, but the second that I started moving her around and she could feel her feet under her, she loved it. She also loved the lights and sounds that it made. Yay for mommy! Another way to keep her occupied for a couple minutes at a time. 
And of course Ella wanted to rediscover the jumperoo too. She never takes any interest in Lily until a new toy comes into the picture. Then she's all over her. Oh well, I'm just glad that they spent a couple of minutes together today, especially since Lily loves to watch Ella so much. 