Happy 3rd Birthday, Eliana!

A few days after Ellie's birthday, she had her 3 year well-child checkup with the doctor.  Her stats were:
Height: 39.5 inches (Not sure of %, but would guess it's in the upper 90's!)
Weight: 32.6 lbs (68th%)

Besides her stats, she had another regular, healthy checkup and the doctor said she is doing great!  She started potty-training the day after her birthday and is doing wonderfully this time around!  (Good thing, too, since we weren't going to back out this time if it didn't go well!).  She had mentioned a couple months back that she would use the potty when she turned three and we held her to that.  We are learning that we can't force this child to do anything she doesn't want to do!  Sleeping through the night, walking, moving to a twin bed from a crib, and now toilet-training have all been the same story with her - she will do it when she's ready and not a minute before!  But thankfully, we are learning that when she is ready, we usually have a pretty easy go of it.

Being pretty pleased with how Victoria's 1 year photos had turned out, we decided to take Eliana back to Sears to get her 3 year photos done.  I am so glad we did, because they turned out beautiful!  So after her doctor appointment on Wednesday, she and I headed over to Sears for her appt.  Despite the nearly 45 minute wait (the family before us was REALLY slow getting their shots and choosing their photos), Ellie did great for the camera!  I still can't believe how big our little girl has gotten...

Eliana's 3rd Birthday Weekend

We decided to move away from the birthday party idea for Eliana this year and instead favored something we thought she'd enjoy (and needed) more - a weekend away with just mom and dad!  With that said, we did have a small dinner with the grandparents on Friday night at Perkins and then invited them back to the house for gifts and cake.

Eliana did have one request for her birthday this year - she wanted me to make her a "Green Clifford" cake.  Not really understanding (or maybe just not liking) the whole Clifford part of it, I knew she would be more than happy so long as her cake was green, so I went with another favorite of hers - a Toy Story theme and made a green alien cake from the movies.  It worked - she loved it!  She was also able to open her presents that evening where she acquired a new dollhouse, complete with several rooms of furniture from her grandparents and aunt and uncle.

On Saturday morning, we packed up, drove to the Cities, dropped Victoria off with Aunt Heather and Uncle John, and made our way to St. Paul to the Children's Museum of MN.  Ellie really enjoyed it, and it looks like Nick did, too!

After the museum, we headed for our hotel (City Plaza Riverfront in downtown St. Paul) where we enjoyed the rest of the weekend relaxing, watching movies, pushing buttons (it's amazing how many elevators you ride in the city, and what a great way for a 3 year old to practice her numbers!), and of course, SWIMMING!  She will always be our little waterbug!  The whole weekend was a success and Nick and I really enjoyed our one-on-one time with Eliana.  We are amazed at what a big girl she is turning into and she is just so stinking smart!

The only downfall to the weekend was that it turned out Victoria had come down with a stomach bug on Saturday.  Despite lots of smiles and a good temperament, she did vomit while with Heather and John, but they were good sports about it and we figure it's good practice for them with their future kids!  Ha ha!  We also managed to share some vomit at Steve and Amanda's that weekend after we stopped at their house on our way home to clean out the second carseat of the weekend that was covered in vomit.  It took a few days for Tors to get over the bug, but she's back to her happy self!  Best of all, Eliana had a great birthday weekend!

Easter Sunday 2012

Another weekend filled with great celebrating (He Has Risen!) and family time fun!  A good church service, fantastic meal, fun Easter Baskets, and an Easter Egg hunt were all in store on this Easter Sunday:

Oh, cousins!  Is this what it will be like trying to get my three girls together for a picture in the near future?

Big Girl Bedrooms!

This post is long overdue as the girls have been in the "big girl rooms" for almost two months now, but I finally had the opportunity to get some after-photos taken and for all the work that went into the redecorating, I had to make sure to post my efforts!

So, anyway, with Baby #3 on the way, we knew we wouldn't be able to fit all three kids into the nursery upstairs.  Plus, Eliana and Victoria weren't sleeping all that well in the same room anymore - there were too many mornings we would wake up at 5 or 5:30am to listen to the girls playing with each other.  While we loved the sound of them both so happy together, it was just getting earlier and earlier each morning and we knew it was time.  So, after a couple of months of waiting while Victoria learned to finally sleep through the night, and of course the time it took for me to paint the girls room (a difficult task with two "helpers" around!), we finally made the transition to moving the two girls downstairs to their own bedrooms in the basement!

They both seem to really love their new rooms and we are all getting much better sleep at night!  Ellie loves the privacy that comes with her own room (when we removed the baby gate from the stairs, she insisted we put it on her bedroom door so that Victoria couldn't get in - which by the way, Victoria HATES!).  And Victoria is doing really well in her room too.  She usually rises around 6:30am now and is more than content playing with the baby dolls in her crib for about 20 minutes!  Nick and I are enjoying this as we know in two months we will be back to waking every few hours for the baby...

I chose some bright colors for their rooms since they are both basement rooms, I wanted them to seem extra cheery.  I also tried to pick colors that they wouldn't outgrow right away - rooms where they will enjoy them for quite some time.  I'm happy with how they turned out.  There are a couple small projects that have yet to be done (a couple small paint touch-ups, shortening V's curtains, a few more wall decorations in Eliana's room), but that will just have to wait as I simply don't have the time to deal with the details right now.

Without further ado, here are some before and after photos of the change from empty storage and guest rooms, to two big girl bedrooms!

Before Photos of Guest Bedroom:

Eliana's Big Girl Room:

Before Photos of Storage/Extra Bedroom:

Victoria's Big Girl Room:

Auntie Heather made this for Victoria's First Birthday!

My next big project will be the baby's nursery since we never did decorate or paint it when we moved in!

Victoria's First Birthday Party

A monkey cake for my "chunky monkey"!

We had a really fun day celebrating Victoria's First Birthday!  We invited the aunts and uncles and grandparents over for an afternoon and evening of visiting, food, celebrating, and fun!  The day went really well and Victoria had lots of fun and of course got incredibly spoiled.  There are a few of us missing in my photos (Grammy, Papa, Eliana, and myself), but I know that others were able to get photos I wasn't, so will post those when I get them!  Here are a few photos from the day:

Uncle Steve, Nana, Kenzie, and Grandpa

Victoria's Godparents and Daddy helping her open gifts.

This photo is for those that still aren't convinced Victoria is my mini-me!  These were taken on my first birthday...