Having some issues with the blog formatting tonight, but there's a little update at the very bottom. Here are pictures galore...(in no particular order)...

Little miss Diva playing dress up

Playing dress up would not be complete without the tutu, aprin, and mittins

Beach pictures! I tagged along with Lindsay, Hayden and Darci to PC Beach a couple of weeks ago. Way too short, but a much needed vacation.

We tried to have a little photo shoot with Hayden and Ella our last night at the beach, but Hayden immediately ran to the water and got completely soaked (note he is not wearing pants)

Kickin back eating breakfast on the balcony

Janet's graduation breakfast at Cracker Barrel in Auburn. Congrats Janet!

The happy couple that got married last August, and finally gets to live in the same city!

Ella just looks so grown up here just chatting along at breakfast

Ella's birthday tutu, given to her by Jacob and Dylan Strickland, at their messy art party (she still tries to sleep in it Jenny!).

The farm! Can you find Ella and me in the picture below?

I guess I am definitely out of the habit of blogging. But the good news is I AM in the habit of cleaning! For once in my life! I guess this house selling thing is good for something.

Let's see, what all has been going on with the Bowles family.....too much to catch up on. I'll just update from the past week. Ella had her first cat fight at school...apparently her and 2 other girls were fighting over a stuffed bear...hair pulling, pushing, screaming. It's amazing what little 2 years old will do for something they really want. On that same day, she came home and sang the entire alphabet all by herself. Of course the video camera was dead, so I got a not so great recording on my phone. She is definitely testing us all the time these days, but is still such a little sweetheart about 98.2% of the time.

We just found out Ella finally got into Samford's daycare program, so she'll start there in August. It only took 3 years for her to get in (yes, got on the waiting list when I was 3 months pregnant). It will be much more convenient to my work and her doctor's office, and they have a very wonderful program there. We will definitely be sad for Ella to leave St. Peters and all of her wonderful friends she has made (yes, she actually talks about her friends at the age of 2!) but I think she'll adjust in no time.

The house thing. Ugh. We've had about 13 or so people look at it since it went on the market around Easter, and ALMOST one offer last week. Right before we got the offer the husband found out he lost his job! Bummer! (for him and for us!). 2 more lookers today, so we'll see if anyone bites soon. At least we are having some more traffic. We're TRYING to not get too attached to a house until we have a contract on ours.

Let's Go Fly a kite....

We had Ella's 2nd birthday party at Homewood park this past Sunday. The weather couldn't make up its mind, but luckily it cleared up for most of the party. We had......

Kites that wouldn't fly.....

Ring around the rosies....

a little playground time....
even though some didn't want to leave to go open presents

Popsicles galore
Lots of friends and family

cupcakes

doggies

and fun!

oh yea, and lots of presents!

thanks for helping open them cousin Hayden!

Our little 2 year old diva with a new, handmade apron from Natalie

and dress up shoes from who else....Aunt Cookie.

Ella must have had a fun day, since she fell asleep before eating dinner!

Happy Birthday Ella!!!!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! So, its been over 3 months since I've updated the blog! Sorry! I'll try to get better I promise! I miss posting things, but things have just been so crazy. Our house is officially on the market as of yesterday! Now, if I can only keep it clean for a few days....


Today is our sweet little Ella's 2nd birthday! It is so hard to believe she is already 2. Just unbelievable. It will be impossible to get caught up from the past 3 months, but here are some things that Ella is doing now that just amaze us. She can sing almost all of her ABC's (along with us), sing Rock a By Baby all by herself and say a few little nursery rhymes like Ring a round the Rosies; tonight she recited the entire Pat the Bunny book (maybe we read that one a little too much!). She can recognize almost all of her letters and colors, she is speaking in short complete sentences and phrases and we can pretty much always understand what she's saying. She has the best sense of humor and is just the sweetest little girl. Her favorite movie right now is Mary Poppins and she loves to sing Just a Spoonful of Sugar. I think she's got a little crush on Michael Banks.


I glanced through our 600 pictures I just downloaded from the past couple of months...so here's a quick glimpse of what we've been up to:

Easter Egg Hunt

Aldridge Gardens

Where did the bird go? I don't know!

Aunt Cookie babysitting...of course giving her sweets

The sweetest little girl!!!

Our winter wonderland

Not a fan of the cold

Why we love our dogs

Yes, already playing chess (just kidding!)

ok, this is just kidding also....

time to go clean the kitchen....

Ho, Ho, Ho!

Christmas and News Years came and went so quickly, its just hard to believe its 2009 already. We had such a wonderful Christmas! Ella's new favorite phrase is "Ho, Ho, Ho!" She doesn't quite understand Christmas yet, but she definitely understands that getting presents is a lot of fun. Here are some pictures from Christmas day, and I'll post a video shortly.

Checking her PDA while riding her horsey

Sporting her new Samford cheerleader outfit

Aunt Cookie and Ella

Dreaming of his Red Rider BB gun

I have been blessed with some time off between Christmas and New Years. Ella's school has been closed for most of the time as well, so I have definitely enjoyed getting to spend some quality time with Ella.

She just amazes me more and more every day, with more words and phrases, things she is copying or coming up with on her own, dancing, singing; her drawings and coloring is quite impressive I think for a 20 month old, and she is actually starting to color in the lines in her coloring books; she'll point out and say almost everything in her picture books; she is so expressive and is able to tell me pretty much anything she needs and wants, which has the temper tantrums down to very few! Now don't you dare try and take something out of her hands b/c she'll try to bite you! But if you ask her nicely, say please, and bargain with her, she'll hand it over no problem. She is trying to push her boundaries more, but she's also learning her boundaries pretty quickly. She likes to show off that can jump up in the air, and has the best sense of humor!

It's kind of strange because she can entertain herself for almost an hour playing make believe ,coloring, rocking on her horse, puzzles, looking at books, etc. I am actually almost able to get some housework done and bills paid for once since she was born! But its almost kind of sad too that she's growing up so much!

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday!

Christmas pictures at Morris Avenue

A few weeks ago Ella and I tagged along with my friend and photographer Stephanie Fisher (www.sfisherphotography.com) to Morris Avenue to get our little ones to pose for some Christmas pictures. Stephanie is also our fabulous photographer (and is hopefully going to be my photography teacher soon in all of our free time!). These pictures below were taken with my camera (and i actually took the ones that I am not in!). But our adorable Christmas card photo was taken by Stephanie...and is hopefully showing up in your mailbox soon (got them out a little late!).

All was fun and games....

Until I asked Ella to hug Hannah and she accidentally let go of her red balloon....
It was so sad!

A little late, but thanks Stephanie!!

Catching up...

Ok, a slacker once again. Busy, busy, as always! Let's see if I can update from the past month and a half...

- Ella is copying everything we say now and is quite a chatter box; she is putting words together herself; said her first sentence a few weeks ago...I Ate Cheese Toast! She likes to run around the house yelling, "Happy Day, Happy Day!"

- John taught her how to feed the dogs. He'll put the dog food in the bowls, and she'll go and set down each bowl just in the right spot. She'll even go and take some kernels of food to Brinkley to get her interested. Ella wakes up every morning wanting to give both Brinkley and Anne Marie hugs and they are definitely troopers.

- She now knows several colors, shapes, lots of letters; its amazing how much her little brain is soaking up and how much she remembers

- Ella is trying to sing (twinkle, twinkle little star...adorable!); she loves to dance and loves to draw (still prefers pens and colored pencils).

- John has been having court stuff in Montgomery, Huntsville, Tuscaloosa; had his first trial (but then in the courtroom it ended up getting postponed to January); he is loving his job, but has quickly learned that law school does not teach you how to be a lawyer!

- I am now the Financial Planning Association's director of public outreach (pro-bono). It's a fairly new position, and they are really wanting to focus on public outreach this next year with everything going on with the economy. In addition to being in charge of financial planning classes at a women and children's homeless shelter, I'll be coming up with ideas to reach out to the general public who can't afford financial planning advice. Yea, not sure how I am going to have time to do this, but I am looking forward to it!

- We are hoping to get our house on the market in the spring sometime and had a real estate agent come and tell us everything we should do to get it ready. Long list..... but we are hoping to take advantage of the low interest rates and lower housing prices to get into a house that we can actually fit into (maybe a basement for john's art supplies, music equipment, and ella's toys, toys, toys galore). Again , not sure how we'll have time to get everything done to our house and then pack up and move, but we are pretty motivated with the low prices and interest rates. Most of the houses around us are taking anywhere from 3 days to 3 months to sell, so hopefully we'll be able to sell it quickly, but we'll see.

- We just got rid of cable again, so maybe now I'll have more time to update our blog more often!

We are definitely looking forward to Christmas. A little elf told me that Ella might be getting a red vintage kitchen, and a handmade rocking horse. We'll just have to see what Santa decides to bring! Hope you are all doing well, and I'll try to start updating more often!

Thanksgiving

Collage of pictures from Thanksgiving at Elizabeth's lovely house in Montgomery

(try clicking on the collage for a larger view)