Ella Grace

One year ago (yesterday), we welcomed this sweet baby girl into our family.

She weighed 7# 8 oz.  And we named her Ella Grace.

What a difference a year makes!

Latest trick?  Pulling herself up to a stand....

And crawling around on all fours instead of just scooting around on her tummy.

Tonight, we had the whole Strom clan over to celebrate.  Love getting all the cousins together!

Checking it out.....

She approves!

How I love this baby girl.

My sweet Ella Grace, 

I love your soft skin, your long soft blonde hair, your bright blue eyes, the way you suck your left thumb, the way we look at each other and then put our foreheads together, your "content" look, your smile, your laugh when we tickle your tummy and holding you.  My last baby.... how I love to hold you.

Addendum:  I took Ella in on Monday for her 1-year check-up, 9 days after her birthday.  She weighed 20# 9 oz and was 29" in length putting her in the 50th %ile for both ht and wt.  Can't believe she hit the 20# mark.  I wanted to cry.

Out of This World

As I mentioned in a previous post, this is the outfit that Tanner can be found in on a regular basis around our house ever since he received it as a gift from his grandparents a couple weeks ago.  

So, yesterday I decided I needed to get this boy to the Air and Space Museum!

I've been to this fabulous museum many times, but the last time was ~3 years ago, so I enjoyed going back again.  I always love seeing and marvel at the original Spirit of Saint Louis.  I recently read the Aviator's Wife, so I loved seeing it even more so soon after reading that book.

I talked to the kids about Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh and what a feat it was for him to cross the ocean all by himself in that tiny plane.  And also what an amazing wife he had and pilot in her own right.  The plane behind the kids is the plane Charles and Anne flew together while trying to discover/explore airline routes.

We spent a lot of time in the hands-on exhibit.  Great area for kids.

They even had a plane kids could pilot.

Tanner's turn in the cock-pit!

Then we went to a demonstration learning about how planes fly.

And each of the kids got to take a turn with their wings!

Studying the solar system

So cool to see the original Wright Brother's airplane.  We all loved seeing this because a year and a half ago (July 2012), we all went to Kitty Hawk in the Outer Banks to see the actual place where the Wright Brothers flew this very plane for the very first time.  And the age of flight began!

I also took the kids to see Journey of the Stars, one of the shows they have in the Planetarium.

Great way to spend the day for an aspiring astronaut!

Seven

7 years (and 2 days) ago, I became a mom.  With the birth of our Lacey Bella, Dave and I became first-time parents.  Here is our Lacey girl at ~8 months. (I can't seem to find the digital files of her newborn pics at the moment.... ;))

Her first formal event - a dinner on a cruise to Bermuda :)

Always loved that peach fuzz hair and those chubby cheeks.

Fast forward seven years.  The original plan:  I arranged a baby-sitter for Riley and Ella and had grand plans to surprise Lacey by arriving at her school right in time for lunch with a Chick-fil-a kids meal complete with chocolate milk.  But alas, the snow spoiled my plans.  It ended up being a snow day, so instead, we stayed home and built a snow fort.

In the afternoon, I let Lacey have a play-date with two friends and together, they decorated her birthday cake.

That night, Lacey got to pick dinner (Macaroni and Cheese) and got to eat on the "You are Special" plate.  Next, she opened presents.  Her "big" present was tickets to the Disney on Ice show, which will be in town next week.

Seven things I love about my Lacey girl:

1) She made me a mom

2) She has a sweet personality.  And we need that in this house :)

3) She is a Daddy's girl.  Of course, I love what love she sends my way, but I have just always loved seeing the close relationship she has with her Daddy.

4) She is a good helper.  Such a blessing having a little helper as the oldest of four kids!

5) Great athlete.  At most games at this age, let's all agree that it's a bit painful to sit through all the practices and games where kids are just cluelessly running around and then pooping out after about 2 minutes.  I experience that on a regular basis with my other kids (whom I love for a million other reasons :)) But, Lacey has been in organized sports since the age of 4, and I can honestly say, that I have always truly enjoyed watching her.  She "gets" it and has natural athletic ability.

6) Makes friends easily and is a good friend to others

7) Her smile.  That fabulous, toothless grin.  And I especially love when she dances around with that smile as she belts out "Let it Go" (the song from Frozen) which she sings at the top of her lungs, dancing with all the motions, about 345 times a day :)

Winter Pool Party!

Lacey's birthday is on a Wednesday (22nd) this year, so we decided to have her birthday party on the Saturday before her birthday, which was yesterday.  The day before, she reminded me about a dozen times to "not forget my breakfast in bed!"  I found this rather funny for two reasons....  First of all, while I know many families have the "breakfast in bed for the birthday girl/boy" tradition, we do not. We have never done this on a birthday before that I can recall.  And, secondly, it wasn't her birthday.  But, she INSISTED on breakfast in bed and also INSISTED that it happen on her birthday-party day instead of her birthday.  So, at 7:30am on a Saturday (before we hurried and got ready for an 8:30 basketball game - notice uniform is already on), breakfast in bed was served!

Lacey has long figured that Tanner would be the only kid in this family to get a pool party.  But, we finally figured out a way to make it happen for her, thanks to the discovery of an indoor water park!

There were water-slides (this one had a 48" ht requirement and Lacey was thrilled that she made the cut!)......

And lots of other water attractions, fountains and such.  

After an hour and a half of swimming, we gathered and had cupcakes

Dave found a pool party with this many kids a bit on the stressful side, but it helped that we hired a sitter for our younger three kids and that most of these kids were comfortable and safe in the water.  And it all worked out!  Everyone, especially the birthday girl, had a great time!

Here is Lacey with her closest friends.  For posterity's sake.....

Keelie, Sophia, Julie, Lacey, Katie, Ava, Emma, Josie, Sarah, Naomi, Julianna and Piper.

Blast off!

Last Saturday (Jan 10th), Dave's parents returned from a week long cruise.  One of their stops was at Cape Canaveral where they spent the day at Kennedy Space Center.  I brought Tanner to KSC November of 2012 and he loved it.  While they were there, they came across this space suit and thought it was the perfect souvenir for Mr. T.

They were right!  He stayed in his suit ALL day long and he and Lacey found card board boxes that they made into space ships.

I got a video from the library all about Space and they spent the day exploring space from their space ships.  It was so cute.  We finally took a break from all of this to go get Tanner's hair cut.  He insisted on wearing his suit to the hair salon and getting his hair cut like an astronaut.  

Fast forward one week (to yesterday).  My little daredevil astronaut collided his face with a rug going about 100mph.  I was upstairs changing the baby when I heard some commotion and came downstairs to find Lacey crying about her toe getting hurt.  Tanner had the brilliant idea to get the boogie board and catch a wave flying down the stairs on it.  He thought it was great fun!  I of course put the kibosh on this immediately, which he was not very happy about.  I pointed out that Lacey had just gotten hurt. "Well, I didn't get hurt!" was his response.  I told him that, as his mom, I KNEW he would get hurt if he kept doing it and also, as the mom, I get to make the rules and the rule was - boogie boards on snow and water only.  

A few hours later, Dave and I left Tanner and younger two kids with a baby-sitter while we took Lacey and 11 of her friends to an indoor water park for her birthday.  You can imagine how thrilled we were to get a text from the baby-sitter about this little situation.  Yes, that's right, as soon as the house was "mom-free", little man just couldn't help himself.  Our little adrenaline junkie grabbed that boogie board, flew down the stairs and had a total face plant into the berber rug going crazy fast.  This morning, it actually looks a lot worse, so I should probably take another picture.  All the skin is rubbed off around his eye.  Knock on wood.... but it is a minor miracle that I have not yet visited the ER with this child!