Worst blogger ever!

I periodically check my friends' blogs for updates. I have to say I am a person who LOVES reading the mundane details of other people's lives, even people I don't know that well. I always get so frustrated when I pull up a blog address and see the same picture over and over. I think why don't you just update your blog already?!! "Hello kettle!" I am the pot. I know I will try REALLY hard to do better. Not so much for you who may enjoy reading my blog, but for the kiddos. This seems to be my only way to document their adorable little lives.  One of these days I MIGHT actually scrapbook it again. Thank you for giving me a reason to write down everything and for reading MY incredibly mundane details!!

Funny little person

There are no shortage of funny stories around this house lately with Ella's new expansive vocabulary.  Here are a few of my faves:

Ella and I were chatting and she asked when she was going to see Aunt Jeri next. I said "I don't know I think Jeri is out of town". Ella says "Oh is she in Georgetown?" I said "how do you know where Georgetown is?" she replied "Georgetown is where Nana lives and I live in Wound Wock!" well yes, yes you do little smarty!

The other day Carol and I took the girls to Ross and Carol was trying on some shoes. Ella sits down, takes off her little tennies and finds the most god awful spike healed hoochie shoes she could find. She carefully slips her tiny little feet into the stripper shoes then shouts "Oh My gosh! These are SIXTY dollars! That is TOO much!" and throws them back on the shelf. She's a sale shopper already :)  

Ella's class had their very first performance at the Spring show this week. I fully expected to see Ella in the front row singing her heart out.  I guess the music teacher was worried that the kids wouldn't sing infront of everyone. So there job was to shake maracas to a song. Of course this is not enough excitement for our little one, but she made the best of it. While the other kids were mildly shaking their maracas and one was banging them together. Ella put her whole heart and soul into shaking those little noise makers. She was smiling and shaking her whole body. I even saw her little booty dance come out for a few minutes as she danced on the alter of our Catholic church! Several people around me said "Look at the little on in the polka dots. She is really into it!" As we left the church several people that I didn't know stopped to tell us what a good job Ella did! I think I need to find her some dance lesson ASAP

Matt's gorgeous pictures from Easter

Easter Fun!!

Easter was so much fun this year! Ella can now understand the excitement behind the holidays. Although, I think I totally freaked her out by telling her that the Easter Bunny was going to come to her house in the middle of the night and hide eggs. Her explanation of Easter is as follows: "The Easter Bunny going come to my house and make a BIG MEESSSS! Then I have to clean it up!!" She seemed excited about cleaning that mess though. :) Do you know how hard it is to explain Easter to a two-year-old? I didn't want it to be all about the Bunny and candy so I tried to explain to her that Easter is when celebrate that Jesus died for all of us so that we could have life. Then she says "Is Jesus coming to my house too?" so I tried to tell her "well yes Jesus is always at your house, he loves you very much!" Then she got scared because "Jesus was in her room". I give up!! Maybe next year :)

The girls had a great time egg hunting. I am so happy that Livi was already walking by Easter it made it a lot more fun for her.  She had a great time running around and picking up the eggs. She didn't understand the basket part though. She thought I was taking the eggs away from her so she wouldn't put them in the basket. Once her hands were full she couldn't pick up anymore eggs. Everytime I tried to get her to put them in the basket she yelled "MINEEE!!" and ran away. :) 

I learned a valuable lesson though.... I was so excited about making REAL dyed eggs. I thought it would encourage the girls to eat real eggs instead of candy after Easter. I realized however that the concept of the real Easter eggs was more than our little toddlers could understand. Ella, Dealey and Livi ran around the yard picking up the real eggs and ripping them open to find the candy. When they realized there was no candy they through them down and moved on. After a while D stopped picking them up all together and Livi was eating the eggs...shell and all. Then I forgot to put the eggs in the refridgerator after Easter so they were ruined and the kids couldn't eat them. Epic fail! Oh well maybe next year :)

All in all we had a fabulous time! I love Easter because we are able to share it with all of our family in one place. Thank you to all of our family for coming to spend this amazing holiday with us!!

P.S. Lindsey and Andy we missed you!!!

Ella licking the marshmallow from the fondant bowl

Our first Easter egg-dying experience...yes in wine glasses :)

Having so much fun!!

Some of the eggs had toys in them

Hmmmm not quite Ella

MIINNEEEEE!

Livi loving on Cohen

11 Months and SOOO many new words!

Ms. Olivia is talking so much now! She repeats just about everything I say.. or at least the last word of the phrase anyway :) She doesn't talk as often as Ella did at this age, but she can say so many different things. Some of her words are: Mimi, Pop, ball, keys, car, baby, cake, Sissy, bed, down, more, bottle, passy (pap pap), Abby, play, Nana, Papa, Momma, Dada, Mom, Ella, fruit bar, there are so many that I am sure I forgot. She is so full of personality and fun right now. She runs just about everywhere she goes with this little bow-legged wiggle. It is pretty cute! She has also started giving kisses. She will run across the room, yell Ella, give her a kiss and run back in the other direction.

     Every Monday I go to Bible Study at the church and Livi stays in the nursery. We call it "Livi's class". She thinks she is going to school like her sister.  There is another little girl in her class named Abby who is two weeks older than Livi. She is Liv's first REAL friend. They play together and chase each other around the classroom. Her teachers said the other day that her favorite game to play is "let's see what I can climb on". There is an actual climbing toy with a slide in the classroom, but Livi chooses to avoid it and climb on everything else. :) She can't wait to be a real big girl and go to the preschool next year.

Ella should re-name it

Since Ella started talking she has come up with some pretty interesting names for things. A lot of times her names make more sense than the actual title of the object. For instance, when she was very little she called a telephone a "Hello". That is what everyone says as soon as they pick up the telephone.She also called a camera a "picture". Again this makes more sense, who came up with the word "camera". It has no signifance to the function of a camera.  My favorite of all time came a few weeks ago. She is always asking me to put her milk in the refridgerator "for later". Then she says "mommy put this milk in the 'for-later-rator'" priceless isn't it? Now the refridgerator is only called the 'for-later-rator' in the Copeland household.

10 months and so grown up!

I swear Olivia is just changing before my eyes! She is so much more grown up all of the sudden. She asks for things and answers yes or no questions. When someone tells her to do something that she doesn't like she very solemnly in her little deep voice shakes her head and says "No!" It is really cute! She also says "yes" the way that Ella used to. She nods her little hed like crazy and says "ssssss". I love it! She can now say a few more words Momma, Dada, Bottle, Papa, Pop, Ella, More, Bye, Hi, yes, no and her newest word puppy. She fell in love with puppies the other day at the park.

She toddles all over the place and tries to get into everything! She also has this new little atitude. She makes this face that resembles a pirate and grunts when she doesn't like something. At this point it is pretty cute. I will probably change my mind about that later. She is still crazy about her sister, but they have their spats. The funny thing is she has started to fight back. I can't help but giggle when she retiliates. I will eat those words later too I am sure! She is just so darn cute so all of these little not-so-fun behaviors are really funny right now!

Yesterday I was putting her into her carseat, which she loathes, and she clearly did not want to get into the car. She kicked, screamed and arched her little back trying to jump out of the carseat. Then I said Livi "Come on honey we are going to see Nana and Papa" she stopped and smiled at me with her little shy grin and said "huuuh Papa? Papa?" then sat very till so that I could buckle her in. It was so sweet!! I love how her language and understanding seem to be growing by leaps and bounds everyday.

My New Obsession!

It is official... I am obsessed with cake decorating!!! Last year for Ella's birthday my step-mom Jill made Ella puppy cake for her party. I helped Jill design it and put the fondant decorations on the puppy. Prior to this it never crossed my mind that I could make my own cakes. :) Since then I have fallen in love with cake decorating. I posted some pictures of my cakes on Facebook the other day and now have SEVERAL orders for cakes coming up. I love it!!!! I have so much fun researching and designing each one. Here are a few of my pics

A cake for our teen retreat. It was a medical theme

Brooke's baby shower cake

A practice cake that I made. That is a little pregnant lady

Ella's birthday cake this year

Ella's first birthday cake

She's a walking girl!!!!

So my hopes of having a 15 month old walker did not happen! Livi is 9 months and walking! But oh well, it is ok because she is pretty darn cute and VERY proud of herself!!! She still crawls most of the time, but she will stand up and take 4 or 5 steps. Then she claps and does a little happy dance :) Here is a video of the action. It is pretty grainy but funny.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

9 months and changing like crazy!!!

This has been an exciting month for Livi! My goodness she has changed so much. she is now eating ONLY adult food and she Loves to eat! It is precious. I took her to the doctor and she weighs 17 pounds and 4 ounces, which is still very small, BUT she gained almost two pounds in just a couple of weeks. :) Her head has grown too she is now at the 80% for head circumfrence. Yes we have big-headed kiddos! The big news this month is that Livi has started taking her first steps!!! She will take about two steps then fall down. She seems so proud of herself with every step she takes. I guess it is only a matter of time before she is chasing Ella around the house! I know she can't wait to catch up with her sister. Those two have so much fun together. Watching them dance and giggle together in the car makes long car rides so much more fun.

Her other new advancements are in the social department...go figure I know. I have another social kiddo! She is using several new words, she can now say Momma, Dada, Ella, Hi, Bye, Banana and Nana. She also waves and blows kisses. Her kisses are great they start out your regular run of the mill blown kisses and turn into eye kisses, ear kisses and just smacking herself in the head kisses. She gets a little too excited. Ella has started blowing kisses in this fashion as well. She finds it pretty humorous!

Pink-a-liscious!

For Ella's birthday Tabitha gave her a book called Pink-a-liscious! It has quickly become Ella's favorite book. Partly because it is a super cute book, but mainly because her favorite cousin Buttha gave it to her :) In the book the little girl's mom makes her pink cupcakes on a rainy day. She eats so many cupcakes that her whole body turns pink. Since Ella has been home sick and we aren't able to get out and do much we decided to make some Pink-a-liscious cupcakes. Now remember, I am not much of a baker! In fact I learned that I am pretty much a spaz in the kitchen. I decided that I should have my own reality TV show it would provide hours of unintentional, awkward comedy.

Ella loved making the cupcakes, but of course her favorite part was eating them. She didn't quite understand that she couldn't take a bite out of EVERY cupcake!

I also have this new found love for cake decorating. I am still not a baker, but I attempted to bake a cake today and make HOMEMADE fondant! Yes I know homemade, crazy huh? Of course I made a million and one mistakes and probably was completely uncoventional in my cooking style, but...it worked!!! I even have a somewhat funny looking cake to prove it! I also dyed some of the fondant pink to practice using food coloring. I forgot to use gloves so after it was all over I had pink stained hands! I looked a little Pink-a-liscious! Ella thought it was pretty funny that I actually turned pink when we made her pink cupcakes!

Spaghetti and peas and carrots Oh My!

Miss Livi is now a full fledged eater. This kid LOVES to eat. I think she would eat all day if I let her. The last time we were in Dallas we went to Johnny Carinos with my girl friends and I decided to let Livi have some spaghetti for the first time. She had such a blast trying the new food and her "auntie" Natalie had equally as much fun feeding her real food for the first time. They both giggled and squealed the whole time. It was precious :)

Livi had such a great time eating her spaghetti... then she picked up her plate and threw it on the floor. Yes it smashed into a million pieces and I felt like the world's dumbest mom for giving my child a real plate to eat from. I will get better at this :)

Since then, Livi has taken on eating full force. She LOVES to eat. This morning she ate for a over an hour while Ella and I had breakfast, then I cleaned the kitchen. It was great! Ella was so picky at this age and got bored with food very quickly, so this feels like heaven to me. Livi is not picky what so ever. I swear I could sit and watch the kiddo eat all day. She is so proud of herself and has this look of pure joy when she picks up the food and it actually makes it into her mouth! With all of this eating I think she might chunk up a bit this month. I will keep my fingers crossed :)

Make a Smilebox slideshow