Daddy's weekend away

Matt started November spending a weekend away from the kids. The day after Halloween, Matt headed out to Vegas with Dru and Eric. The guys stayed at the Venetian, ate some good meals, and gambled their money away (I am sure they did more, but this is the only story I got from Matt).

15 years and six kids between them makes a difference

 I kept the girls and scheduled their weekend to the maximum in order to keep myself from going insane. Amelia and Joss came over for dinner Saturday night (bringing a yummy bottle of wine - again for mom's sanity). I love how easy the girls are together even with their age difference. I managed to get both girls to sleep by myself (Madi watched TV in the playroom while I rocked Ella down then she went to bed with me at 8:30). We were up making pancakes by 5:30 in the morning thanks to the time change. This left us lots of time to play in the morning, go to church and head to the YMCA for Madi's swim lesson. She is back in swim this month to help her keep her skills for next summer. We picked up lunch from Madi's current favorite restaurant (the corner bakery) and had a car picnic while Ella slept in the backseat. Riva and Marissa came over in the afternoon for a playdate. This got us over the hump to dinnertime, a walk and then bedtime. A miracle occurred and both girls fell asleep in my lap in the rocking chair after less than ten minutes of rocking!!! I was able to put them into their own beds by 7:30 which gave me plenty of time to clean up, make lunches and do my own work. yay!!! All in all, a successful weekend without Daddy (though of course, he was missed).

The girls love to "help" with the laundry. Madeline is actually getting pretty good at folding

Morning pancakes

Madi helping Ella drink her bottle

Sisters!

Not sure how she feels about Spaghettios

Before bed walk with Mom. Madeline needed a light up necklace since it was dark already

Yep two kids on my lap. This is about 1 minute before Madeline fell asleep too.

In other news, the girls are becoming more their own people every minute. Eleanor is completely weaned (yay!) but making up for it with multiple bottles of formula at night. She loves to eat and is in that awesome period of time where she is entertained by foods for hours if we go out. Ella is so close to walking, but isn't quite confident enough yet to take steps without holding onto somebody's hand. Since she is giant, I am hoping Eleanor will start walking on her own soon!
Madeline is singing songs she makes up about everything: the car, school, her plans for the afternoon. She is obsessed with putting band-aids on her "ouchies" and then as soon as a band-aid is on, she can't use her arm or leg or whatever. It's like she goes from fine to coming home with a limb blown off in war within one minute. "I can't walk because I have a band-aid" is a sentence she uses often in our house. This also means we have to rip band-aids off after a couple days and hear the screams of death that mean she isn't ready to give it up (even though the band-aid is beginning to burn her skin). Madi is also so helpful and loves to fold laundry with me, make lunches and watch the neighborhood out the front window. My favorite thing is listening to Madeline go through the cookbooks with Eleanor and discuss what they should make before running off to her playroom kitchen to bake us some gingerbread men or cakes or pies!

Playing with lids mom

fries for dinner

neighborhood watch

laundry help