Busy Week and Happy Easter

Before we get into what we did the past week, here are some pictures from my phone that I have been meaning to download.

The biggest fights we have with Ella are over what she is going to wear. It has to be a dress and she says every morning "I have to be pretty" or "I want to look like a princess." I don't know where she gets this since I was the biggest tomboy growing up and never wanted to wear dresses. But here she is in her pretty dress and wearing a tiara, legs crossed looking just like the princess she is.

And even princesses climb trees.
Maddie practicing her kung fu moves! And yes, her hair is starting to fall out (tear.)
Here is a picture of our little Maddie Grace at 1 month old. As I type this, she is now 6 1/2 weeks old and already looks so much bigger.
Now, back to our past week. We had some special visitors come up to Charlotte, DeeDee and Great Grandma. Great Grandma flew down to Atlanta from Rochester for Easter so they came up for 2 nights. It was great for her to see Ella since it had been a year and of course meet Maddie.

And DeeDee brought Ella two very special presents. First, a new Minnie Mouse dress which she didn't take off for 3 days and then more cookies to frost. This is one happy girl, wearing a pretty dress and eating frosting!
We had beautiful weather the 2 days they were here so we went to the park a lot to get some fresh air and sunshine.
Ella's first question every morning when she sees Maddie is "can I hold Maddie Grace?" (I love that she always calls her Maddie Grace.)
Little diva much? She grabbed the changing pad and went outside all on her own and said, "I need to take a rest out on the deck." I mean seriously, sometimes she is too much!
We were sad to see DeeDee and Great Grandma leave but they did leave us a another fun gift. Eggs and dying materials so we dyed eggs one evening after dinner.
Then we had a couple days of rain so we spent time inside playing. We pulled out the playmat for Maddie and Ella loves to get down and play with her while she is on there.
It amazes me everyday how different these girls are in many ways. Ella absolutely hated tummy time when she was a baby. I tried all the time and she would scream immediately when you would place her on her tummy but Maddie loves it so far. The first time we put her down she spent about 30-40 minutes doing tummy time. I don't think Ella did 30-40 minutes of tummy time in her first 4 months! And Maddie has such strong neck muscles, she even does tummy time with her sister on her back. That puts a whole new meaning to baby push-ups!
Ella certainly has many moments of jealousy when she wants Mommy's attention when I am with Maddie but then there are some moments she is so sweet and loving. We are still working on "gentle" as she wants to hug her and sometimes that hug looks a lot like a strong squeeze. Today while I was changing Maddie's diaper and she was crying, Ella came over and rubbed her arm and said "Oh sweetheart, it's ok. I love you sweetheart." I was dying laughing and smiling. I guess she hears us call her sweetheart and repeated it.
On Friday, we had an extra special visitors all the way from Florida. Amber, Jon and their little girl Annie came by on the way to see their family to visit with us. Amber and I met the first day of college and have been best friends ever since. We have seen each other a bunch but I hadn't met Annie who is 1 1/2 and she of course hadn't met Maddie so we had a fun reunion. Getting a picture with a 2 year old, 1 year old and infant is a challenge so this is the best we could do.
Ella and Annie had a great time playing and gave each other a hug goodbye. I wish we lived closer so they could play more but hopefully we can get them together again soon.
And to top off the week, it was Easter and we ventured for our first family church trip. It was a little crazy getting ready in the morning and Maddie had a slight runny nose and was congested so was up a lot of the night prior which made us even more tired but we made it. Th service actually went great, we took Ella to the nursery and Maddie had a great nap in the baby bjorn. This is our best attempt of a family Easter picture outside of church.
And check out the hands on the hip diva pose. I mean really?
Uncle Court and aura came up to Charlotte for a concert on Friday night so we got to see them and hang out all weekend and they even joined us for church. Uncle Court got Ella and Maddie awesome Easter baskets (which was good because Mommy slacked a little bit this year on the basket.) But there their baskets were filled with candy and Vineyard Vines clothes, too cute.
Ella loves her Uncle Court and was so excited to play with him all weekend. They played at the park and at home. At one point they were upstairs playing in Ella's room and when we went up to see what they were up to, Ella was playing hairdresser with Court. That's a good uncle!
After church we headed back to the neighborhood for an egg hunt with the neighbors. Most of the kiddos getting ready for the hunt.
And she's off. But she just wanted to open an egg immediately after she found it to see what was inside.
Hunting with her new basket from Uncle Court.
Sunday wasn't just Easter but it was also Mike's birthday. We have 4 friends that all have birthdays within 2 weeks so we got together with some of them last week to celebrate one big party with everyone.
I don't think the kids cared who birthday it was as long as they got to eat cake!
I know this birthday wasn't one of the most exciting as it started with Maddie up all night and with a 6 week old, there wasn't a huge party. But I hope he knows how much his girls love him and what a great Daddy he is. I could not have survived these past 6 weeks without him. He is such a huge help and I count down the minutes until he is home in the evening. Happy Birthday Mike!