Happy Father's Day...

to the best Dad ever! Ella and Dakota are lucky to have the best Dad ever and it is quite obvious how much they both love him by how excited they both get when he comes home from work everyday!

We had a fun filled, hot weekend! The girls in the neighborhood surprised the guys and got them a tee time for Saturday. All the guys had a great time and then we had a mini party for them when they got home with all of their favorite foods. On Sunday, Mike watched A LOT of golf and we also played in Ella's pool to cool off from the heat.

Since it was so hot, no bathing suits, just our swimming diaper.

For lunch, we went to Mike's favorite restaurant, Hawthorne's lunch! It is so funny to see Ella sitting at the table with us like a big girl.

This is a little delayed but last weekend, Mike's soccer team played for the championship game. Ella and I went to watch and cheer him on. His team came up a little bit short but he did score a goal. The second picture is Mike's shot going into the goal!

Check out all my teeth coming in!

Dakota enjoyed cooling off also!

Amber's Baby Shower

I am a little behind on this post but the other weekend, Lynn and I threw a baby shower for Amber. Amber is due with her first (a little girl, Annie) in August and I only wish she didn't live in Florida so we could see each other more. Amber and I met freshmen year at Virginia Tech, she lived across the hall from Lynn and I and the three of us have been so close ever since. It is so funny that all 3 of us are going to have girls now. Hopefully they will all go to Virginia Tech, become Kappa Deltas and be the best of best friends like us!!

Me, Amber and Lynn and yes, Lynn is pregnant with her second, due in October! Our spread for the shower.

Little Caroline was ready for the party! She is so stinkin cute:) Showering Amber and Annie with gifts.

Stephanie and Baby Jacob, only 3 months old and the only boy so he is going to have lots of girlfriends! Amber and her niece Kendall.

A day in the life

Mike and I always say we want to come back in our next life as Ella, she has it good! (Although, I can't complain, I have it pretty good also!) So hopefully this will give you an idea of a "typical" day in the life of our sweet little girl.

Morning usually begins with a jog with Mommy in the stroller. It is getting hot, I mean H-O-T hot in Charlotte so we sometimes switch it up and go to the gym also. After our morning workout, we come home and have some yummy breakfast! Boy, does this little one love her food and usually likes wearing it all over her face also!

Then, it's up to the nursery for some play time. Now that she is a crawling machine, she usually does several laps around her room, of course finding everything most dangerous to play with instead of her many toys. After a busy morning, it's nap time. This is usually what I find when she wakes up from her nap, sitting and waiting in her crib for me. She is so happy after a good nap!

Her new favorite thing is the pool! On these hot afternoons, we break out the inflatable pool on the deck and splash around.

Some days we head off to the grocery store and oh what a good helper she is. When she is not trying to crawl out of the cart and pull out all the food in the back of the cart, she is usually admiring all the food she is going to eat very soon! I think her favorite place is Costco with all the free samples. Can't you just see her saying, "Oh my, look at all this yummy food!"

Following her afternoon nap, it is usually more playing while we wait for Daddy to come home and then dinner and then finally, one of her favorite things of the day, bath time! She never wants to get out and could play in there for hours with her rubber ducky and Splashy the penguin. It is funny to look back now because when we first switched her from the baby tub in the sink to the real bathtub, she would cry and scream and refuse to go in there and now we can't get her out!

So, it's rough life but someone has to live it. Of course, there are many more things I couldn't capture like music class, going to the gym with Mommy (and finally not screaming the entire time I leave her there), playing with all her friends in the neighborhood, going on walks with her doggie, "wrestling" with her doggie (Ella pulling all of Dakota's fur and climbing all over her and Dakota licking Ella in the face), the list goes on and on. One thing she isn't is dull. We are always on the go and loving every minute of it!

A couple more pictures from the wedding

Going to the chapel...

to see Aunt Kelly get married! We traveled up to Pennsylvania over Memorial Day weekend for Kelly and Ben's big day. We all had a great time and it was fun, busy weekend.

The

weekend began with the rehersal dinner at Ben's parent's house and it was a blast. They did a great job with the backyard and we lucked out with great weather. Here are some fun pictures with Kelly and Ben and also with Tyler, Steph, Andrew and Connor. Ella loved seeing her Aunts, Uncles and cousins again.

Group shot with the Hennessy siblings and the families. One of the best part of the weekends was that Ella got to meet some of her extended family she hasn't met before. She is very lucky to have some many Great Grandparents, Great Aunts, Uncles and second cousins. She was a little overwhelmed with all the people at first but she warmed up to them quickly.

Pictures from the cocktail hour at the reception. They lucked out again and had a beautiful day and the reception and ceremony were equally as beautiful! Grandma got Ella a special dress for the day and she looked adorable:)

The new couple being announced! They were just glowing and Kelly looked gorgeous and Ben was beaming.

The new couple listening to the toasts and then dancing with her Dad for the first dance. I think that was the most emotional part of the evening, there were lots of tears shed. Very sweet.

Someone was a little party animal at her first wedding! She loved "dancing" with her cousins on the dance floor.

I think she was break dancing!! Hi Mom and Dad, check me out!

Dancing Queen!! She loved dancing with Aunt Kelly and Daddy. In fact, her shoes were slowing her down so she had to kick them off!! Soon after this, Ella went to sleep and Mommy and Daddy got to really have fun at the reception!

This is how the fun started!! Shots for the girls and then lots and lots of dancing! As you can see, everyone had a great time that night. Congrats to the newlyweds:)

Seabrook weekend and Addie's 3rd birthday

We had a fun and busy weekend last weekend. It first started with Ella's 9 month appt. Friday morning. Dr. Ankrah said Ella is doing great and looks very healthy. She is 19lbs. 3 oz and 28.5 inches long. Still growing like a weed!!

After the appt., we went straight to Addie's princess birthday party. Addie wore her Cindrella outfit and was the belle of the ball!

Tracy did an awesome job with the party and made this very pretty princess cake!

Addie's tiara in falling in her eyes, oh the problems with being a princess!

After the party, we literally threw everything into the car and headed down to Seabrook for the weekend with the neighbors. The weather was amazing all weekend and all the adults and kids had so much fun. We had a Hawaiian theme dinner hence the Hawaiian clothes in the picture above.

The big hit was the outdoor pool, Ella had so much splashing around. The water was a little chilly at first so she hung onto Mike very tightly but then once she realized it was like her bath, she had a great time!

Ella and Wesley loving the splash pool. How cute are these two little ones in their bathing suits! Of course, our little fair skin child always had to have her hat on which she actually did really well keeping it on.

Our first child also had a great time at her favorite place, the beach! She chased a million tennis balls into the ocean and loved having all the little kids around because they gave her lots of treats and left lots of food laying around for her! She did great actually with the kids and was so tired by the end of the day, she went to bed early with the kids!

We all love the beach so much, the weekend was so fun but went by way too quickly! The big news of the weekend was that Ella actually started officially crawling. As I have mentioned before, she has been so close for such a long time and on Sunday at the beach, she made her first move!! Everyone was watching and cheering her on so it was such a fun moment! It must be something about Seabrook because she rolled over for the first time there as well!!

Before we headed home on Sunday, we had a big lunch at the beach club with everyone. The kids did great and it was a great way to end the weekend. I also had to include this adorable picture of sisters, Addie and Wesley.

So, obivously the big news is now that Ella is crawling, she is all over the place so it's time to babyproof the house. She does this funny crawl, where she picks up her right leg almost in a walking position and crawls with her left. It looks funny but she gets around quickly! Of course, she goes after everything she shouldn't, cords, outlets, etc! But it is fun to see her get around since we didn't know if she would ever crawl! I will try and post a video we took of her crawling but the video option on the blog hasn't been working for me lately so it may not work.

We are off to see Kelly get married next weekend and can't wait to see a lot of the Hennessy side of the family and have them meet Ella!