Birthday

Here are some pictures from my birthday!  I started the day off with a muffin filled with jelly beans from Elli.  It probably isn't what I would have chosen to eat for breakfast, but she was really excited about it! 

We went to MOPS, the kids took naps, and then we spent the rest of the day outside!

Scott brought dinner and an ice cream cake home.  The kids were unbelievably hyper after the ice cream cake, but we still put them to bed on time.  We had our sitter come over to the house while we went to the Melting Pot for dessert with friends.

Thanks for all the calls, texts, messages, emails, cards, and gifts!  I had a great day!

Random Pictures

Here are some recent and old pictures from my phone...

Our first trip to the Cabela's in Columbus....

 Riding the Merry-Go-Round....

 Watching Daddy mow and Connor decided he needed to do it too....

 Making Muffins

Both kids love playing dress-up....

 Disregard Elli's eyes- can't figure out how to fix the red-eye on my iPhone

Picture of the capes I made for the kids for Easter.  Today was the first day Connor has agreed to wear it....he's refused every other time....he apparently prefers a blanket tied around his neck for a cape. 

This girl loves her hard boiled eggs!  I think she ate 3 in one sitting this day!  She's really such a good eater and will eat just about anything we put in front of her!!

Snuggling with Papa on the couch at Easter....

Elli earned her long Rapunzel hair....she rarely takes it off and on certain days she'll call me 'mother' instead of 'mom' or 'mommy' because that is what Rapunzel does!!

Although I still see a decent amount of fighting (and bullying from Elli) with these kids, they have really, really started to enjoy playing together!  I never thought we'd get to this point!  Elli loves rocking him before bed and it's so sweet to hear her sing to him always telling me "Mom, shhh. I'm the mommy, he's my baby.  I need to put Bubba to bed." And then she proceeds to sing, "The B-L-E, yes that's the book for me, I stand alone on the word of God, the B-L-E."

They also have a special little clap that they do together and always laugh when they do it!  Although Connor loves one on one time when he gets it, many times when Elli leaves the room he'll say "sissy."

Giving hugs and kisses before bed

Easter

We went to Indiana on Thursday night before Good Friday to spend Easter with both sides of our family.  Here is what we did for the few days that we were home....

Easter Egg Hung #3 at the Lindvall house....who would have known that Snow White would be there....

Connor was a rockstar during this egg hunt.  He did so good....running all over the place getting eggs....unfortunately, I don't have a great picture of him doing it!

We also went to see the movie 'The Croods.'  I consider this Connor's first real movie experience in a movie theater.  He went with us when we took Elli to see 'Beauty and the Beast' when she turned 2, but he was only 5 months old and slept through most of it!  He did pretty good considering he was fighting a stomach bug (....and now he's sick again....he can't catch a break....no more stomach bug though)

Elli was so excited to go see a movie with Vander and Dane.  When I told her what we were going to do, she started screaming and jumping up and down.  She's snuggled all up next to Vander in the above  picture.  Can you tell they weren't a fan of my camera flash in the dark theater?

Connor watching the previews for 'Planes'....luckily that movie comes out right before his 2nd birthday!!

The movie was a success, but a certain little girl had a stomachache from all the popcorn and Diet Coke.

We had Easter egg hunt #4 at the Brauchler house.

She was so excited for the Easter egg hunt!!

We also took a little swim in the hot tub!  Elli is becoming quite the swimmer!  She was jumping off the side and going under in the pool....she called it a 'dive.'

We went to church at Mt. Olive on Sunday morning then had lunch with my parents and grandparents! 

Here are pictures from Easter morning....

We didn't do Easter outfits this year.  Instead, Elli wore a dress she already had and then I made Connor a tie that matched the dress.

Cousins

Easter Egg Hunt #2

We did multiple egg hunts around Easter this year.  After swim lessons one morning, we went to a local  Easter egg hunt at a park in the neighborhood next to ours.  There was so much going on there, but the weather wasn't that great!  As a result, we didn't end up staying long, but we did manage to find many, many eggs and exchange them for candy!

 Princess Belle, Princess Aurora, Princess Snow White, Spiderman, & Superman made an apparence.  Connor loved looking at Spiderman and Superman, but wanted nothing to do with them when they got close.  Elli got to look for eggs with Princess Belle.

19 months

I started this post a few days ago, but I decided I'd better finish it seeing as how Connor turned 19 months old over 2 weeks ago!

Connor continues to go to bed around 7:30 and wakes up anywhere from 7:30 to 8:30.  He's been known to be a late owl recently and stay up talking in his bed for awhile before he goes to sleep.  He still lets us rock him to sleep, but recently he's been wanting to sit beside me while I rock.  Just like Elli, he loves to have a million stuffed animals in his bed with him while he sleeps and he usually picks out one that he likes to carry downstairs with him each morning.  

Connor loves pointing out trucks while driving, playing with trains, trying on different shoes, sweets, balls, t.v. (although it only holds his attention for a few minutes), elmo, airplanes, books, niney, and dancing.  And one of his all time favorite things is driving/turning the wheel on a car/truck.  I've always known this; however, it was very apparent yesterday when we were at a play cafe and he had a really, really, really hard time sharing the firetruck.  

Connor's language is really starting to pick up.  I'd list all his words; however, the list is getting long and I'm sure I'll leave many out.  He uses many words at home with us, but outside of this environment he tends to get more shy.  

This boy loves to dress up!  In fact, I spent time making Elli and Connor both capes for Easter because they love tying blankets around their necks and acting like it is a cape.  Wouldn't you know this kiddo doesn't even want to wear it and would prefer a blanket instead....stinker!!  Notice his superman costume....

He loves looking at these headphones....we finally got him to put them on.

This is what happens when you have a sister.....notices his ears! He also likes wearing earrings when Elli brings them out.  My mom reminded me that his father also had an earring, so I feel better every time he puts them on.

Happy 19th month birthday Connor Lee (although you're almost 20 months old now :/)

Mexico

Three days after we got home from Florida, Scott and I boarded a plane to head to the St. Regis in Punta Mita Mexico! It was a quick turn around from our Florida trip!  I got a call on Tuesday around 11:30am from Scott telling me that our 6am flight on Wednesday morning had just been cancelled due to the weather and that we needed to catch a 7:00 flight that night out of Columbus.   He rushed home, grabbed the kids, drove them halfway to Indiana to meet his dad while I stayed at home and packed our stuff (we hadn't packed anything).  We flew out on Tuesday night and finally made it to Mexico on Wednesday around 1:00.  We stayed until Saturday afternoon and got home late Saturday night.

Scott works for a pretty great company and has had some wonderful opportunities as a result of his job. One of those opportunities was our trip to Mexico.  Scott had a good year last year and met all the requirements to go on this trip along with some of his co-workers who also met the requirements.  They were each able to choose 1 guest to go with them.   All food, flights, and rooms were paid by NetJets.  We also each received $200 to do an excursion for the few days we were there.  

Here are some picture from our trip....

For our excursion, we decided to do whale watching (notice the whale), snorkeling, and paddle boarding.  We went on the one day that was overcast and the ocean was completely freezing.  

Scott paddle boarding

The resort was amazing, food was great, and weather was wonderful!  We had great time, but were ready to get back to our babes.  Thanks Nana and Papa L. for taking such great care of them while we were gone!  And thanks to NetJets for an awesome trip!!