Shoe Love

From a young age E began her obsession with shoes. Well I suppose I should say other peoples shoes. Here she is at 18 months.

At 2 wearing Oma's heels.

At Gramma's house rocking Mama's heels (and that same Elmo bib.)

Since we moved to Nashville E has really gotten hooked on Mama's shoes (which may or may not have been my doing). My heels are in her closet so she can now reach them and likes to pick out a pair or two. She has also become obsessed with dresses, but that's another post. 

 I love this pose! :)

I had to save my favorite outfit for last. P.J shirt (from when I was little), diper, Elmo bib, miss matching sock, wild hair with a Hello Kitty necklace that she wears as a head band and sky high heels. 

She cracks me up!! 

For the most part she is pretty balanced but even I have a hard time walking in those blue bad boys. After a kiss to make it better she was back up rocking another pair. I sure do love this girl.

Play Time with Daddy

 Things are a little more rough and tumble when Daddy is around. There are horse rides (which we really don't enjoy because of the hardwood on our knees, we're old) wrestling, head bonks, and lots of laughter.

 Then there's the occasional awkward photo where Duke is really biting Daddy's foot and Jakob is resisting throwing E off his back in a attempt to save himself. We love having Daddy home to play.

On a side note here is Manfred in his new favorite spot, the toy box. He is super content just sitting and playing with toys and staying out of big sisters way. He is so unbelievably cute!

Friday Fun

 Quite often I get asked what my "next project" will be. I usually have at least one project on the go at all times. Upon moving to Nashville I decided that while yes, I will still have something to work on, my main "project" will be my children. I really want to take this nine months to focus on them and enjoy our time together. So as a part of a very big project (I mean really taking care of your kids is a lot of work!) I figured that I would do one extra special activity a day Monday thru Friday since they have Daddy on the weekends and that is special. I decided to record it for my own benefit and if you have any sure fire ways to keep a one and a two year old happy for an extended period of time please share!!

Monday:

 Pots and pans music time! Duke loved this! It was a bit noisy, but the kids were in their happy places!

Tuesday:

 GO ELMO! I decided to take E's mattress out of her crib and put it on the floor. The kids had a blast bouncing (or in Duke's case sitting right under E's feet). This will happen again!!

Wednesday:

 Sometimes our activity is just with E and I. Today's activity was painting with cotton balls. E is becoming quite the princess lover. Her favorite is Cinderella even though she's never seen the movie. I think it's because of the blue dress. 

 I loved the idea of cotton balls and clothes pins. No water. It's about as clean as painting can get!

 Here is E's princess. I draw the dress and then she draws the face, shoes and accessories. Here this princess has glasses and heels. She cracks me up!

Thursday:

 Singing time. E loves this and so does Duke. I try to keep the props away from him since he's in destroy-everything-and-put-it-in-my-mouth mode. This is our "Give Said the Little Stream" prop. You wave the ribbons to make the water, it works great if you have a large group. The raindrop is for the second verse. I need to add Jesus to the back for the final verse. 

 I also have Ol McDonald. Stars for "I am Like a Star", and "Twinkle, Twinkle." Frogs, Spider rings for "Itsy Bitsy" E really enjoys all of the props and singing and dancing. 

Friday:

 Rip your couch apart!! The kids had a great time climbing on the cushions and bouncing on the springs. So simple and they {loved} it.

There's our week of fun!! I am excited to do more crafts with E. We are starting to teach her how to spell her name. She's so smart, time for some preschool activities. :)

Grand Ol Opry

I {love} concerts and now that we live in music city I really wanted to get my country on. Where better to do that then the Grand Ol Opry? 

We got to see the Del McCoury Band. They made me miss Dad and listing to him practice. These guys were wonderful! We also saw Terri Clark but I didn't get a picture.

Mark Chesnutt

Sam Hunt had his debut at the Grand Ol Opry. I love his new single! 

Craig Morgan.

Trace Adkins!! He was all flexing and dancing around! I love his deep voice! Great performance!

And.... Carrie Underwood!!! She has been on my list for a long time!! She sounded amazing!!

The set up was pretty awesome. Pews, just like at church with your number on the back of the bench. Each artist also only performed 3 songs a piece which we really liked. I would have liked to hear more of Carrie and Trace but a little sampling was fun and kept you from getting board. 

It was a fun evening and a great performance!

Oma's Last Few Days in Nashville

We had a fun time while Oma was here. We "plugged in."

Duke on his "perch."

Played dress up.

Had messy faces. 

Hung out with the most amazing Daddy ever!

Set the table. 

Elmo got to swing. 

Played the frog game. It is a special game that only Oma can play because she has short legs. :) Mom is telling E to look like a frog.

It made Mom laugh which made us laugh. E really enjoyed this game! :)

Duke liked to play too! Mom got quite the work out.

Check out that hair! Nashville does wonders for E's curly voluminous locks, not so much for Mama. Thank you for visiting Mom!!! You were such a help and made my life so much easier! We will miss you and Jakob will miss your sandwiches!