jillian, jillian, jillian jiggs...

...maker of wonderful, marvelous pigs. every christmas ted's great aunt sends the girls books. it's a tradition she has kept going for quite a while as i understand she used to send them to ted and his siblings as well. the girls absolutely love the books! this year, one of the books she sent was "the wonderful pigs of jillian jiggs".

it's about a little girl and her younger sister who make "millions and zillions" of pigs to sell. of course, she adores the pigs and finds that she can't part with them in the end. for the past few weeks this has been the bedtime story of choice. the girls became really excited at the prospect of nona making piggies for them! (there are directions for making a pig in the back of the book). so, today my mom, the girls and i headed out to the craft store to buy materials for pigs.

we decided to make the girls' pigs resemble them.

they were pretty excited about the pigs...

however, we won't be making millions and zillions of them!

still my baby

so lately, i've been going back and forth as to whether ella has officially outgrown her naps. often when i put the girls down together for their nap they keep each other up and play. this is unfortunate because corinne really needs the sleep. well, yesterday my mom and i let ella stay up and have some quiet time while corinne took a nap. i was sitting at the kitchen counter chopping strawberries while my mom did prep work for dinner. after a while i turned around to check on ella and this is what i found. apparently she still needs the sleep, too! even though we're about to have a newborn, she's still my precious baby!

oh fun!

promptly following ella's cold, we discovered that corinne had picked up head lice somewhere (still not sure where!). this is definitely NOT what i wanted to be dealing with at any point in time least of all being 9 months pregnant and expecting another tiny head!

thankfully we were able to eradicate the little pest quickly! we did a 2 pronged approach using the over-the-counter shampoo and the smothering technique with this deep conditioning treatment. i told the girls that we were doing princess hair and they were totally into it! one plus is that their hair is so shiny.

get well soon

several weeks ago ella came down with a cold. i had ted pick up a few things from the store on his way home from work one day that week and he came home with "get well flowers" for ella. she was so tickled that daddy bought HER flowers. she wanted to see them all the time! i love my sweet husband!!!

sweet

so, i'm sitting in my kitchen on the computer. the girls are playing in their little "house" under the stairs and i hear ella, "sit down, corinne!" corinne sits down quietly and i hear ella say, "dear lord jesus, thank you for this day, thank you for loving us and daddy going to work, amen". what a sweet little moment.

sonoma county fair

once again our church band played at the sonoma county fair. originally i didn't think i'd be able to sing. but as it turns out with the help of a stool i was able to hold up for 3- 45 minute sets. it was a lot of fun to see all the kids dancing on the dancefloor.

i have to admit, however, that by the end of the night i was so exhausted!!

vbs

this was ella's first time at vbs. actually, it was the first time i've ever left her anywhere like this. at first i wasn't sure how she would do. i was prepared for some crying at first and as it was three hours each day i thought even maybe a phone call. but she did so well. she didn't even seem to mind when corinne and i left her the first time with her group, the "clippers".

i have to say how impressed i was with the program our church staff and MANY volunteers put on! ella learned so much in just one week.

it was really cute to see the kids singing praises and doing the motions with the worship team. ella still enjoys listening to her vbs music and doing the motions.

the is a picture of ella on her last day. she took tigger with her every day.

every morning ella was excited to go to church. one morning she gleefully told me, "mommy, i love vbs!!"

corinne got some really good independant playtime with any toys she wanted. i think she really missed ella, though.

the theme was "high seas adventure". here's the pirate ship in the lobby. our children's pastor was capt. cruel, the pirate. ella said her favorite part was the pirate.

here's a look at the stage set up.

my baby looking so grown up! i can't believe how big she is getting. this week she grew up even more! she really impressed me by her independence and enthusiasm this week. i loved listening to her rendition of the bible story at lunch every day. she even got corinne interested in learning one of her bible verses: open my eyes so i can see the wonderful truths in your instructions!

10...9...8...

with just a few weeks away from the baby's arrival, i decided it was high time i blogged about his finished room! we decided on a "rocket" themed room. it's not perfect, but it's complete. i don't think he'll mind that the rocket it slightly uneven. the girls got a big kick out of the room. for about a week after it was completed the girls loved running around the room singing the theme song to "little eintsteins".

ted got involved in this room. before he left for a business trip (the night before i started painting) he drew jupiter and saturn so i had an idea on how they should look. he was pretty specific about the red mark on jupiter. i thought this was really cute. maybe he's hoping this accuracy will encourage his son to become a fellow sci-fi lover!