PCB with the Fam

Last week we enjoyed a long weekend (Wed - Sun) at PCB with Dave's parents and the B'ham cousins. We had a wonderful time and I think the pictures pretty much tell the story. The only thing I do not have a picture of is the fun parasailing adventure that Wanda, Wendy, Jennifer, and I went on. While the parasailing was awesome my favorite memory is when Jennifer fell off the banana boat trying to climb onto the parasailing boat. As she was flopping around yelling for us to help her --being the good cousins that we are we immediately pulled out the video camera to get it on tape. Ohhhh it was priceless. Sorry Jennifer it is going to be a while before you live that one down :) We love you :)

Ella Kate and Presley playing in the pool.

Dave and his fishing buddy, Marlee. Marlee got Dave's hand and said Come on lets go fishin'. Dave just loved it.

Dave and I

Aunt Helen walking Miss Priss around the pool with her water bucket.

The cousins gathering for lunch.

Aunt Helen and Ella Kate.

As you can see they did a lot of walking around.

Ella Kate was making her usual nose scrunch face to everyone at the pool. She loves the attention she gets when she makes it :)

Miss Independant.

Our little family.

Mommy and Ella Kate playing in the pool.

Ella Kate is obsessed with balls. She loves all balls!!!

Wendy and Whitley

Marlee and Ella Kate playing the beach ball. Ella Kate does not share her balls very well but Marlee was a good sport.

She absolutely would not put the ball down. It is amazing how much she loves any type of ball.

The B'ham Cousins

(Ella Kate, Me, Jennifer, Presley, Whitley, Wendy, Marlee, Wanda, and Lilly Grace)

Ella Kate and Papa John boating :)

Ella Kate loved the boat but hated the life jacket.

We put the anchor and had a little excursion on Shell Island.

Ella Kate loves the ocean!!!

Having fun with Papa John

Ella Kate made herself quite comfortable on the boat.

Driving the boat with Daddy eating a Vanilla Wafer.

The cousins again (Wendy, Marlee, Presley, Wanda, Lilly Grace, and Me). Ella Kate had already gone in for her nap by this point.

LeLe and Ella Kate hanging out watching the sunset.

The class clown.

She has no fear and walks straight for the ocean.

Looking at the birds. Another favorite of Ella Kate's after balls of course.

Papa John, LeLe, and Ella Kate

Such cute pics. I just love the facial expressions.

Ella Kate and LeLe outside at Captain Jacks.

Ella Kate and LeLe are big buddies :)

Family pic at the beach

First Words and Daddy's Little Girl

I wanted to take a second to write down all of Ella Kate's current vocabulary. She is getting so smart and we are amazed every day.

First Words:
1.) Ball - the child loves balls. She gets so excited. Anything that is remotely round she thinks is a ball and she will throw it :) She also really likes snow globes and lights up when she sees one. The only problem is that they are round and therefore she considers them a ball which means she throws it.
2.) Book
3.) Fish
4.) Dog
5.) SaSa (Sally - our lab)
6.) JaJa (Jo Jo - our nutty dog)
7.) Moma
8.) Deddy
9.) Na (for Nana)

That is all I can think of for now but I know there is more.

Now that Ella Kate is getting older she is starting more and more to wrap Daddy around her little finger. I laughed last night because after we had already put Ella Kate to bed Dave said lets get her and let her sleep with us tonight :) I just laughed and thought boy oh boy is she going to be a Daddy's little girl. I LOVE it!!

Perdido Beach, ER, and Mommy's 29th Birthday

It has only been a little over a week since I updated the blog but so much has happened I do not even know where to start. Let's see, Sunday after the 4th of July we headed down to Perdido Key beach for a convention that Dave's company was attending. All started out well on Sunday morning. We rented a nice SUV so that we would have plenty of room for the trip loaded up Ella Kate with her new big girl car seat and off we went. Ella Kate was the perfect angel during the trip - which we now know was a little to good to be true. It was about a 7 hour drive from ATL to Perdido Key. We left at 10am ATL time which is EK's nap time. She fell asleep almost instantly and slept for 3hours. When she woke up we stopped and ate lunch and she still seemed to be just fine. She did not eat alot for lunch but with Ella Kate sometimes she is a great eater and other times she is not. We got back in the car and Ella Kate played for another hour or so and then fell back to sleep for about another 3 hours. Dave and I thought we were the luckiest people ever b/c we had just made a 7 hour car ride to the beach with a 1 year old with no crying. But..... As soon as we got Ella Kate out of her car seat at the hotel I noticed that she was a little wobbly walking. Now Ella Kate has been walking for several months and is a pretty steady walker so it was not like her to wobble so much. I thought well maybe it is b/c she was in the car for so long so I just let her walk and stretch her legs and kept an eye on her. We checked into the hotel and by the time we got up to the room where the bell hop was unloading our bags she was still acting pretty funny and looking really droppy. She felt a little hot so I took her temp and sure enough she had a fever. This is the first time that Ella Kate has ever had a temp or been sick so Dave and I essentially did everything wrong. I thought that maybe we should get her some dinner b/c it was her supper time so I changed her into something cool and we went to the restaurant downstairs in the hotel. By the time we sat down at the restaurant and the waitress brought our drinks Ella Kate was looking hotter and very lethargic. I was still holding her and we were afraid she was going to faint on us. It scared us to death. I immediately ran her upstairs and gave her a cold bath (which I now know was totally wrong - sorry EK) and then we took her temp again. Her temp kept going up and she was so very lethargic that we decided to take her to the ER which was 40 mins away. The second thing I did which I now know is a big NO NO was to give her milk in a sippy cup. Yep she threw that right back up on me about 20 mins into the car ride to the ER so I thought she was getting even sicker. To wrap up this long story we ended up spending 5 hours in the ER to find out that EK had some kind of a 24 hour virus. By the time we left the hospital the fever was gone and she was back to her normal playful self. We both learned alot about fevers and how pitiful babies act when they are sick. Hopefully next time we will do things a little better. It was so very scary and we were so glad to have our happy baby back again.
After the Sunday trauma the rest of the beach vacation was great. That Tuesday was my 29th birthday and Dave and Ella Kate did so good helping me celebrate. They had a flowers delivered to the hotel room and then took me to dinner at Lambert's afterwards. Lamberts is such a fun restaurant that is known for "throwing rolls." We had to wait about 30+ mins for a table but it was perfect b/c Ella Kate had a blast playing with the other kids on the play trains they have in front of the restaurant.
This past weekend LeLe and Papa John watched EK for the day on Saturday and Dave and I had a day to ourselves with the boat on the lake. It was so much fun!! We water skied and tubed the day away. Well Dave water skied - I still can't get up :( But I am an expert tuber :)


The beautiful flowers Dave and Ella Kate had delivered to our hotel room for my birthday.

Ella Kate playing on the train outside Lambert's. She held on to Daddy pretty tight at the begin and then she was off...

Now Daddy is holding on to her :)

Checking out the train solo.

She loves playing with other kids.

The little stinker and I mean she is a stinker.