Easter, etc.

We had a wonderful Easter Sunday last week. Casey was on the road but got home at about 3:00 am Sunday morning. Ellie and I spent the afternoon before decorating eggs. She was VERY serious about it and did a fantastic job. She's such a fun girl.


Thanks to mom ("Nana B."), the girls had matching Easter dresses! Here are some pics including one of Ellie giving Peyton "Harley kisses..."


The weather for the past 3 weeks has been AMAZING!!! We hadn't been out of the 40's since last October and saw the sun about once every 2 weeks. Now all of a sudden, it's been high 60's and sunny every day!!! It has been amazing. I get to go for runs OUTSIDE instead of on the treadmill, I get to take the girls to the playground every day, etc. The nice weather started right about April 1st and within a few DAYS the entire city is green again! It really is a gorgeous city and the good weather makes it so much better.

We went on a walk the other day and sat on some benches in the middle of the Ku'Damm (THE biggest shopping street in all of Berlin, 1/2 block from our house.) Ellie played in the flowers and Casey watched the nice cars go by... It was a nice afternoon. :)


Ellie is hilarious, as always. She is speaking more and more German (again, most of the time when she's angry) and can count to 10 in English, German and Spanish now. She continues to be a "freak of nature" as far as her size goes. On "Blue's Clues" the other day, they were measuring each other to see how much they'd grown. We made marks on our wall last December of how tall we all are. Ellie wanted to measure herself again like Blue. I wasn't expecting much of a change but let her do it anyway... She has grown a full INCH in the past 4 months!!! So then I threw her on the scale and she has now officially passed Harley in weight at 36 lbs. :)
I pulled up child growth charts on the web. She's not even on the chart for height... it just says "above the 99th percentile." Haha... She just turned 2 1/2 a few weeks ago and she's the average height of a FOUR-year-old! Even if she were 5 she wouldn't be abnormally small. We went to the playground this afternoon and she was playing with 6- and 4-year-old boys. Their mom literally wouldn't believe me that she's only 2. The three of them played tag and for some reason the boys kept making HER chase THEM. Bless her heart, she just ran and ran and ran as fast as she could but never could catch them. :) Here are some pics... One of them is an action shot of her eating it after one of the boys tagged her "it"... HARD.


Miss Peyton is still doing well. She is a smiling machine these days and is growing quickly. She tips the scales 14 pounds now! She's happier when awake, sleeping better and just all around easier in the last few weeks. She's still pretty "needy" and wants to be held most of the time but I don't mind that. :)

Mr. Spider

Sorry it's been so long! Just a few updates on the kiddos...

Ellie is, as always, hysterical. She has developed in the past few weeks an irritatingly severe fear of insects: bees, flies, spiders, even ants! It's not like she's just being girly about it, either. If she sees a gnat she lets out a blood-curdling scream and flies into an unbelievable panic; she shakes, sweats, etc. It's tough because I'm SO annoyed that she's being such a wimp, but can't be mad at her when she's truly that scared.

So we've been working on "bugs are nice, bugs can't hurt you", etc. the past few weeks. A few days ago we were walking through the house and she pretty calmly told me (with only slight panic in her voice) that there was a "little teeny guy" in the dining room. I thought it was a gnat but it was actually a teeny tiny little spider hanging from his web in the middle of the room. I tried to get Ellie to go near it but she started to freak out. I told her to come with me to the kitchen where we got an old peanut butter jar. I scooped him up and screwed the lid on. Ellie thought this was the coolest thing ever. After making me reassure her that he absolutely could not get out, "Mr. Spider" became her best friend for the next few days. Seriously, she wouldn't leave the house without him for 2 days! Haha...

Well, we got back to the apartment from a trip out when she realizes that she's left Mr. Spider in the car. She loses it and tells me, "We HAVE to go find him!" I had just put Peyton down, was exhausted and the car is a few blocks away. I told her we'd see him in the morning. She starting crying that she had lost him... When I still wouldn't go to the car, she blurts out through her tears, "But Mommy, I LOVED him!!!!" LOL! Such a drama queen.

Mr. Spider was alive and well in the car the next morning and we released him outside on the balcony that afternoon. She still goes to the window and talks to him (well, the spot where we let him go anyway) every once in a while.


Peyton is doing MUCH better! She is finally happy when she's awake! This may seem trivial but it is a major step for us as anyone who's had a colicky baby can attest to. She is a little smiling MACHINE these days and so much fun. She's still waking up to eat twice a night but I can deal with that. :) Here are some cute pics I got of the girls the other day:



I celebrated my THIRTIETH birthday on Thursday. Casey had been on a road trip and got home at 4:30 that afternoon, then had to leave for practice at 6:00, got home at 10:00 pm and then had to leave the next morning for another road trip! Haha... At least I got to see him. The day was actually VERY nice. Both girls were super happy. We just did normal stuff like doing the laundry, going to the park, etc. but what's better than that?! We picked Case up at the buses from his road trip (Ellie looks forward to it every time... kept telling all Daddy's teammates that "Mommy is THIRTY DIRTY!!!") and went to lunch with the girls and Adam Chubb, Casey's best friend here and truly a member of our family now. Here are a few pics:



When Casey got home from practice that night, he gave me my present which was a book that he had put together for me. He had all my friends and family that he could get in touch with write down their thoughts/memories about me and literally had a BOOK bound together with them all, including pictures of me with all of them. It was AMAZING. I have the best husband. EVER. He is so thoughtful and caring and wonderful. I love you, dude.

One more Ellie anecdote:
On my birthday, I told Ellie it could be her birthday present to me if she would just sit and watch Backyardigans and let mommy do her hair. :) She said, "Okay, Mommy... I'll watch Backyardigans." Well, 5 minutes later I hear her in the hallway laughing hysterically. I came out to see what was going on and there she is, with MY toothbrush, brushing Harley's teeth!!!!! I lost it, laughing as hard as Ellie was... it really was hysterical.