Houdini Strikes Again

You might remember this post from last year when Trevor magically escaped from the buckles of his high chair. Well, last night as I am driving 70 miles an hour down the tollway, our little Houdini performed his latest trick. He can unbuckle his car seat straps. Lovely. This is how I found him when I pulled in to the garage. And yes, he wears his sunglasses at night.

Pacifiers Anonymous

Hello. My name is Trevor, and I am a pacifieraholic.


We are desperately trying to kick this habit. Actually, for the past year Trevor has only had his beloved paci when he sleeps. We don't take it anywhere. It stays in his bed and he knows to leave it there when he wakes up. Buuuuut, then we went on a road trip. And Trevor got a little bit more attached. Soooooo, we have enrolled in the twelve step program and the process has begun. The night before last he went through a screaming/creaming/flailing withdrawal that lasted until about 11:30pm. Last night we ended up driving around in the car for a bit just to divert his attention. We came back home and he was able to fall asleep, but not before pitifully begging for his paci a few times. Oh.my.goodness. We keep telling him that pacies are for babies~ last night he told me that "Baby Kate please bring back my paci!"

Anywhoo. Hopefully tonight will be better. Next up, potty training...

Raod Trip!

Well, we survived our first family road trip! I have taken many road trips in my life, but the furthest my husband and kids have ever gone is about 5 hours away, so I was nervous. Maybe more so about how my husband would do than the kids! But, we ALL did fabulously and had a super-great time. Here's how it all went down (I'll spare you ALL the details and the 300+ pictures):

Days 1-3~ Peachtree City, GA! (outside Atlanta) We drove 12 hours the first day to spend a few days with my cousin and his family. Ashley and Trevor had a blast with Will and Jeff! We've missed them since they moved from Plano last year. We picked blueberries, went swimming, made "kick the can" homemade ice cream, and rode all over town in the golf cart!





Days 3-8~ North Myrtle Beach, SC! My dad and step-mother live there and it's such a fun place. We spent LOTS of time at the beach, but managed to fit in a few other things too. My dad is an avid fisherman so he took Ashley fishing for the first time and she caught 5 fish!









Day 8~ Durham/Chapel Hill, NC for tours of Duke and University of NC. In case you haven't figured it out yet, Jonathan is a bit obsessed with basketball (thank goodness it's his profession) so he has waited a long time for this day! Both campuses are beautiful and worth the trip.






Days 8-10~ Mountains of North Carolina. My aunt and uncle have a mountain home in the town of Sparta, NC which is close to the Virginia border and it is beautiful. The house and the area. Gorgeous views and cool, non-humid mountain air. Ashley and Trevor had never been to the mountians, so this was a special trip.






The kids were amazing travelers~ they each had their own portable DVD player to watch and their own bucket of travel activites to keep them busy. Neither one fussed or complained. Ever. I packed lots of snacks and we made minimal stops, with Jonathan driving the entire route. Susan, our GPS was amazing and never lead us astray, although she did test our trust on the journey out of the mountains. We had such a great trip and are already making plans for next year!

We Have Pictures!

Here are some pictures of us from the 4th that were taken and sent to me by a friend. The first one is actually from my camera on July 3rd~ the memory card actually survived the underwater tragedy! I still haven't picked up the pics from the Fun Flash, so they will have to wait until we return from our ROAD TRIP! We are headed out to Myrtle Beach to see my dad and Kathy, with stops in Atlanta on the way there and the mountains of NC on the return to see family. Wish us luck!

Photoless 4th

Ahhhh, Independence Day. Our country is as independent as the not-so-supervised child who threw our pool bag into the pool yesterday. No big deal, right? The bag and MOST of it's contents are made to get wet. Except the cell phone and digital camera that were "safely" stored in the bag. That was sitting far away from the pool. On my lounge chair. Seriously folks. I'll make a loooong story much shorter for you~ the dad of the bag-tosser happens to work for AT&T so he ran home and got me a loaner phone to use until mine dries out and he just so happened to have a brand new digital camera comparable to mine that he is willing to give me in the event that mine never recovers from it's underwater adventure. What does it mean when you actually see water floating around in the screen of your camera? Recovery seems very unlikely. Until we took it apart my poor phone would faintly vibrate as if to let me know the end was near. Deep breaths, deep breaths. Soooo, how cute did the Ellis children look in their 4th of July outfits? You will just have to wait until the old-school Fun Flash disposable camera gets developed. Oh! And, RIP the brand new can of Pringles that also fell victim during this outrageous tragedy.

Super Shopper Surplus Sale

Thank you Frisco ISD for inadvertently changing my plans today. I was planning to head to the gym, get Ashley a haircut (and one for my mom too, she's back in town thank goodness) and go to the pool because we haven't been there enough this summer (just kidding).

Anyway, Frisco ISD held a surplus "sale" today to disperse all of the Early Childhood teaching materials from several campuses because they built a brand new EC school that will open in August and will receive all new materials. The other campuses were told to send 1 or 2 representatives to shop at this "sale"-- all materials were free, but are property of the district so they are supposed to stay within the district. I had received an email about this and thought I knew what I was getting myself into... ummm, wrong.

I went to this Super Shopper Surplus Sale (affectionately named by me) wearing jeans and only planning to stay for about 30 minutes. Since I will be teaching at a brand new school this year we will be getting all new stuff (furniture and materials) so I didn't think there was really anything we would need... ummm, wrong.

The entire school cafeteria was FILLED with furniture-- everything from bookshelves, cubbies, toy kitchens, etc., and teaching materials. OMG. After picking my jaw up off the floor, I called my mom and told her it would be longer than 30 minutes, then I started to shop. Three hours later I was dripping with sweat (remember I was wearing jeans) and had a car FULL of great stuff. It's not all for me, it technically belongs to my school/district and will have to be divided among the other kinder teachers on my team. But, WOW! Look at all of this stuff!

Summer!

So long school year~ Hello, summer! You can look, but I'm not sure you will find a family more excited to be out of school for summer than the Ellis family. We had a busy weekend, but yesterday (Monday) came and we slipped right into our summer routine, complete with sleeping in, working out, and a fun afternoon at the pool. Ashley is taking a break from dance this summer and has started a tumbling class, which she loves. Can you believe she is officially a 1st grader? I can't. Where has the time gone? (sniff, sniff) Trevor is growing up fast too, and talking up a storm. He is not quite the fish his sister is at the pool, but he begs to "go fwimming" and is getting braver each time we go. And don't worry-- we actually supervise our children at the pool, unlike several parents (moms mostly) who dress their kids in those full-body, bomb-suit-looking things and hide behind their sunglasses while their kid fends for himself, splashing other pool patrons more than Shamu splashes the Splash Zone and klepto-ing pool toys to make Winona Ryder proud. That may be a whole other post. Anyway...

Last day of kindergarten!

Dancing Diva Does Hip-Hop!

Tents solve EVERYTHING!

Summertime sillies!

Wearing those floaties with pride!