Ballerina party.

March 13th was Ella's 4th Birthday-but the weekend prior we held her birthday party with family. Her theme of choice: Ballerinas. (ironically this is the first time we haven't had a "spring" party, and the first time that we've actually had Spring-like weather, very windy and about 75 degrees).

The Birthday Girl...who lost her tutu earlier in the day to a potty accident (apparently there was too much excitement and fun going on).

We started with a treasure hunt for all the cousins, which now total 9 on the Widman side!

There were 5 different "Tutu Clues" on the "Tutu Treasure Hunt". The treasure was tutus for the girl cousins, wings and ballet shoes for Ella (who already had her tutu on), and coloring books for the boys. Everyone seemed satisfied:)

This is what we decided was ballerina hair...just go with it.

Some pink, girly decor:

I love all the Easter candy that is out now, and Ella's party was an excuse to buy some. We also did an estimation jar with some jelly beans. These were counted at the end of the party, there were 86 left if you're wondering. I didn't waste my time to count them before the party, because it's a jar of jelly beans sitting within arms reach. Nathan was the closest with a guess of 100. Ella guessed 16:)

Some presents!

A suitcase from Nana and Papa...perfect for our trip to AZ!

Cake time!

We went simple and pink with the cake this year (Ella and Addie put the candles on).

Ella did help me dye the cake though to have different hues of pink. I think now I made it upside down...shouldn't the dark be on the bottom?..., but this is what the inside looked like.

Because I wanted a pink cake, we also went vanilla for the first time instead of traditional chocolate. Next time-back to chocolate:)

Our happy family!

Later that night they Skyped with Grammy in Arizona. Pay no attention to the still messy house.

Ella also opened her present from Grammy (which came in the mail earlier in the week). A Bitty Baby. I think Addie feels the baby is as much hers, so Bunny Bunn Bunn as Ella named her, gets lots of love.

Once again, Happy Birthday Ella Grace...We love you!

4.

Today my Ella Grace is four years old!

You are so beautiful, and still our sweet little quirky Ella.

(it was a little breezy outside!)

But, 4 is a big deal, so we took some shots indoors!

You love to dance, you love to laugh, and you are always ready to help out. You make a great big sister, and a pretty good little sister too; the perfect little peace-maker (and I'm sure being between Nathan and Addie can have its challenges!)

Your current word you like to use is "absolutely", as in "I absolutely love that color!"

You are still super sweet. The other night as you hugged me, you told me, "I could never stop loving you, you are so comfortable! And Jesus and God are the most comfortable!"

The sweetness is definitely mixed with a little sass and passion. Last week we bared through a 20 minute cry because you were not given an ample amount of sugar on your oatmeal! (with your sweet attitude is also a sweet tooth!)

You love to play with babies and Lego's...and you are definitely and dress-up and dance girl. You love to snuggle and read anytime, and you especially love to be the first one up so you can see Daddy before he leaves for work.

We love you Ella Grace!

Sunday morning throwback.

On a typical Sunday, Matt and the kids eat breakfast together while I get ready for church, then Matt helps the kids get dressed and ready. When I'm thinking, I set out clothes for the girls Saturday night. They both like to pick out what they wear now, but it seems to go a little better when I'm involved in the process. This Sunday however clothes were not picked out in advance, which meant it was up to Matt...which means the girls got to pick out whatever they wanted:)

Addie came upstairs wearing a dress I wore as a flower girl in my aunt's wedding. It was handmade by my aunt...in about 1984! It was in Addie's closet for storage reasons, but Matt said she wanted to wear it and he didn't see why not. I could think of a couple of reasons, one being the fact that it's a little summery for winter wear, and the other reasons I'm sure you can guess.

Nonetheless, though I was slightly embarrassed, she did look very sweet. This is during playtime after we were home from church.

Ella was there too for some "dancing" time. She also picked out her own clothes, and decided to wear her dress from Christmas, complete with pink sparkly headband.

Sisters!

chalk love.

For school we've been using our chalk board easel for math lessons and practice. It works great, and afterwards the kids enjoying writing and drawing on it...often making up their own math problems to work out!

This day Nathan wrote some sweet words so I took a picture:

Snowfall.

This has been a bit of a strange winter for most of the Midwest. For the most part strange in a "don't complain, this is an easy winter" sort of way-but again, the kids are disappointed that there's no snow, and even I would prefer it to the mud they found to play in the other day:)

This past Tuesday was especially odd because we had a February thunderstorm-complete with thunder, rain, lighting, and a crying, scared Ella. It was apparently about 35 degrees that night and we got about 1.5 inches of rain, which according to the radio would have been 15-20 inches of snow had it been a few degrees colder! It would have been fun to have a late winter snow day, but also more challenging I'm sure.

It was a little colder the next morning so we did get a little precious precious snow. We decided to take a picture since this is the most snow that's been in our yard all winter (even though you can still see the grass peeking out).

I will also add that we are very thankful that we have not had to deal with tornadoes like those south of us (just lots of wind).

Baby Quilt.

So for archival reasons, I decided to post that I finished my first quilt! Like I mentioned before, it is for a baby girl, so my next task will be to make one for a baby boy (after I finish making the tutus for Ella's ballerina birthday party). I think next time I may try adding more texture and doing a standard block pattern (this one is a mix of squares and rectangles, which was easy since nothing had to line up). My reward is that now I get to buy a rotary cutter (purchased yesterday), and a self-healing cutting mat (50% off coupon sitting on the counter for this). I'm looking forward to not doing quilt #2 with only scissors and an old-fashioned ruler for cutting.

These pictures are not great...but if you are interested in the pattern I got it here. And if you are interested in making a quilt, there is a great tutorial here that I used since I had no idea what I was doing.