For Their Dada

Ben is in Yazoo City indefinitely working to help get the area back on track after a tornado devastated the area on April 24th. The tornado ripped through 149 miles for nearly 3 hours killing 10 people. Ben will be working 13 days straight and then 1 day off. He plans on coming home every few days, but that only gives us a couple hours to visit, because he works so late. I am posting some pictures of the some things we've done the past few days, so he can see all the excitement he is missing.

"I want some Mickey D's!"

Mrs. Becky, Baby Neil, Mrs. Roxanna, Baby Johannah at our playdate

Chloe in action, throwing the ball with Jingles and Camden

Camden got the ball!

Ella and me after our playdate

Chloe taking a blue bath with a blue Ring Pop. She had a great time at church playing with the kids!

Is that Snow White?

Chloe and our "LuLu's" fountain

(Chloe is wearing her LuLu's t-shirt with a picture of the actual fountain on it)

Ell's first tooth (Can you see it?)

Visit at Cock of the Walk

Yesterday, the girls and I traveled to Jackson to visit with my mom's family for an early Mother's Day. We went shopping then met up with the family at Cock of the Walk. Chloe had a great time with her cousins (second cousins once removed) Andrew and Conner. They played hard at the indoor treehouse at Backyard Burger. They also watched and honked at the ducks and geese at Cock of the Walk. Ella loves to ride, so she had a pretty decent day as well. She looked quite cute in her new pink duck onesie with plaid skirt outfit that her Grammy gave her. My brother-in-law, Chloe's uncle, has been trying real hard to make it on the blog, so I posted a picture of him and Chloe. All in all, we had a wonderful day with good food (fried catfish, cornbread and turnip greens... yummm) and good family fellowship.

Cousin Crechale (left) and her mom Aunt Lynn (far right)

Cousin Amy (right) and her mom Aunt Cherry (Cousin Karry in the distance)

Papaw, Mamaw, G-Paw and Grammy

"I see the ducklings!"

Chloe and her Uncle Dustin

Honk! Honk!

Chloe, Andrew, & Conner

Rolling Over

Ella has been rolling over from lying on her back to lying on her belly for almost two weeks now. She rolled over from her belly to her back on March 26th. Now when she gets on her tummy, she is alright for a minute and then gets mad. Until today, she would just cry until someone picked her up or rolled her back over, but now she has started to roll herself back over. She is going to be rolling all over the place pretty soon. She is also attempting to hold her bottle. Not quite coordinated enough for that yet though. She just puts her hands on it while you are feeding her. It's a start!

Ella's first spoonful

A few days ago, I attempted giving Ella her first bit of cereal from a spoon. It went just as I expected it. She would open her mouth to take some, but she spit it out just as quickly as it went in. She did continue to open her mouth for it, but also continued to spit it out. I think she liked playing with it. The picture I am posting is the aftermath. Sorry, couldn't take a picture and put a spoon in her mouth at the same time. I am also posting a cute picture of her, so her first pic on the blog wasn't just one where she is a mess.

"Barkly" Shoes

Ever since Chloe saw our friend's daughter wearing these shoes, she has been talking about getting some shoes like Hannah. I wasn't that adoment about getting them, because I knew they weren't cheap, but her daddy likes to spoil her. So he took her to a couple of shoe stores to find them and then ended up getting them off the internet. They are so cute, and she was really excited to put them on when they arrived. They flash when she walks, and so she stomps around just to get them to flash. She thinks her Aunt Marley got them for her since she brought the box in from outside. She calls them her "barkly" shoes (AKA sparkly shoes).

Fish & Worms

My family and I took the girls fishing Sunday afternoon. Of course Ella just enjoyed the fresh air, but Chloe had a great time watching all of us fish. She didn't get into fishing herself that much even though she has her very own Disney princess fishing pole, but when I caught a small fish, she wouldn't let it go. She carried it around and even put it in her overalls pocket. It was like pulling teeth to get her to let it go after she loved it to death... literally. We had some worms leftover, so her dada told her to put them in our watermelon patch, and we did. She played with them for a good while. She would say, "They're so wiggly!" She is my little Ellie Mae.

Storytime Live!

On Sunday, April 11, Ben and I took Chloe to see Storytime Live at the Orpheum Theater in Memphis, Tennessee. We went with my friend Sylvia and her daughter Vivian. We met Ben's brother Jason and his daughter Amanda on the way. When we got to Memphis we strolled over to Spaghetti Warehouse for lunch. It was delicious! Then we very quickly strolled back to the Orpheum and got in our seats just a couple of minutes before the show. It was hosted by Moose and Zee from Nick Jr. and included stories from Ni Hao Kai Lan (spelling?), Backyardigans (AKA Backiyardigans as Chloe calls them), Wonder Pets, and Dora the Explorer. The show ended with the entire cast singing Shout! My favorite part was watching the girls see their favorite characters on the big stage.