Having Fun... Is it Cruel and Unusual?

Okay, so that title is a little goofy, but once you see the pictures, you'll understand why. My mom and I had a lot of fun today taking pictures. But let me rewind first.

Yesterday I drove up to O'Hare airport to pick up my mom from her trip to Utah. And I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed the 2+ hour trip all by myself. It's amazing how quiet the car isn't when you have two little ones in the back seat. My dad was gracious enough to keep the girls for the day while I took the trip. Well, the main reason for my picking up Mom was to allow us a trip to IKEA. We spent a long time in that store and found some really fun things. One of those treasures was a play set of dishes that came with a miniature rolling pin and cookie cutters. When Ellie saw that she told me that she could make pizza with that rolling pin. She doesn't miss anything! Well, Grandma one-upped her and told her we could make cookies with it... you should have seen Ellie's eyes light up at that idea! She was so excited that the very first thing she did this morning, even before she got out of bed, was to yell to grandma that "I'm awake... let's make cookies!". And so they did! And of course I got picture proof. We had gone through the old costumes this morning as well and Ellie found her old Raggedy Ann costume, and that's what you'll see her wearing in the pictures. Ellie absolutely loves to dress up.

Another IKEA treasure is two miniature wicker chairs. Katie loves her chair. She climbs on and off and on and off. It's really quite cute. And of course Ellie loves hers as well. Mom put ribbons on them so they could tell them apart :) So of course we put them in their matching Easter shirts and took some fun pictures of the two girls in the matching chairs. It's no wonder Ellie is so fascinated by things that match... not with her mother and grandmother around! haha... We took a million pictures and these are what we ended up with.

So then comes the cruel and unusual. Although, it ended up being really fun for the girls. Yet again I need to give you a little bit of history to this story. When Halloween last year was coming up I decided that since I had a ladybug costume to use for Katie, I would find a butterfly costume for Ellie- my two little bugs. So I ebayed a costume and when it arrived it was really big on Ellie. So I ebayed the smaller size and when it arrived, it was too small. Well, by this point nobody was bidding on Halloween costumes, so I just kept both of them and shortened the bigger one for Ellie. So a few days ago I got to thinking... the first day of spring was coming up. And what better thing to illustrate the first day of spring than butterflies? I pulled out the smaller butterfly and lo and behold- it fit Katie! That's when the fun really began. But the greatest thing about it- both girls thought dressing up was great. Katie wasn't a huge fan of the hat, but she thought the costume was tons of fun. Getting both of them to smile and show how much fun at the same time... that's another story. We yet again took a million pictures of the two girls and this is what we ended up with. I have great respect for those who take pictures of kids for a living. It's tough getting them to do what you want them to!

Now I realize that today isn't the first day of Spring. But, when Steve wakes up it will be, and I wanted him to see these first thing. Besides, tomorrow my little Katie celebrates her 1st birthday and I wanted to save space for it :-) Hooray for parties! Ellie is very excited. So, tomorrow we're "Going on a Bear Hunt". Feel free to check back and I'll try to get pictures posted tomorrow night.