clean "teef"...

miss madeline recently engaged in her first real trip to the dentist! she had been before to orient her to the idea of the dentist...but had never really had her pearly whites cleaned! she was such a brave little girl!!!!

she looked so precious in that big apron getting her x-rays made...and so very little!!!! ella was getting her teeth cleaned as well, so maddie opted for big sis to "go first"! i think she wanted to make sure that she was indeed going to let this happen to her!!!! i'm pretty sure that if you asked her...she would tell you that the coolest part of the whole experience was watching television on the ceiling!!!

she was so still and let them check all of her teeth and give them a shine...she wasn't too sure about the flossing and definitely didn't care for the fluoride...but there were no fits and no tears...so i'd say it was a success! the biggest snafu we encountered was the argument that ensued over who was going to take home which toothbrush!!!! poor little ella who has always gotten a "perfect report" has to go back to have two teeth filled and two more "looked at more closely"! seems as though she may have inherited her mommy's teeth genes...poor girl!!!!!

i'm really proud of my girl...and quite frankly a little shocked that our sugar addict has (at least for now)...pristine "teef"...but she's just like her daddy so that shouldn't surprise me!!!!

a little "do it yourself"...

it has taken us quite some time, but we are slowly but surely trying to transform our backyard into somewhere that we actually want to spend time!!!!! my husband is quite the carpenter (well, he's quite a lot of things...but in this particular instance...we'll focus on his carpentry!!!)...and he built our deck with his own two hands! we have already enjoyed some fun times out there...and look forward to many more to come!

and then she was six...

ella. she's six. she's truly six. been so for about a month now. she looks a little bit older every day to me...but somehow, i can still remember how that little peanut felt on my chest for the very first time. she was the tiniest price baby...with the biggest amount of zest! i marveled at her for hours...in fact, i couldn't stop crying every time i looked at her for a few days after we came home from the hospital. i just couldn't believe that she was my daughter...and i was her mommy.

i still marvel at her. she's just precious. her adorable freckles are just one of the million tiny things that make her an amazing little girl.

this amazing little six year old just happens to love gymnastics...so we decided to have her party at jill's. twenty of her sweet little girl friends...and a couple of special boys...were invited to come monkey around on the gymnastics floor!

i think that the highlight of the party was being thrown into the foam pit by a couple of the daddies...and watching her aunt carmie do some round off back handsprings!!! oh the laughs and red faces...those kiddos played h.a.r.d!!!!

we all sang to the birthday girl and enjoyed some pizza and yummy pink and purple donuts...requested by the princess (she doesn't do cake...and she has informed me that next year she would like apple pie!!!)!

it was soon time to send all of our tired guests home with little calling cards that i had printed by a very patient and dear friend (thanks rod...you're the best!)

i hope that it was a birthday party that she won't soon forget. lots of special people gathering together to celebrate a little life that so far, has been very well lived.

i love her more than life itself. so does her daddy. so does boo. i haven't heard it straight from her mouth...but so does ava! to know ella is to love her.

happy sixth birthday, my sweet one. you'll never know what you mean to me.

adios disney...

but not before we got a little swim in!!!

we woke up to beautiful, blue, sunny skies on april 26th...ella's birthday! we needed to get our last disney breakfast fix...so we grabbed some delicious waffles...and ate by the pool while the girls swam like little fishes!!!!

we had to leave the hotel by 12:30 and the girls stayed at the pool until the very last second! we were all sad to say goodbye...my goodbye was probably hardest of all...

i loved every second of this vacation with my family. i loved seeing the unending smiles on the faces of my little people. i loved watching "honey & grandpa" experience special moments with their grand kids. i loved watching ella face her fears with her daddy. i loved watching maddie get chocolate all over her face as she thoroughly enjoyed her many ice cream sandwiches. i loved catching sweet smiles from my precious ava as she effortlessly endured hours upon hours in her car seat.

i. just. loved. it. all.

i look forward to the day that we can go back...but for now...i will just relish in the sweet conversations that i have with ella & maddie...when we reminisce about our trip...and smile and laugh...

because we all remember that is was F.U.N!!!!

from hollywood studios...

to the animal kingdom!

our third day of vacation started out with a bang! another yummy breakfast with the little einsteins at hollywood & vine!!! leo, june, jojo, & goliath greeted the girls while we ate more mickey pancakes...and cupcakes! our birthday girl was treated like a queen again and even got a homemade card from all the characters! such a fun, fun way to start our day! it was so sweet seeing ella go up to the giant leo and thank him for her card...

thanks to daddy, we were able to head straight to the "toy story" ride with our fast passes right when breakfast was over! such a cute, cute ride! daddy scored 140,000, grandpa scored 98,000, ella scored 38,000, mommy scored 33,000, and boo scored 0...oh well, she had fun and that's what counts, right!?!?

after this ride was over, we made our way over to the animal kingdom! much to my dismay, ella was chomping at the bit to ride the biggest roller coaster there..."everest"...and so was her daddy! after much debate, she, jeffrey, and dayne headed over the stand in line while honey, maddie, ava, and i headed out for some adventures of our own!

the gals headed to the "it's tough to be a bug" show where we proceeded to scare madeline and ava to death! mom and i loved it though...it's a precious show...but had a few too many special effects for the little price girls!

we wanted to catch the "everest crew" coming down the big hill...so we headed over to wait! little did we know that they had also had a long wait...they had to close down the ride for a while because someone had gotten sick! however, it wasn't long and jeffrey was telling me that they were on board! i honestly could not believe that my little girl was going to go through with it...she was awfully scared i found out, but told her daddy that she was going to "face her fears"!!!! it was so precious watching her sweet, scared little face through my zoom lens! when she finished the ride...she wanted to go AGAIN...so mom and i went for a spin! it truly was a fun, fun roller coaster!!!!!

we made our way over to the safari just in time to use our fast passes! this is just awesome. it is probably the closest i will ever come to experiencing an african safari...the animals are just roaming about while you ride through the "jungle"! incredible! maddie instructed me to take a picture of literally every single animal and became quite chatty with a girl named lindsey behind us...she is so funny!

we were all in need of a snack, so we grabbed a shady table and just relaxed for a minute while we waited for the safari parade to begin! while we were resting and snacking, the girls participated in a tribal dance! they were so cute out there doing the dance with each other...ella says now that she was a bit embarrassed...but you would never have known!

the parade came right by our little spot and it was fun seeing all the characters dressed in their safari gear!
we headed to the lion king show which was just fabulous...kinda like a small version of a broadway show! absolutely fantastic and i'm so glad we were able to catch it!

the sky began to look a little heavy, but ella wanted to get in one more everest ride...so we gave it a go and headed for our last ride of the vacation! she ended up getting to ride it TWO more times...and she loved every single minute! maddie was happy that granpda bought her another ice cream sandwich! (when grandpa tried to split this dessert with her, she told him that she doesn't do halves!!!!)

by now, the sky looked like the bottom was going to fall out and the park was closing anyway...so we headed to the bus stop to make our way "home"! since we couldn't go swimming, we sent grandpa and jeffrey to get supper so that we could have a carpet picnic and celebrate our sweet little six year old's birthday just a little bit early!!!!

we could not have been more thankful for such a wonderful day!