Sister Night

After Kayley's birthday party the other day, Mary, Jessica, and I wanted some sister time with one another so we decided to go watch Time Traveler's Wife. I have to say that it was really fun going with my sisters! I'm so blessed to have such great sisters and I just wish my other sisters could have been there too! I did like the movie...although I'm going to forewarn you with the fact that there is a lot of bootie shown!! I mean a lot and too much in my opinion! But, very emotional movie-for me anyway. After the movie was over it was pouring down rain and of course our car was way far away! So, I took the bullet and raced out to get the car...I missed Nick as he usually does that. Anyway, it was a great night and it was great that our husbands watched the kids so we could have some needed sister time!

Chief's Game

Well, after much begging and convincing, I got Nick to go to a Chief's Game with me the other day. Nick's cousin has season tickets this year and we are excited to be able to see him more often because of it, but he wasn't able to make it to the pre-season game and so he kindly sent us the tickets! So, Nick got free tickets and it still took convincing for him to go. I told him that he could either take me to the game and Michelle/Kendall would watch the girls, or Michelle and I would go and take Cora with us and he and Kayley could go watch a movie together. So, he finally was convinced to take me...so thanks to Michelle for watching the girls we had a fun time getting soaked! It was nice cool weather when we got there and then during the 1st quarter it started raining a bit and then let up for a while, then started and never stopped! During halftime we started feelind drops on our heads and realized that our umbrella was failing us...so we lasted until about the end of the 3rd quarter and then headed out...but the best part was on the way to pay for parking, a lady randomly rolled down her window and asked us if we wanted a parking pass. Of course we said yes (not even knowing how much parking was) and were extremely excited and grateful when we got to the window and found out it 22 bucks JUST TO PARK! Wow!! I know now how those players have such nice cars! :) Knowing Nick if we had gotten up there and not had a pass, he would have backed up and left the game and not gone...so I'm really glad for that pass! It was a fun date amidst the weather! Oh...and here's a pic of the cousins playing before we left!

Cheesin' at Hardee's

The other day we went to Hardee's to eat and Cora was just sitting like this in the little window next to our booth...it was picture perfect, so I grabbed my camera and of course Kayley posed for me too. I just have to say that our girls are so cute and we love them so much! Oh...and for an update, we are officially diaper free! Cora is now sleeping both naptime and bedtime without a diaper almost for a week now and is dry everytime she wakes up! I'm so proud of our little girl!

Please Vote for our Girls!

http://showusthecow.com/photos.php?view=browse&tag=COW BELL

Please go to the above link and vote for our girls. I entered them into the cow appreciation day contest from Chik-fil-a. Thanks so much!!

Our Baby Cora Turns 2!!

Well by the title you guessed it, Cora turned 2 this last weekend! She was so cute. When I woke her up that morning I said, "Cora it's your birthday and time for your...then I was interrupted with an extremely excited "Elmo birthday party!" Needless to say she was way excited for her birthday party and yes it was an Elmo party! I got ambitious and did an Elmo cake...the icing had to be started days in advance in order to get the color just right...we didn't want a pink Elmo. But the cake was suprisingly the easiest thing to do with the party! We had Elmo games and of course the hottest present topic was Elmo so she got lots of Elmo type presents. We were lucky to have the Carle, Felker (Columbia Felkers), & Walker cousins and Grandma Jani & Papa Otto and my cousin Jack even came over from Fort Riley. The day started out being a rainy/wet one, but ended up being nice and great weather for the kids to be outside for our Elmo games. We had Elmo light/Oscar light (Red light-Green light), Blue Grover-Blue Grover (red rover-red rover), and Elmo Says (Simon Says). The kids had a blast playing the games and of course loved the bounce house so generously brought by Aunt Michelle! It was the perfect day for a party! Here are some pics of the kids...

Here are pictures of the cake. It was cute because during the time of singing Happy Birthday to her she was singing to herself. Then if you look at the the upper left picture, this is her trying to do two fingers...she always says, "help me" as she still has a hard time doing her fingers in a two.

Our first game was Red light/Green light with pictures of Elmo as the red light and pictures of Oscar as the green light. The kids loved being able to run and the big kids had a hard time going slow to let the little kids win sometimes.

The next game was Red Rover or Blue Grover sticking to the elmo theme. As you can see from the pictures...the girls did a bit better than the boys!! :)

The last game was Elmo Says. Cora was Elmo of course and she loved doing all the actions!

Here are some fun pictures of the cousins that got to come and enjoy the party with us! Cora was so excited to play with all her cousins and we loved having them all here! Thanks so much to all you for making Cora's birthday so special! She really did have a great birthday!

I can't believe our little baby is growing up so quickly. She is quite the cute little girl. She is complete opposite of Kayley in that she is really not afraid of anything. She's loves adventures and of course that means she gets into everything! She doesn't just need one toy out, she needs all of them! But, she is also my cuddler. She loves to cuddle when she wakes up and when she goes to bed. I love these small moments with her and it makes me realize how quickly time goes by. Since she has been able to talk, she has always had this cute little raspy voice and I just can't get enough of it. She also loves to do anything her sister does, so she loves all the princesses and loves to play dress up. She is also so grown up now that she is pretty much all potty trained. We've got wetting down to a T and stay dry all day. Going number 2 is difficult for her at times so we often spend most of the day during the time when she should go without underwears on so that she will feel it coming and not have anywhere to go...it's worked so far once and we're hoping it sticks! We just love our Cora so much and our family wouldn't be the same without her!

Visit with the Rodmans

I forgot to post this earlier. About a week ago, Nick's cousins, the Rodmans came for a quick visit on their way through to Colorado. We were lucky enough for them to stay and visit long enough to spend the night and the girls loved every minute of it. Roreigh their granddaughter/niece came with them and she is exactly one week younger than Kayley. The girls were in 7th heaven having her here! We went to TGIFriday's and Nick found a fabulous coupon to where we all ate (all 9 of us, 3 kids and 6 adults) for 38 bucks!! I was way impressed as always with Nick's deals as were the Rodmans! Then afterwards we came home and the girls got to take a big bubble bath in our jacuzzi tub and had a blast. Then of course Aunt Wilma always comes bearing gifts from her good deals she finds and it was present time. The girls were way excited as they got lots of girlie things and cool books and lots of other stuff. We had a great, but short visit with them!

Very Happy Parents

Well, Nick and I have great reason to be very proud parents this week. Cora has pretty much been potty-trained this week. For journaling purposes, on Saturday, July 18th, we went to Nebraska Furniture Mart and Cora kept telling us she needed to go potty...well lately she has gone potty and squeezed her cheeks so hard that a little spec of poop has come out...it was pretty cute, but we tried to make a big deal of it. On the way out of the store, she kept insisting that she go potty, so reluctantly I took her as I was fully expecting her to do the same as above. Well to my surprise, she went the full round in going potty. I was so excited and we made a huge deal about it. I honestly didn't think I was ready to try potty training, especially on the weekend with errands on Sat and church/nursery on Sunday cause we're just barely getting her to go to nursery without fussing! So Monday, July 20th we went full force into wearing underwears...her special elmo underwears that she picked out about 3 months ago. She took to #1 very quickly and only had 3 total accidents that day, one being #2...not so fun as we all know! :) Then the next day only 2 accidents, one also being #2, Wednesday a repeat of Tuesday. At this point I'm tired of cleaning ickies out of her underwears. Both of our kids are pretty regular so I kept trying to catch her in the act, but something would always be in the way (cleaning dinner or the next night they were just playing so nicely together I didn't want to disturb that) so I thought that suckers may do the trick or at least it was worth a shot. So on Thursday, July 23rd I showed her how I could go #2 (as a mother I'm already used to having my kids in the bathroom with me!) and then I got myself a sucker for going poopie in the potty...GO MOM!! :) Then it was cute b/c Kayley immediately then sat on the toilet and tried to push on her belly to go poop to get a sucker. She even would run around the house to try and work some poop out. Then later that evening it happened...Cora pooped in the potty!! I about cried!! Cora of course was ecstatic since she was now able to get a sucker!

So, I think she broke Kayley's record in potty training in 4 days as Kayley was 1 1/2 weeks. We have yet to go poopy again in the potty, but it's only been one day, so I'm hoping that this a trend and we are almost officially free of diapers. We still do bed time and nap time with diapers just to be safe, but I think as of next week we will be ready to drop those too as she's been waking up dry the last few days! We are really proud of our Cora and the accomplishment she has made. She is also very proud of herself as she still claps when she goes potty. Then we all say "Yeah Cora!" She then replies with a "Yeah Me!" It sure is cute to see her so proud of herself! If we knew all our kids were going to be this easy in potty training, we'd have bunches of kids!! :)

A Bunch of Cow Bells

Well, yesterday was Cow Appreciation Day at Chik-fil-a. All you had to do was attempt to dress up like a cow and you would get a free meal. So, a few black construction paper circles later and we were set...and yes I even got Nick to dress up and had to sneak in a picture while he was getting Kayley out as he wouldn't pose for me before we left. Well, we were glad we went! We got there and they said we could pick whatever we wanted between meals 1-7 and if the girls wanted a kids meal they could have that or get a regular meal. So what did we do?...jumped on getting the girls real meals! They both got a chicken nugget meal with a pop and they were so excited to have their pop! It was a fun day and it was fun to see the other people dressed as cows too. So, no we weren't the only ones! Oh...and I was pretty impressed with myself on our title...now I have a new Halloween costume idea! :) We are the Bells you know!! :)

Kayley playing the big Sis role

I caught Kayley reading to Cora in her bed a few days ago. Cora likes to play "sleep" in Kayley's bed like a big girl as she is still in her crib...I know, I know she's almost 2, but I'm not ready for 2 kids running freely in and out of their bed just yet! Maybe soon we'll make her bed a big girl bed, but just not yet! Anyway, this was really cute and I was also way excited that I found out how to video from my camera and figured out how to put it on the blog! :)

4th of July, etc

Well, you guessed it on what this blog is about if you stay connected to anyone on the Bell side! I put some pics up on facebook a long time ago, but just realized I didn't put any up on our blog. So, we too went to Arkansas/Branson/Springfield for 4th of July weekend. We started by going to Springfield and spending time at Mooma's house, then to SDC on Friday with everyone, which is always fun! We did get Natalie to ride a ride, the American Plunge, although it's not the one we wanted her to ride, it's a start Natalie!! :) Kayley did NOT like that ride as it got her wet. She will ride almost all the other rides, even some that I'm a bit nervous to ride myself, but she was not happy about this one getting her wet! Then on Sat we headed to Arkansas to see Addison. The girls and I had been able to see her a couple weeks before, but Nick hadn't, so this was his first time seeing her. I warned him that she would try and make him a bit baby hungry...he admitted it did a bit, but both of us do NOT have any announcements! :) We're enjoying everyone else having babies! Then, we all played at Chik-fil-a....even the adults took their turns down the slide with the kiddos...including Grandma! Then we went to the BBQ at John's sister's house where there was yummy food and lots of fun time visiting with family. We had a great fireworks show, or so I heard...I was mostly in and out with Nick trying to calm our girls down so we got to take turns here and there. Then Saturday night we actually got to stay in a suite in our hotel, which was really nice! Then Sunday morning was the blessing, which went well and afterward we all went to Shannon's house for lunch. It was great to catch up with family that we hadn't seen in a long time! That always makes for a great celebration!