Beauty & the Beast

This summer we put Ella in dance class for the first time. Her best preschool friend, Leah, was in her class with her. She absolutely loved it! It was so much fun to watch her. I am not sure if she enjoyed the dancing or the wall to wall mirrors more :)

Her teacher Miss Laurie was the choreographer of a community theater production of "Beauty and the Beast." Last night I took Ethan and Ella to a tea with the cast and the show. It was such a great time. Ella insisted to wear her Belle dress up. I considered protesting for a second, then thought this was the most appropriate occasion to wear it out in public if

there ever was one! Belle came by and got her picture taken with the girls (and Ethan) and talked with them over PB & J and Apple Juice. When Belle asked Ethan if she could take her picture with him, he got so shy. He wouldn't look at her directly and just grinned and grinned. She may be his first crush!

I was really impressed at how well they behaved in the show. I wrongly assumed that since it was a children's group that it would be about an hour. Oh no. It was the full length Broadway show. Complete with the 5 extra songs that weren't in the Disney movie. By the second act (and past 9 pm) Leah's mom and I were rolling our eyes when they sang something we weren't familiar with. But the kids were unfazed by the late hour, storms rolling outside, sore bottoms, and at times off key singing to extra songs. Sometimes I want to stop time and make them quit growing up. But I am completely excited about them getting to an age when we can do fun things like this. It is fun to watch things through them. The absolute amazement, awe and excitement that shined in their eyes as they watched the cast sing and dance. Maybe instead of just loving to watch Broadway shows like their mama, one of them will actually be in one some day! Or at least get season tickets and take me with them.

Summer Fun

So my last post had snow and now Beach trip! To say that I have been bad about keeping up the blog is an understatement. In fact, the only person that may even read this is Mimi and Nana and that may be in a month. But here it goes....

At the end of May we went to the beach for a family vacation. We went to Rosemary Beach (between Panama City Beach and Destin, FL) We had planned to just stay for 4 days. We thought there was no way that just Eric and I could handle the Greer kids in a beach setting on our own. Turns out we did ok, so we stayed all week! The kids had a fantastic time

and keep asking when we are going back to our beach house :) Here are a few pictures of our trip.

Matthew taking a little ride on the luggage cart at the hotel pit stop mid way. We had that baby loaded DOWN!

To Ella, going to the beach or pool is all about the snacks!

Daddy and the boys. Ella would run close to the surf, then scream like a mad woman running when it would wash up. The girl has some lungs. I am sure the other people on the beach were

glad we weren't there for more than a couple of hours at a time.

Ethan throwing the shells back in the water. Maybe BP should hire him for clean up crew now!

Rough Week

Last week was a rough one at the Greer Household. Everyone except Eric got sick. It goes with the territory when you have toddlers of course! It started with a nasty cold that trickled from Ethan to Ella to me then Matthew.

On Tuesday I loaded Ethan & Ella up and took them to see Dr Betts after they started running temperatures. Running fevers is pretty unusual for my brood. Although it proved to be fruitless, Mimi came and played with Matthew to keep him from the germ infested doctor's office. Ethan was diagnosed with a nasty infection in both ears. Ella was all clear. He told me to watch her and bring her back if her fever didn't come back down.

By Thursday she was still running a temp and Matthew started to also. I was planning on asking them to run a flu test on her because I knew that it was more than a cold. I was shocked though when he told me that she in fact had pneumonia! We had been having a very difficult time getting her to take her medicine that week, so the doctor wanted to give her a strong antibiotic shot in the office to make sure we got some meds in her quickly. The shot was HORRIBLE. It was so big that the nurse split it into 1 shot per leg. She even warned me before how painful it would be and she may be limping the next day. By the time she was done giving them to her, we were both sobbing. I have never heard my sweet girl cry like that. It absolutely broke my heart. Fortunately, her legs didn't seem to bother after a few hours. Matthew was diagnosed with an ear infection too. He hardly skipped a beat. He is the best natured sick baby ever :)

Ella got much worse before she got better. We were up all night with Ella Thursday. She couldn't sleep too long before she had a coughing fit and would throw up. At 3 am, she had between a 104 & 105 temperature. We were able to get it to come down though with Motrin and that seemed to be when she turned the corner. We were so thankful that Nana came to help out. It was a treat for the kids to see someone other than boring old Mommy and I certainly appreciated the helping hand!

Now the only lingering memory of our long week is the antibiotic that Matthew & Ella still are taking twice a day and a line of toys that are desperately needing a Clorox bath. Try explaining to a VERY strong willed 3 year old princess that "Yes I know you are not sick anymore, but you still have to take this horrible, chalky, white medicine twice a day for 10 days." Yea. Not easy or pleasant.

Snow Day!!

All week we have been looking forward to the "big snow" that was forecasted for Thursday. All Ethan could talk about was snowballs and Ella couldn't wait to make her Princess Snowman. As we got closer and closer the inches got smaller and smaller. We got maybe half an inch and a lot of ice on the roads. It is enough for the kids to want to play in, but not enough to do much in. Never the less, we still spent 30 minutes bundling up to go play in the snow for about 10 minutes.

No Princess Snowman, but my angel made some snow angels! Poor thing had to do them on the sidewalk because there wasn't enough you could see on the grass!

Ethan considered doing a snow angel but he had more sense than to lay in wet snow in 20 degree weather!

"Help I have fallen and I can't get up because my Mommy has me bundled up so much!!!"

2009 Wrap Up

Once again I find myself apologizing for falling off the blogging wagon :) I realize it has been a couple of months since I have updated on here. My mom keeps telling me it looks like Ethan and Ella never even celebrated their birthday!

We have good excuses though......sickness, house being on the market, 3 kids and trying to do a Bible study every day.....all left me little time to blog. Santa heard about my plight though and brought me a new MacBook to help me out. Now I can get on the computer a lot easier!

Instead of a long post about everything we have been doing, I put together a little slideshow of the last couple of months. Enjoy!