Most improved

This year taking Rachel to see Santa was a breeze. She freaked out last year and was screaming in the picture. This year we told her that Santa was like a grandpa so she wouldn't be afraid. She sat on his lap and snuggled right into him. She even smiled! She never smiles when we ask. So that was a pretty big deal.

We lucked out and took her on half price day so our package only cost $13 and came with a $10 shutterfly gift card. Pretty sweet!

Happy Birthday!

Yesterday Rachel turned two. Although if you ask her how old she is, she tells you she is 4. We had a family birthday party for her and took some of her cousins swimming and then came back for dinner, cake and ice cream, a pinata and of course presents. She loved having her family together and all the attention she received. Thanks to everyone who came. We had a really good time.

Wanna have some fun?

Crayola is offering free coloring pages of your personal pictures. You can upload 5. All you have to do is go to http://play-zone.crayola.com/play-zone/index.htm#/LCC. Click on enter the code, then register and use code pr24qcht. I was able to make some fun coloring pages of my family. Have fun!

Vote vote vote!

You have seen the room now go to the blog site below to vote for the vinyl! The voting ends on Labor Day (Monday) so make those votes count! Thanks!

http://www.ellemenopea.com/blog/

You can also become a fan of eLLeMeNOPea on Facebook and vote there too! The more votes the merrier!

Thanks!

Rachel's Big Girl Room

After months of bargain shopping, I think I am finally done with Rachel's big girl room. That's pretty much what I have been doing with my spare time. It's funny because I never realized how girlie I was until I decorated a little girls room. I found this material on line called 'Polly goes to Paris' and used it to make the pillow and cover the chair. My Mom was awesome enough to sew for us. I had fun recovering the chair and used the fabric as inspiration to customizing some vinyl (Ellemenopea.com). I saw some wire flowers at anthropologie and stole the idea. I used wire from Home Depot and created my own to put above her headboard (they look cooler in person). Kevin painted stripes on the accent wall by using clear semi gloss paint. He taped and then just painted over some of the existing paint. Overall Rachel, Kevin and I are happy with the results!

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The Little Mermaid

I am so behind on blogging but wanted to share a funny story from today. Rachel was getting ready to take a nap and we decided to read Disney's The little mermaid. We opened the book and Rachel sees Eric (who is the Handsome prince) and points to him and says Dada. I thought that was sweet. We flipped the page and there is Ariel the beautiful mermaid and Ursala the ugly fat villain. You'll never guess who was " Mama." That's right my 1 yr old daughter pointed to Ursala and said Mama. I love you Rachel. You always make me laugh!

Zoo trip

These are some older pictures of Rachel's first time at the Zoo. I came across them the other day and wanted to include them on our blog! Enjoy!

Potty news!

Yesterday was a big day for our family! Rachel used the potty for the first time and went a total of three times! Hopefully she continues to be excited to use it! No pressure... but it will be nice to see how she does in the next few months!

Building a garden

This will be our third summer in our home and so we decided it was finally time to build a garden. Exciting stuff! I always end up killing my plants and so I went to an enrichment activity on gardening. I learned about soil, and bugs (both good and bad), what kind of seeds and plants work best, how to build the boxes and about other things pertaining to gardening. I was pretty pumped to attempt gardening, now that I understood it a little better. Luckily for me, when I say "we" want to start a project the Kevin side of "we" usually takes over and gets the job done. So far we have planted 3 different types of tomatoes, bell peppers, Zucchini, cilantro, basil, mint and some flowers that bring in the good bugs. We still need to plant some seeds and hope to have a decent garden. We also planted a lemon tree, a mandarin tree, some berries, and a kumquat tree. We are really excited!

Easter weekend

Rachel took part in her first Easter egg hunt this year at our club house. There were so many kids! The eggs were gone in about 2 minutes! I was guilty of hovering over a few so she was sure to get some. She did a lot better with Peter Rabbit than she did last year with Santa.

Rachel finds her basket

The goodies

Daddy and Rach meet Peter Rabbit

Rachel getting her eggs

Easter Sunday we had my family over for dinner. It was nice to get everyone together. I ended up taking pictures of everyone outside. While we were out there, we saw this pile of dark stuff in the dirt. we got close and realized it was a mound of ants. So then Kevin decided to pour some gas on them and light them on fire! It was really gross, but kind of fun to bring out our inner pyro.

Crazy Sedgwick kiddos

My brother Doug and his wife April

Rachel's favorite person Paige

My Mom and Dad

The girls with Grandma Hellen. I think someone pinched someones butt in this picture and that is why they are laughing.

My sister karla and her kids

Being oafy!

The grandkids that live in Cali

My brother Brian and his family

Burning ants =)