Thanksgiving 2008!!

We are so blessed that both of our families live about 15 minutes from us. We had a good, low-key, thanksgiving and spent time at my parents house and then with Chris' family. I actually only ate at the first house so I feel like I actually ate less than I do on a normal day-SUPER weird for thanksgiving but I've been enjoying the leftovers every day since :-) We spent a lot of time on our car rides between houses that day taking turns praying "Thank you God for....". Ella was thankful for mommy, daddy, raleigh, our house, our food, and the Hannahs (her favorite friends at the moment). Chris and I had lots of blessings to count. I have to say I'm most thankful for Jesus. None of what I do is worth anything if it wasn't for his limitless love and constant work in my life. Thanks Lord for all you've done and are doing in our family.


chillin with Marissa-this was before the poor little boy sitting next to me threw up all over his plate...lovely...

getting ready to eat at my rents house


My grandmother turned 90 the day before Thanksgiving! This was her first cake-angel food cake-nice and healthy so she'll be here for another 10 years!

Her second cake-double chocolate...so she can actually enjoy the next 10 years!

On to house #2. Nana was SO on the ball. She had new toys ready to entertain the kids while they waited to eat!


Silas and I got some quality time while Ping and Andrew ate their dinner. He's getting SO big!

Ella LOVED playing with her little cousin and he was SO fascinated by her.

There are about 20 pics in this series of Christopher and Ella. Let's just say they REALLY enjoyed their pie. Before this, Chris was playing with Hannah and made a joke about "getting her nose." This was NOT funny to Hannah. She had a look of sheer terror and burst into tears. She cried and screamed for a LONG time. Amy had to come try and soothe her to get her to calm down. Ella came over to pat her back and say "It's ok, don't cry!" and Christopher was chanting "Uncle Chris is bad, Uncle Chris is mean, Uncle Chris is in trouble." Andrew and I were laughing so hard we almost fell on the floor. It was HYSTERICAL. I don't tend to laugh at crying children but the whole scene was just SO amusing. NO worries though, she recovered and her nose is intact.

Raleigh. How we all felt by the end of the day. Happy, full, and ready to sleep :-)

Randomness

I have a few pictures that are not really related to anything but too funny/cute/weird to keep to myself. Enjoy!


One of the cousins was in time out but they all went in solidarity and held hands-how cute are they??

Chris has "invented" pepperoni chips. He fries them until they're crispy and eats them as a snack. SO weird. But tasty :-)

My friend Esther has taped lines on the floor in the kitchen that her kids aren't allowed to cross. It's to keep them safe when she's cooking and such a good idea! It cracked me up to see all three of them patiently sitting there and saying "Don't cross the line!"

Ella still sleeps in a diaper and the other morning I went to get her and she was all wet. HERE'S WHY-her diaper EXPLODED! I feel like moms joke about that kind of thing but it actually HAPPENED! So weird, and gross. I only used them for a week but I hereby un-recommend walmart brand diapers.

We've lived here for 2.5 years and I didn't remember until last week that our tub has jacuzzi jets. So now, if Ella is well behaved for the actual washing part of the bath, she gets to turn on the "bubble button." It's SO much fun! With a tiny bit of soap, the jets make literally a foot of bubbles!

Thanks to the Troops!

I just found out about this website sponsored by Xerox that lets you send a thank you card to the troops in about 10 seconds. Such an easy way to bless and encourage people we are indebted to. You should do it!! Click here.

Ella's Birthday Party!

Ella had a joint party with her cousin Christopher who just turned 4 at a giant warehouse full of inflatables. It was SO MUCH FUN! The kids had a blast and I went down the big inflatable slide about 8 times so I certainly enjoyed myself too. I really wish we could rent that place out for an adult party. Anyway, here are a bunch of the pictures from our super-special celebration of Ella turning THREE!!


I love this picture-some of my favorite people of all time!

Hanna, Hannah, and Hannah

My dad getting one of the last slices of pizza (we ran out toward the end! there were SO many people!)

"Uncle" Carl shooting up the deuce (as Daddy would say)

A rare picture of Ella eating! (This warms my heart-she ate at least a half a piece of pizza! that's a lot for her!)

the cousins in their throne blowing out their candles

Happy Birthday Christopher and Ella!

My girly-girl

I just put Ella to bed and she initiated an entire conversation where she was about 3 inches from my face most of the time and gently patting different parts of my face and making requests. She started with my ears and wanted to know why I wasn't wearing pink earrings. She said I should wear pink earrings for her every day (like I did on her birthday). Then she patted my nose ring and said "this should be pink too, can you do that for me?" I told her I didn't have a pink nose ring but I'd try to wear the pink earrings. Then she started patting my lips and said "I think you need pink sparkly lipstick mom!" She moved on the nail polish (also pink and sparkly) before starting again with earrings. We literally talked about this for 10 minutes. She went on and on about how beautiful everything would be in pink. When I asked her if she wanted to get her ears and nose pierced and wear sparkly pink things she sighed and said "I will, I'm just waiting to grow up."

ELLA IS THREEEEE!!!!!

We're SO excited! Ella is three years old! I can't believe it and spent a lot of friday tearing up about it but I got that out of my system (I hope) and we were able to have a great celebration yesterday. Her birthday party is next weekend so there will be lots more festive birthday pictures to come :-)


Our mommy-daughter breakfast trip to Starbucks :-)

My wild child down in the city for her first trip to the IMAX!

We met up with Marissa and laughed A LOT at Madagascar 2. Ella liked it a lot (and couldn't understand the kind of obscene things that had the adults laughing).

Opening a couple gifts-thanks Aunt Marissa!

Then we were off to the Rainforest Cafe for her birthday dinner. I'm sad to say that she was NOT a fan of the moving animals and simulated thrunderstorms that happened every ten minutes. She spent most of the meal on Chris' lap. However, she tried (and liked!) steak, ribs, and tilapia-which is COMPLETELY unlike her so we were pretty excited about that.

She recovered from her fears in time to blow out the candle on her sundae and eat gummy worms dipped in ice cream to finish of a great Birthday!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELLA!
You are an amazing daughter and SO kind, loving, and affectionate. You spent a lot of your birthday saying things like "Mama? I really love you. I really love you a lot. You're so beautiful." Well, I can't say it back to you enough. You are the biggest blessing in my life, I love you SO much it hurts, and you are certainly beautiful inside and out. I'll love you always Ella Bella.

Mama

Squeezing in some milestones...

Maybe in a rush to show off her skills before she turns 3 (in two days) Ella BLEW me away tonight. All within an hour or so she did three things I've never seen her do and didn't know she could do!

1. She pulled out my Bible and said to a group of friends we were with "Want to know what this says?" We all nodded and with no pauses between letters she shockingly quickly said "H-O-L-Y B-I-B-L-E" I knew she knew her letters but when I ask her to "read" letters it usually involves long pauses, loss of interest, and lots of "ummm...what's that one called again?" It was pretty awesome.

2. She wrote her name!!! We have not been working on this much at all and certainly not recently (she's still so young!). I was shocked! And it was totally legible!!

3. She drew a face with all of the correct parts! Generally Ella prefers painting or stickers over coloring or drawing so I have yet to see her draw much that actually resembles what it's supposed to be. I'm very impressed.

Guess she just wanted to squeeze a few things in to give us some bragging rights so we can say she did each of these things when she was still two :-) Yay Ella!

SCORE!

Today Ella and I met some friends for story time at the library and then had lunch at a yummy restaurant. That is not the remarkable part of the story. After our morning out, I was feeling strangely brave and compelled by my long to-do-list to run some errands. Errands and Ella generally are not a good combination. She doesn't like sitting in carts for very long, she gets bored, and whiny, and when it gets bad, she'll do that limp body thing that every mother of a toddler knows. Basically, it's infuriating. So, I usually run errands alone (thank God I have that luxury-yay for husbands who work at home!). That said, I haven't attempted many errands with Ella recently (like the last 2 1/2 years). But today, I decided to see what would happen. We went to FIVE different places! We were out for THREE hours. And NO meltdowns!!! By either of us! It was amazing! She wasn't angelic per se but she did VERY well. What a wonderful surprise to not come home ready to sell her. Who knows when this will happen again so I thought it was worth documenting. Way to go Ella and praise the Lord!

PS-If you're reading this in a reader or email, go check out my actual blog-I have some fun new thanksgiving decor :-)

Veggie Tales Live!

For part of Ella's birthday gift, we took her to see Veggie Tales Live. We have a bunch of the videos and she's a pretty big fan and seemed old enough to go to a real "show." Thankfully, we were right! The show was awesome (like a rock concert for preschoolers) and Ella was fascinated for the entire two hours! Such a fun trip.


curious, waiting for the show to start

Bob the Tomato & Larry the Cucumber!

Lots of dancing, singing, strobe lights, costume changes, and even a smoke machine!

Getting directions for how to do the "Boyz in the Sink" dance

In Ella's Words

In Ella's words....

Ella: (trying on her new dress up outfit) Mom, I'm a princess! I'm a Minnie Mouse Princess! Can we go to Disney World? They need a Minnie and I'm her!


In the car the other day
Me: Ella look at how beautiful the trees are! What colors do you see?
Ella (not sounding enthusiastic at all): Lellow, Orange, Red
Me: Isn't that beautiful? God made all of that!
Ella: There's no pink? I think He should make them pink. Pink is my FAVORITE COLOR!
Me: Well....I guess you could ask for that? (What do you say to that?)


Overheard through the monitor during rest time
Ella : Dear God and Jesus, thank you for giving us a good lunch. Thank you Jesus. Amen.
(When I asked her about it later she said she also prayed for God to make her baby doll warm because she was cold and He did!)


Randomly while we were doing a craft
Ella: Mom, I have some bug bites on my tongue so I'm using my teeth to scratch them
Me: um...ok....good for you! (Again, what do you say to that??)

That girl cracks me up!

Hearing Aid Saga...

Last Wed : Lost hearing aid at Pumpkin Farm

Last Fri : Found hearing aid!!! (no thanks to the metal detector I swung around for 30 minutes before I just saw it laying in the grass)

Monday : Lost hearing aid at restaurant

Monday night : Restaurant found hearing aid

Wednesday : Picked up hearing aid

Thursday: Lost hearing aid at grocery store

As of today : still lost :-(

It's probably gone for real this time which means we'll have to cash in our insurance for "one free replacement" and pray we don't lose it again! Craziness. 3 times in a week??? We haven't lost one in probably 6 months! And EVERY time it's been the right hearing aid, never the left. Weird. I may have to start taping them on again like when she was a baby. I knew that toupee tape would come in handy again :-)

PS-to the unnamed person who was with Ella when it got lost-as you can see-it can happen to ANYONE-please don't feel bad!

Random Adorableness

I've been saving both of these pictures for a week or so but they don't really fit with anything else so here you go-two ADORABLE moments with my soon-to-be-three year old. I'm getting nostalgic and teary about her birthday coming so there will probably be lots more gushing over Ella in the weeks to come. Be prepared :-)

So, Ella's cousins, Amy, and our friend Erin were here for dinner after the apple picking adventure and were trying to find Ella to say good bye. This is where we found her...

what is she doing you ask? Flossing. With the entire box of floss on one end and about 3 feet of floss pulled out on the other side. I did not teach her this!

A couple days later, for various episodes of bad behavior, Ella lost all of her bedtime books. She was horrified and begged to take a book into her bed. I told her that was fine but that I was still going to turn out the light. She again seemed horrified and I felt bad for her. I said she could use her gloworm to see but she said it's not bright enough. Thinking quickly, I offered her a flashlight and gave her some instructions (turning it off when she's done etc.). She was thrilled and happily snuggled under the covers and started to read. I had to take a picture. Isn't this what big kids do? It just seems so grown up to me! She melts my heart.

Halloween 2008!!

I've always loved dressing up for Halloween. I was a rather "proper," somewhat reserved child but I have a latent creative/crazy side. So, growing up I loved that I got to be weird one day a year and it was sanctioned. (Don't worry, I've been through therapy-I'm much more open with my craziness/creativity now :-)) Anyway, I like Halloween mostly because you get to pick and be something else for a day! What a great imagination task for a kid and a chance to express yourself! I love it!

However, how is it that I bought Ella's Halloween costume WAY ahead of time and then ended up racing around at 5pm the DAY before she has to wear a costume buying a new one? Oy. It worked out pretty well but the principle of it is annoying. The problem was we tried on the original costume (an elephant) and it was too small! It was supposed to be for 2-4 year olds!!! BOOOOO! She could have worn it but she also decided she did NOT want to be an elephant and wanted to be a ballerina. I shouldn't be surprised but I thought maybe I had one more year before she converted to totally girly-girl costumes. So, I was at H&M at 5pm because I miraculously remembered that they had some ballerina stuff (which is weird because I don't go there often and they don't have any other costume-y stuff!). But I found what I needed and she tried it all on and she was ADORABLE!!! All pink and sparkly and heart-melting.


Ella got to wear her costume to preschool for a Halloween party

Practicing her "ballerina twirl"

All dressed up with her cousins ready to trick-or-treat!

This is Aunt Amy explaining the (made up on the spot) rule of trick-or-treating
"If you don't say thank you for the candy, you have to give it to your parents and they get to eat it" Hahahaha!!! It worked though! Christopher lost his candy once but learned his lesson quickly!

This is a video of a failed attempt for candy but I thought it was cute anyway :-)


The bad news is that just before we got to this super-decked-out-scary house, Ella saw a kid in a wherewolf costume and got scared. I felt SO bad for her. She barely talked and wanted to be carried the rest of the time :-( She recovered as soon as we got home and she got to play with her grandparents and eat some candy and she slept fine so at least no nightmares about the scary costume. Poor girl!

We might have to stick to church-sponsored Halloween events for a while so scary costumes can be weeded out. Overall, we had a fun time and though it was for a bad reason, I'm always up for extra snuggle time carrying my little girl :-)