Last Day of Ballet!

Pumpkin Fall Fest

We had a fun time last Saturday at a local pick your own/fall festival farm. Here are a bunch of pics!

Not many recent pics of Amy and me-my great friend and sister-in-law :-)

Hannah, Lexi, and Christopher-Ella's best buddies :-) There was a traumatic/dramatic event just before this where Ella got her head shoved out of the way so another kid could fit in the whole and Ella burst into tears and came running to me. So sad but she recovered quickly :-)

My Brother-in-law, his Mother-in-law and my nephew.

We brought Ella's friend Lexi with us to the farm and they had a great time.

My sister came too and had a great time with the swarms of children who kept saying "hold me! hold me!"

Hannah getting her face painted-this girl LOVES pink more than any 3 year old I know. That's saying a lot.

Love this one!

Port Discovery

Nine summers ago I worked at a children's museum in Baltimore called Port Discovery. A couple weeks ago we were planning to go to the free movies for kids at the mall but I found out the movie was Charlotte's Web which would be too sad for me I'm sure (I have NO tolerance for sad movies-it ruins me for days) and there's no way Ella would sit through a non-animated movie anyway. So, I really wanted to do something that day and remembered Port Discovery and that Ella might be 1)old enough to enjoy some of what they have there and 2)young enough to get in free. I was right on both counts! Lexi was also not up for a real-people movie so she and Jen joined us on our trip into the city :-)



Ella got to paint water on a dry rock and see it change color



Ella and Lex in the ball pit


If you kind of "surf" on this platform it makes the trees sway and dance!


Ella yelled "ABC!" and ran over to play with these letters on the door



She was very interested in watching this exhibit (it was flowers "dancing")



Ella climbed up and her shoe fell through these ropes and neither Jen or I could reach it. We asked a very nice dad who was near by if he could help us (his arms looked longer than ours). He couldn't reach it either but soon it became a family affair. He got a pen out that was long enough to scoot the shoe to where his daughter could reach while laying on the floor and his wife coached from the side. When they got it there was a pretty loud "Hooray!!" from all 10 of us who were watching. It was rather hysterical but we were very grateful (I love those shoes!).

Larriland Peaches!

A couple weeks ago Jen and I took Ella and Lexi to Larriland Farms and picked 20lbs of peaches!! All 4 of us had lots of fun and have since had lots of cobbler and peach smoothies!


they girls got to ride in a wagon and loved it, jen and I took turns pulling it through the bumpy orchard listening to the girls giggle whenever we went fast



I got a little too excited about all the beautiful peaches and banged my head, hard


The girls got to play in an old tractor


Ella running through the peach orchard


Ella wasn't interested in eating the peaches at all but she did help pick one or two.


Overall, a very fun day!