Part of what I love about the girls' names is that they were both popular 100 years ago and many people with those names are now great-grandmas. Both names evoke a vision for me of sweet old ladies rocking away together on a porch. I pray Ella and Sadie will live meaningful lives full of love and will be enjoying each other on a front porch somewhere many years from now.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Another fall farm!

Fall fun continues :-) We found a new fall farm destination and I think it's my new favorite-so much for the kids to do and so cheap (actually free this time-thanks Shaun and Nana!)

There was an obstacles course and hay maze


A Noah's Ark shaped Playground the kids loved


Trikes


A Hayride :-)

A 9-acre corn maze

Ella was OBSESSED with this 2 story tall slide. She went down probably 50 times!


My lovely friends Jen and Amy

Love this pic Jen took of Ella in the corn kernel pit. Such a fun farm trip!

Monday, November 16, 2009

Fall Crowns

So, while we were at the Tire Park I saw some kids with leaf crowns on and decided I had to figure out how to do it! So, I'm passing on my leaf-crown-making instructions because I think they're wicked cool :-)

Step 1: send your child to gather large, still flexible leaves with stems


Step 2: Lay out leaves and choose the most uniform in size, pretty, and flexible


Step 3: Separate stems from leaves


Step 4: Use stem to "sew" leaves together


Step 5: Lay out band of leaves to make any final touches, then fit to size of child's head and weave final stem to connect


Step 6: Wear 'em!



Tire Park 2

We introduced the cousins to the Tire Park near us. It was a BEAUTIFUL fall day!

Ella has gotten taller and braver since last time we were are this park when she could not do this!

Christopher got a kick out of this inchworm while Ella looked horrified

warming her nose

She spent a long time laying out, counting, and guarding her acorn creation from her cousins




A lesson on fall leaf crowns to come...

Sunday, November 8, 2009

More hilarity

The things that come out of Ella's mouth are the highlight of my day most days! Here are some recent ones :-)

*Commonly used phrases
"fer sure!"
(with genuine awe) "that's ahhhmayyyyyzing!"
when asking her a yes or no question "that will be fine"

*We were playing a game on PBDKIDS.org (which I HIGHLY recommend) and Ella was decorating a house with furniture. She plopped a big arm chair in the middle of the living room as it's only decor and said "There. That'll be good for a man."


*We were talking the car about prayer
Mom: Isn't it cool that God can always hear us wherever we are and we can always talk to him?
Ella:Yeah! But we can't hear Him.
Mom: Yeah, not with our ears but sometimes we'll hear him say something in our hearts that we know he wants us to do.
Ella:Yeah! Like this (bends her head to the side). If you put your ear real close to your shoulder you can hear your heart! That's how it works Mom.

Friday, November 6, 2009

Ella at 3

Since there are only two weeks left that Ella is 3 I wanted to post this little book she made at school about herself! It's pretty self explanatory and the poem on the last page gets me choked up every time!