Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Visit from Aunt Teresa

Steve's sister Teresa came to stay with us for a few days the weekend before Thanksgiving, and she came back for a night on her way home from visiting my sister-in-law Michelle.

As expected, Ella had lots of fun playing with her Aunt Tesie while she was here!

Showing off her dinosaur egg from Grammy (which really deserves a post of its own...)


Putting a puzzle together


And of course Ella required that Teresa spend plenty of time with her up in her playroom.




We all enjoyed having Teresa stay with us and hope she visits again soon!

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Thanksgiving

Steve, Ella and I went to Dad and Donna's for Thanksgiving. After all of us being sick all week, I wasn't sure if we'd be able to go (or if they'd be okay with us coming!) but we made it and had such a great time.


Ella and Daddy on Thanksgiving


Donna cooked a delicious meal and we had a great time together. Right now Ella is in a birdhouse phase where she points out every birdhouse she sees, loves talking about them and imagining what the birds are doing inside a birdhouse. Donna has several birdhouses as decorations and it was like Ella struck the jackpot.



Donna even let Ella take her favorite one home and then when Ella needed something to feed the birds, helped her pull grapes off a centerpiece to feed the birds. It was adorable, Ella was thrilled with it. She held the birdhouse in her lap the whole way home and first thing yesterday morning said we needed to go check and see if we could find some birds for the birdhouse.

With Chico and Granddad


Granddad, Ella and Grandma


It was a really nice afternoon, I'm so glad we were all well enough to enjoy it. We are so blessed and truly have so much to be thankful for!!

Rough Week

It has been a rough several days around here. Mom was here visiting last weekend and watched Ella for us on Saturday night. Ella ended up getting sick all night with a stomach bug :(. Poor girl, she really felt horrible. She was sick all day Sunday and Monday, and then once she was just about better, Steve got really sick while I was just feeling moderately sick, and then I got really sick once he was getting better. Uggh, the good thing there was that we both felt the worst on opposite days so the other one was able to take care of Ella. I wasn't sure we'd make it to Thanksgiving but luckily I felt okay on Thursday.

In the meantime, Mom had gone back to Charlotte, and got very sick, it definitely hit her worst of all of us. The reason that all this matters is that we are all waiting for the birth of Erin's baby boy, and of course cannot be around a precious newborn bringing germs with us and risk getting him or Erin sick.

So, Mom has been staying by herself in Charlotte, Glenn ended up having Thanksgiving with Erin and Josh but we didn't get to see him, and Steve, Ella and I would not have been able to go had Erin already had the baby. A very weird week all around. Luckily, things are looking up - we're all getting better, most importantly Erin and the baby are healthy, and we're all ready for his arrival (Erin most of all!)!

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Picture Post

Some pictures from the last several weeks -


Hiding in a laundry basket. She said "look at me in my cage!"



She asked me to take a picture of her and Nomar and she did many poses and wanted to see every picture after I took it. Nomar was not equally thrilled but still a good sport :)



Scrubbing dishes. She is now legitimately helpful with dishes and she rinses them and hands them to me to load up in the dishwasher. She loves it, I can't imagine ever being so excited about dishes but she acts like it's a reward. We're taking full advantage of it!



Steve and Ella walking their dogs. Ella insisted on bringing her toy puppy for the walk. (He also sleeps in a dog bed in her bed!) As you can imagine this walk was pretty short.



Big hug for Cory



Snuggle buddies



Looking so angelic with her purses.



Sleeping angel - I will never get tired of looking at her while she's sleeping, she is just too precious

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

My Funny Girl

Ella cracks me up on a daily basis with the funny things that she says. Here are a few that I've written down over the last few weeks. I hope I remember this phase forever, I don't think there's anything better than the conversations and chats that we have. She is alternately so serious and other times just extremely silly. Her facial expressions, eyes and gestures just make it priceless.

We were up early one morning and Ella was hungry so we ate breakfast first thing. She asked me if we were going to play next and I said that after breakfast we were were going to get dressed and then it'd be time to get ready for school. She said "No, wait a second! It's too dark! Look at our crazy hairs together - we need a ponytail!"

We were coloring and I would draw shapes and then ask her what they were. She got all of them right - circle, star, heart, square, triangle. Then she said "now I draw a shape for you." She drew the "shape" and asked me what it was. I couldn't tell but it sort of resembled a triangle so that is what I guessed. She said "nope, it's a mirror!" (ha, how did I not guess mirror, that's one of the most common shapes!?)

Another time Ella was drawing and told me that she drew a dinosaur, then a bunny, then another picture, which she asked me to guess what it was. I said "Is it Cory?" and she got very excited and said very animatedly, "Goo-ood job Mommy!" She drew another one and I said "Is it Nomar?" and again she got really happy and said "Gooood job Mommy!" The next one I guessed "is it Mommy?" and she said "Nope, it's Daddy. Don't be sad!

I was crumbling up a piece of paper to throw it out while I was cleaning up Ella's room and she said "Mommy, don't throw that out! I colored it! I colored it at Grammy's! Don't throw it out!" I told her I was so sorry and didn't realize it was important to her and of course I won't throw it out. She said "It's okay Mommy, it was your accident."

One of the things we do that Ella loves is that I'll say something that doesn't make sense for the time of day or season, and she gets the biggest kick out of it. So at night when I'm tucking her in I'll say "is it time to go eat breakfast?" or "should we put on our bathing suits and head to the beach?" and she thinks it's hysterical. If it's something we actually did that day she'll say really dramatically, "Nooo, we already did eat breakfast!" or "Nooo I already went to school" or "yes, let's go swimming! get our suits!" And then she pipes in with her own too, she'll say "let's go to the playground! let's go to a party" and just laughs and laughs.

She was telling me how she plays Ring Around the Roses with Tess and Gillian and I said that sounds like so much fun and she said "Yea! Because we're really best friends!"

Ella had a bug bite on her arm and another one on her foot. We put "medicine" on them but then she was horrified when some cream got on her shirt, so she asked me to roll up her sleeves. Then she looked at her pants and said "roll up my toe-sleeves too please."

After I plugged her night light in - "Now I'm super happy. This is super awesome!"

"Don't tell me questions." She says this when she gets tired of answering my questions!

At school they were talking about their pets so she got to take in a picture of her with Cory and another one of Cory and Nomar. She wanted to hold the pictures after school and said to me "I showed my pictures to all my friends. They said 'awwww.'"

One night after her third "one more trip to the potty" after bedtime, I said "Ok, this is it, after this it is time to go to sleep, with no more nonsense." - not really thinking she'd know what I meant but it just came out. But she surprised me and said "Yes. I not yell for my mommy, I will stay in my bed, snuggle with my animals, and go to sleep. You be so proud!" I couldn't believe it!

What a sweet funny girl!!

Monday, November 15, 2010

Trip to Boston

I went to Boston last weekend to visit Kelly for a girls weekend with just the two of us. It was fantastic - we had delicious meals, lots of good coffee, got manicures and pedicures, did some shopping, lots of walking around the city, and had a really fun night out on Saturday night. And we talked for about 36 straight hours :)

A few sightseeing photos -

Trinity Church




Christian Science Center


Fenway Park


It was the 'fall back' night for Daylight Savings Time on Saturday night and I slept until 6:45 am on Sunday (which would have been 7:45 am) so I guess I even managed to sleep in on Sunday - although we hadn't gone to bed until 2am the night before so it didn't feel like it!

I missed Ella a lot but luckily she loves chatting on the phone, so I got to keep up with her all weekend. She and Steve did great together and had a lot of fun.

I had such a great time with Kelly and it was the perfect weekend away.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Trick-or-treating

Trick or treating on Halloween was so much fun this year. Here's the little ladybug all ready to go!



Some of the people in our neighborhood are REALLY into decorating for Halloween. These one is pretty extreme, but there are lots of houses that really go all out for Halloween decorating.



The house below was the first house that we went trick-or-treating at, and I was a little worried Ella would be really scared of that scary guy sitting there. He had some kind of voice machine but was really nice to her because she said 'trick or treat' and then he said 'trick-or-treat' back to her, and then he said 'Happy Hallow-eee-een.'




She did great - she'd say 'trick or treat' to everyone and then 'thanks' and if we were lucky, 'happy halloween.' After every house she said 'we're going to go to more houses?' and just loved the idea of collecting all that candy in her pumpkin.









After awhile she got brave and said she wanted to go up all by herself, and that's what she did!



Once we got home Ella helped answer the door and pass out candy but she would hold on to the Skittles and instead of putting them in the kids' bags, she'd hold on to them and say "these belong in this bowl" and put them back in our candy bowl instead!

Sorting through all of her candy. Out of all that she picked Dots for her first treat!



Happy girl with her Grammy


It was quite the Halloween weekend and amazing how it just gets more fun each year!

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Hollyfest

Mom, Ella and I went to Hollyfest on Saturday. It is our town's fall festival, and always falls on Halloween weekend. This is the second year we've gone and is definitely something I want to keep going to each year.

On the elephant ride


As soon as she got off the ride she said 'now I want to go on the slide.' I was a little nervous about the slide because she'd have to go all by herself and there were a ton of big kids on it. I thought she might get about half way up and change her mind and I'd be climbing up there to get her down. But she was sure she wanted to try and so we hopped in line.

They let 7 kids on at a time, and she happened to be at the very beginning of the line. So there was a procession of 6 big kids behind her, but she still climbed right up there, I could barely believe it. I felt like I was bursting with pride at how adventurous she was in climbing up there and charging to the top. She slid down and as soon as she got to the bottom she said "I want to do it again!"

The second time she ended up walking up by herself because the big kids all went around her, and I caught a video of her climbing up.





At the top


For some reason she decided to go down face first this time - here she goes!


When she got to the bottom this time she said "I want to go on something else", so we were off for some jumping in the jump castle.

She jumped, went on the playground, and then we went to the petting zoo section.





And Hollyfest is not complete without the pig races!!

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Halloween Party

My friend Susan had a little Halloween party for the girls on Saturday morning. After cleaning some pudding and skittles from Ella's ladybug costume on Friday night, I decided we were putting the ladybug away until Halloween night, and made an impromptu princess costume instead.



Ella was quite happy with it and said she was dressed up as "pink." Not too far from the truth!

Catching butterflies


The very popular bubble maker


Hopscotch


Making a necklace. This was no easy feat but I ended up finishing it for her (modified version!) and she wore it later in the day


Using our best child-wrangling skills, we managed to get the four of them to sit together for a picture


Having fun on the teeter-totter


This picture made me think of Ella and Elise on Halloween 2 years ago. Here they were on the teeter-totter then...



It is so hard to believe how fast the time has gone but at the same time it really seems like forever ago that Ella was a baby.

After our fun time at Susan's we headed over to Mom's to pick her up and head to Hollyfest!

Halloween Party at School

Our Halloween weekend started off with a Halloween party at Ella's school on Friday afternoon.

Ella was so excited for the party and the night before kept telling us how when she woke up the next day it was time for HER party. We told her that she had to get through lunch and nap time first and we didn't know how she'd make it through the day because she was so excited.

Little ladybug, ready to party!


Ella and Tess, her best bud at school - they play together all the time and Ella talks about her constantly. Tess asked me to take a picture of them together and put her arm around Ella's shoulder. After I took a few pictures she said "Ella, now it's your turn to put your arm around me." And Ella did! It was so cute.



The kids went trick-or-treating to all the other classrooms, so it was good trick-or-treating practice for Halloween night



Me and my ladybug


Back in the classroom, enjoying the first of many treats this weekend!


Steve and Ella


It was such a nice start to Halloween weekend and so neat to see Ella having so much fun with her friends and teachers at school!

Dominic's Birthday Party

Ella's buddy Dominic turned two a few weekends ago, and my friend Christine had his party at Marbles, the kids museum downtown

Ella giving me a ride in this car. She said "Mommy, I drive and you ride in back." Deal!


Playing in the kitchen


Painting with water with Dominic


Ella and Morgan. Ella is very fascinated by Morgan and calls her "baby Morgan" every single time she mentions her. Whenever Laurie leaves Morgan home for our walks, Ella asks her where baby Morgan is and why she hasn't come. Laurie patiently explains that since she is a baby she eats and takes a bath and goes to sleep early. This satisfies Ella for about two minutes before she asks again :). At Dominic's party Ella got the chance to play with Morgan and pretend to feed her a bottle and lots of "I be very gentle." Later she told me "I love babies because I just want to pet them." Heeheee!



The birthday boy in his conductor's hat and train cake. Happy Birthday Dominic!!