Disney on Ice

We went to Disney on Ice a few weeks ago, it was a really fun night. Ella was very excited and talked about it all week. 

Finally there! (and with her beloved snow cone)

The show was great, and the best part is watching Ella watch the show. I love watching her pay attention and her interest in everything, and of course she keeps us on our toes with her many, many questions and narration throughout. 

Tinkerbell flying

My favorite part was the Lion King

The Tangled lanterns

Minnie, Mickey and Goofy

Under the Sea

Even Steve, who is definitely not a 'show' person, enjoyed it :)

This was our second year of going to see Disney on Ice, and I hope it remains an annual tradition for us.

Halloween

 It seemed we were celebrating Halloween for about a month before Halloween was really here, but the official day finally arrived and we had a very excited little girl on her hands.

At school that morning, dressed as skull witch of course (plus her beloved Hello Kitty sweatshirt)

I went to school in the afternoon for her class party, here she is coloring with her friends -

We were home by 4pm and she could barely wait to trick-or-treat so we did some more porch decorating and she got our candy bowl ready.

Luckily Steve got off of work early so we had an early dinner and then were ready for action. And the little lady finally wore her rainbow costume!

Here she is with Bones, dressed as Skull Witch for the evening. Bones was in charge of passing out Halloween candy while we went trick-or-treating.

Can you tell she is excited???

And we're off!

She enjoyed trick-or-treating but was a little more shy this year than last. There was one house where there were 2 teenage boys out front manning a candy table, and she turned right around and wouldn't go up to them! When she did warm up to people answering their doors she had lots of questions and comments as usual. She always told Steve and I where we were supposed to stand as she walked up to each house.















After about an hour, she decided she wanted to head home and pass out candy more than she wanted to keep trick-or-treating. We had to walk home a few streets and she kept saying "okay ONE more house and then we'll go home"...and then we'd get to the next house and she'd say it again. We finally made it back but it was after 8pm by then and we only had a few more kids, but she was very ready and enjoyed passing out the candy. She even let them pick themselves out of the bowl this year!































Hands on her hips, impatiently waiting for the next group...



Sampling her candy

 

Ella loves everything about each and every holiday, and she makes them so much fun. It was a great Halloween 'season' and the next day she said "is Halloween really over?? Ohhh, it seems so short" - ha! 

Pumpkin Carving

We waited to carve our pumpkin until the Sunday before Halloween because it's so warm that I didn't want it to go bad being outside too long before Wednesday. Luckily Ella had no shortage of pumpkin decorating in the meantime, and enjoyed painting, sticker-ing, pumpkin transfer-ing, and otherwise accessorizing her pumpkin collection.

Ready to get to work

Picking out their design

Scooping the seeds out

Hard at work. (Once it was time for the actual carving, Steve handled that while Ella, Mom and I mostly supervised ;)

All done!

  

 Spooooky

 Scary Halloween face

Officially ready for Halloween!

Picture Post

Some more pictures from the weeks leading up to Halloween --

 

She never gets tired of the pool :)

Precious little angel sleeping with her treasure box from Grammy

Having fun with Jake

Swinging at the playground in our neighborhood. She's at the point now with her swinging where we can swing next to each other and she doesn't really need any pushes!

Taco Night for our playgroup

Relaxing with James after a busy night

 "Happy Halloween" banner

Bones going for a dip in the pool

Dr. Ella, patching him up

Halloween treats from Grandma and Grandad

Painting eyeballs and witch fingers

 

 

Cookie ghosts and witch hats made by Grammy and Ella (and eyeballs and witch fingers mixed in with our pumpkins and gourds!)

 

This was so sweet. She was sitting with her babydoll on her lap and reading out loud to her, so adorable!

Princess Pumpkin

Ar-BOO-Retum

Mom, Ella and I went to the Houston Arboretum the Saturday before Halloween for ArBOOretum, their Halloween event. The Arboretum is really neat, it's in a downtown office area, but it feels like you're in the middle of a forest, and the festival was awesome and we all had a really good time.

Of course Ella opted to wear her skull witch again instead of her rainbow costume

Matching witches! They were so cute together and everyone especially loved Mom's pink eyelashes.

It was really cool out, so it felt like a true fall day. It's still in the mid-80s most days so it was really nice to have what I think of as REAL fall weather. Although for my little southern girl, she was freezing and couldn't believe how cold it was :) 

Fishing game with Grammy

The possum hop

Bug tunnel

I love this picture, two peas in a pod

On the zip line

Very happy about her painted pumpkin face

Decorating a pumpkin

She loved checking out the microscope in the nature center, she spent about 15 minutes looking at all different slides, I was impressed by her attention span and how interested she was

A perfect fall day!