Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Decorating for Christmas

Some pictures from putting up our Christmas tree a few weeks ago -



Pulling out all of the ornaments - our favorite part! It was especially fun to have Mom with us to reminisce about all of the ornaments from when I was little. I love telling Ella stories about where they all came from - it's always funny when she tries to imagine me being her age ;)



She was actually able to really hang the ornaments this year and did a good job with them







By the finished tree!




Steve and Ella put up the outside lights. She likes to say she put them up "all by herself with Daddy's help"




Definitely beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Thanksgiving Weekend

We went to Maryland for the long weekend for Thanksgiving. We went up early Wednesday morning, got to meet friends out for dinner on Wednesday night, and had a great day for Thanksgiving on Thursday. Carole made a wonderful meal and we all really enjoyed ourselves.

Ella getting appetizers for Teresa and Carmen. She was very excited to make their plates for them and said to Carmen "you need a protein!"


With Aunt Tesie




Being silly with Grampy


Ella and Carmen


After dinner we went to Steve's Tio Carlos's house for dessert. We had a great time visiting with Steve's cousins, and Ella had a lot of fun running around playing with the kids.

Making a special creation out of sugar cubes


Cute Cousins


Tuckered out after her big day



We went into Washington DC on Friday and took a trip to the National Zoo.

Ella's first ride on the Metro


The panda bear was my favorite













One night Teresa and Carmen took us out to Hibachi for dinner and it was Ella's first time watching them cook the food at the table. She thought it was really neat except she did NOT want to try to catch any shrimp in her mouth!

It was a great Thanksgiving and so nice to get up to visit Steve's family for the weekend!

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Learning to Write and Draw

I am really fascinated by how Ella learns new things, and one of the most interesting so far has been the process of her learning to write and draw.

Thank goodness for her preschool, because even though I've had 31 years to work on my writing and alphabet knowledge, I would not have the slightest idea of how to actually teach it to Ella myself. But I love following along with what they're teaching and seeing how and what helps her to learn.

When Ella first started to write, the first step seemed to be for her to realize that letters were individual characters and she'd practice by writing many characters all over her pages. This one is from April, it was one of the first times where I could really see her trying to write.



They were all basically different kinds of circles and squiggles. Then she was able to recognize and create the differences between several of them, and would work on them over and over. In these she wrote capital As, Ws, Hs, Is, Os and Ds.





This is one of the first times of writing her first name!


Learning to use proper caps for her first name






First and last - this is from about a month ago, I am amazed how far she has come with it!



She's now also working on writing other people's names and likes asking me how to spell words and she'll try to write them. The other day she was asking me what projects we had to do and she made her own 'list', it was pretty neat.

Along the same lines as her writing, I have enjoyed seeing her progression of drawings. Just in the last few months, her drawings have started to take on shapes other than scribbles and lines, and 'portraits' have become her new specialty!





This one she was really proud of because she used the legs to spell her name


I love this one, it's the 2 of us, you can read "mommy" if you look closely :)


And this is her first math worksheet, from just a few weeks ago, she had to count the number of animals in each picture and choose the correct number.


I am one proud Mommy!!

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Weekend at Grandma and Grandad's

A few weekends ago, Ella and I went to visit Dad and Donna in South Carolina. It was great to spend the time with them, here are a few cute pics from the weekend:

Having fun riding on the golf cart


Swinging at the playground with Granddad


Walking Chico


Ella and Granddad


Grandma, Granddad and Ella (and of course Chico!)

Weekend in Myrtle Beach

It has been an extremely busy month or so, so I have a ton of catching up to do!

On Veterans Day weekend we went to Myrtle Beach for Glenn's nephew Jimmy's wedding. Steve and I have been to several weddings since Ella's been born but we've never taken her with us before, so this was her first. The wedding was really nice and we had a lot of fun at the reception.

Ella looking so cute at the table


Mom, Glenn and Cameron who was just so adorable all dressed up!




Attempt at a family photo










Ella loves Cameron so much and loves to give him many hugs and kisses!


Happy Cameron


Getting very sleepy


Check out these good-looking dancing couples!


Ella was a dancing machine, she danced for about 2 hours straight. Here are some cute videos of her moves.





On Saturday, Glenn's brother Jack took us out on his boat on the waterway. It was a beautiful afternoon, sunny and warm, and was Ella's first boat ride.



I love this picture, she looks so suspicious!








Ready for a nap


Glenn picked a hotel that had an indoor water park, and we had a great time there on Saturday night. There were several pools, different areas with dumping buckets and barrels, lazy river, and water slides - some that we went on with Ella which she loved, and some big ones for us adults that were so much fun!








We went down to the beach on Sunday and walked in the sand, dipped our toes in the water, collected shells, and just enjoyed being able to spend time on the beach in November!







Proud of her treasures