Family Christmas Pictures

We went and got family pictures taken a few weeks ago for Christmas, and I am so happy with how they came out. 

Here are my favorites - :)

Thanksgiving

Ella loved making 'hand turkeys' in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving and then she started making "tiny turkeys" - for some reason I found the concept of the tiny turkey so adorable and endearing, here is a picture she made, one of her specialties :)

And a few other Thanksgiving projects we did -

A funny story - One morning Ella wanted to draw a picture of Thanksgiving and I decided it was a good time to tell her about the story of the first Thanksgiving. So I tell her this long story about the Pilgrims arriving on the Mayflower, Plymouth Rock, the Indians helping them getting settled, bringing them food, sharing, being grateful for our blessings, etc. Between my story and all the questions she asked, this lasted about 10 minutes and I really felt like she was "getting it." So at the end of our talk I said "Okay, so if you want to draw a picture like the first Thanksgiving, what will you draw?" Her answer: "Pies!" ...We had NOT discussed pies in our talk :)

I went to her school for her Thanksgiving feast on Tuesday, and they sang a cute little song about being thankful, here's a little video clip -

With her best buddy from school

Mom and Glenn came for Thanksgiving, and arrived on Tuesday afternoon. We were all excited for their visit and had a really great long Thanksgiving weekend.

Touching a frog that stopped by the pool on Wednesday

Ella loves helping in the kitchen, so was very happy to be a part of cooking Thanksgiving dinner

Making cranberries with Grammy

The part she was most looking forward to, putting marshmallows on the sweet potatoes

Cooking went really well, luckily I've always had Mom there when we host Thanksgiving, so I have lots of lots of help, especially for the jobs I can't quite get into (like cleaning and emptying the turkey!). 

We made turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, stuffing, cranberries, and crescent rolls. I let Ella shape the crescents and they came out in all different shapes, very unique to say the least!

And I decided she was old enough to handle eating on our china, and she was very excited for her sparkling apple-grape juice, right out of a wine glass

With Grammy before dinner

Using our dining room for the first time, ready for Thanksgiving dinner!

Later that night, Steve put the fire pit together and we roasted marshmallows for s'mores

Mom, Glenn and I went to paint pottery on Saturday, and Ella picked out a Christmas tree to paint

Glenn showing Ella his masterpiece

At the playground in our neighborhood

Riding her scooter home...until she got tired and couldn't ride it anymore (but somehow had the energy to run all the way home instead)

On Sunday Mom took Ella to get a haircut

It was a great Thanksgiving weekend, and although I try to be continually grateful for all that we have, there is really no better time to stop and really think about how much we have to be thankful for. 

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!