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!

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!!

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!!

Jack-o-lanterns

This past Friday night we carved our pumpkins (notice my very loose use of the word "we"...). Ella was very excited about the prospect of making jack-o-lanterns and told us how she 'would not cut them, but would scoop them!' since she's not allowed to use a knife.

Ready to carve!



Although she was prepared for the idea of scooping the seeds and pumpkin strings, when she figured out what that meant, she had second thoughts...



I thought maybe she'd do better if she didn't have to get her hands dirty so I told her she could wear some "gloves" (= sandwich bags)



After watching Grammy do it for a while she got brave and was ready to really get to work.




Once the pumpkins were all scooped out, Steve got to work carving.



Steve did an incredible job with them, I think they came out great. One of them had a really thick stem and it's walls were inches thick, it was a major effort to carve it. They came out awesome though, here they are!




SPPPOOOOOOOKKKKKY


Now we are officially ready for Halloween!

Next Stop - American Idol?

Ella really loves to sing. She has many favorites that she knows most or all of the words to, and loves listening to the songs and singing along - ABCs, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, If You're Happy and You Know It, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Ring around the Roses, Wheels on the Bus, Good Night Ladies, Old MacDonald, the list goes on.

But she also loves making up her own songs and I just get the biggest kick out of this, it is so funny to me. As all great songwriters do, she sings about what she knows - for Ella, this revolves around our family members, our pets, and playing. When Dad and Donna were here, while she was going potty she asked for "privacy please" while she was going and we could hear her loudly singing a rendition of "Granddad's Shoes."

After lunch on Sunday she was on a role and I managed to catch a little bit of a few of her songs on video. Make sure to turn on your speakers, and enjoy these funny little gems!




Singing while she works!

Pumpkin Picking and Granddad's Birthday

Yesterday was Dad's birthday, so he and Donna came up on Saturday so that we could celebrate, and we all took Ella pumpkin picking. We had beautiful weather and was a perfect fall day.




The farm


Driving a tractor


Climbing on a hay bale


Riding on a pony!


Hay ride - you'll notice how Ella refused to look at the camera - she was a cranky lady on the hay ride and managed to pull it together once we got to the pumpkins





Luckily she really perked up once it was time to pick out pumpkins and became really happy and excited





She thought it was her job to put all of the small pumpkins back in the pumpkin box - she was busy and hard at work




Grandma, Ella, Granddad



When we first got there she said she wanted to jump in the inflatable jump houses but she changed her mind when it was time to get in and didn't want to go. After we got pumpkins she said she wanted to go back and jump and go down the slide.

Climbing with Grandma


So much fun!


Some cute videos of her having so much fun climbing the wall, going down the slide, and jumping (the funniest part of the jumping is her commentary!)







We came home and Ella took a nap, then we went out for dinner for Dad's birthday. We went back home for cake and Ella gave Granddad a special card she had made for him.





She was really proud of herself and said "I made this for you." He also asked her to guess how old he was turning and she said "two and a half?"

It was a really fun day, and a perfect way to celebrate Dad's Birthday!