The weather on Saturday morning was really bad but by the afternoon had dried out a bit and was cold but dry, so we decided to still go to Hollyfest.
A funny story - before we left, I made Ella a peanut butter & jelly sandwich and carrot sticks for lunch. She said she wasn't hungry for lunch and had a carrot or two but nothing else, and not a bit of her sandwich. I knew that as soon as we got to Hollyfest she'd be asking for a snack or a treat, so I told her that there would be no snacks or sweets until she ate her sandwich, and I took it with me and put it in my purse. Near the entrance, there were two women from a new doctor's clinic handing out goodie bags with candy in them. They tried to give one to Ella and she said, kind of sadly, "Oh, I can't have that. I didn't eat my lunch" and refused the goodie bag. The ladies were nice and gave it to Steve and said "well we'll give it to your daddy for you to have later", which Ella liked. They said a few other things to her and then at the end said "well, if you ever need a doctor's office, we're over on ..." Ella's reply: "Oh, well I ALREADY got my flu shot!"
Erin dressed Cameron up in his other Halloween costume, he was the most adorable little elephant!!
Having fun jumping
On the elephant ride (which I think she seemed kind of bored on this year, she might be getting too big for it!)
Ella wanted to know which activities Cameron would be able to do with her, she didn't like that he was too little to jump or slide but was happy with the idea of going 'on' the firetruck with him.
On a firetruck with Grampy G
Firefighter and little puppy
Ella got to shoot this fire hose and knock down 'fires' in a house with a real fire man
Mom & Glenn and Erin, Josh and Cameron all came for the weekend before Halloween. We had planned to go to Hollyfest early on Saturday but it ended up pouring rain and so we just hung out for the morning.
Look at this little cutie!
Steve with Ella and Cameron
We eventually got Ella and Cameron dressed up for Hollyfest, two adorable skeletons!
We celebrated Erin's birthday on Sunday, Happy Birthday Erin!
Josh and smiley Cameron
Glenn with Ella and Cameron
As always it was so great to have everyone together and such a fun weekend!
Steve asked Ella what kind of pumpkin she wanted to make, she didn't have to think about it for more than a second and immediately said - "skeleton!" So, skeleton it was!
Other years she's been really grossed out by touching the seeds and the strings but she dug right in there this year
Ella told me a funny story about pumpkin seeds. She wanted us to bake pumpkin seeds so I told her we'd have to separate the seeds from the strings. She said that people don't eat the strings and only snakes eat the strings with the seeds. I asked her how that worked and this is the explanation she gave me: Snakes swim through the water and find pumpkins underneath the water. They poke a sharp knife into the pumpkin to make a hole and eat all the seeds and strings!
Steve making a skeleton and Ella making her "soup"
My little helper
Final product - one scary skeleton jack-o-lantern and one adorable little super girl!
Ella has been excited for Halloween for the past few months. She loves dressing up, Halloween decorations, and everything else Halloween-related. For her first two Halloweens, I didn't ask her opinion, just picked out what I wanted her to wear and put her in it - so easy. Last year, I wanted her to be a ladybug so I asked her if she'd like to be a ladybug and she was thrilled with it - simple again! Those were the good old days :)
This year, I could not get the same answer out of her more than twice in a row. She initially said she wanted to dress up as a banana, pumpkin seeds, spider, the list went on and on. The crazier the idea, the funnier she thought it was. One day I got a costume catalog in the mail and she picked out costumes like the grim reaper and 'zombie doctor'. Anything sweet or cute that I tried to suggest, she was just not interested.
As Halloween got closer, she became more and more into skeletons, and started saying she'd like to be a skeleton. I was still holding out hope for a cutesy costume so I suggested pirate, thinking it's a good compromise and she could have some skeleton accessories. We looked at costumes in several stores, and she would pick out scary masks with crazy hair attached to them, laughing hysterically while she tried them on, and shoot down all of my ideas (sigh...)
A few weeks ago the three of us were shopping and saw an adorable cupcake costume, and Ella said she wanted it right away. We were all happy with the choice and I thought we were all set - phew! In the meantime, Mom had offered to send some of the costumes she had made for Erin when she was little that could be a good fit for Ella; and between those and the cupcake, I was sure we'd be all set.
Here she is dressed up in the space lady and pirate costume that Mom made, so cute!
Pirate sidekick
Even with all of these costume choices, when someone would ask Ella what she was going to be for Halloween, she'd say she wanted to be a skeleton. Steve took her to the Halloween store and she picked out all kinds of spooky decorations, they decorated her bookshelf with orange lights, Mom gave her little toy skeletons that she carries all over the place, on and on - she is really, really Halloween-crazed.We got her a cute skeleton hoodie hoping that would settle her skeleton clothing needs, but no such luck.
This past Friday, I decided to take her to see if we could find a skeleton costume since I knew that's really what she wanted and her desire for it wasn't going anywhere. She wanted to try one scary costumes like zombies, bloody creatures, the more horrifying the better - oddly enough they don't make gruesome costumes in a 3T, who knew?
Just when I thought we were out of luck, I spotted one called "funny bones" in the corner that was hidden by a wig, that did come in a 3T. She tried it on at the store and it was love at first sight - she didn't want to take it off and once we got home, put it right back on.
So - in her pre-Halloween debut in her costume, here is my scary little skeleton!!
Video of her showing off her spooky moves
So far she's had two occasions to dress up and picked her skeleton costume for both, but I am still holding out hope that she'll trick-or-treat in the cupcake costume!
Last Sunday afternoon we took Ella to the State Fair. Steve and I had gone once before, when we lived in Fayetteville, and hadn't really had the desire to go back since then. But this year, since Ella had such a great time on rides at the beach this summer, we thought she'd really enjoy it.
It was the opening weekend, beautiful weather, and very, very crowded, but a lot of fun. We went on a bunch of rides, Ella played a few games, and we ate fair food - we even tried a deep fried snickers bar which didn't taste anything like I expected, but still neat to try.
Ella went on this roller coaster by herself - when I saw that she was going to have to sit next to a big boy I thought she might change her mind, but she did great, and loved the ride.
A video of Ella and I going down the big slide. The best part of this is hearing her loud screams all the way down!
All ready for her first day in her new classroom at school
Showing off her skeletons from Grammy
In her skeleton sweatshirt (never mind that this is a boys sweatshirt, about three sizes too big - she HAD to have it - enough said!)
Making a recipe for Chloe, her toy caterpillar / glowing creature. On this afternoon he was hungry for cat food and milk, yum. Ella instantly fell in love with Chloe and had to have him and has taken good care of him for about two weeks now, but last night told me that I should bring him back to the store because he keeps getting caught in her hair.
Playing with Cory
On the new playground in our neighborhood
All dressed up
Making lemonade
Little buddies
With her crew
Future fashion designer? Beautiful gown made of glitter paper! (and some lipstick on her chin)
