Mother's Day Picture

Ella made me this awesome picture for Mother's Day after school today.  It's so sweet and I love the round belly she drew in the middle of my shirt!

Guilty conscience

When Ella got home from school today, she seemed a little bit off and I could tell that she wasn't 100% happy about something, but she said she was fine and had a good day.  Alyssa and Chaka were both here, so I couldn't immediately get to the bottom of it, but I figured I'd talk to Ella once I was done working.

In a completely unprecedented event, she fell asleep on the couch around 4:10 pm. I woke her up at 4:30 to see if she was feeling sick or what was wrong. She was hard to wake up, and said she didn't feel good, but couldn't say what was wrong (wasn't her throat, wasn't her stomach, she didn't have a fever).

It was our night to bring the snack for her Daisy troop meeting, so I said let's go pick up snack at the store and if she didn't feel up to the meeting, we'd just drop snack off and come back home. I was thinking that she'd want to go to Daisies, especially after picking up all the ingredients for strawberry shortcakes, but she still seemed to feel very unwell and we just dropped snack off at the girl scout house before the meeting started.

We came home and I got her showered and while dinner was cooking (which I figured she'd be too sick to eat), we were sitting in the playroom talking. All of a sudden she said to me "When you were little did you ever get in trouble on the bus?" ... I asked her if she got in trouble on the bus today, and then it all came out. She had talked back to her bus driver in the afternoon (he is incredibly sweet, super nice guy, Ella sits right behind him and really likes talking to him), and was feeling so guilty about it.

We talked about what she could've done instead, and what she can do next time to make sure it doesn't happen again. While we talked, it was like she had a miraculous recovery - she became chatty and talkative and I could see her starting to feel better.

It was quite a thing to observe, and by the time I put her to bed tonight, she was completely back to her normal happy self. It could be a complete coincidence but seems to be a case of a heavy conscience taking a physical toll. Yikes!

She's got it made!

This past Saturday, Ella had a jumping birthday party in the morning, so she had a great time with her friends. 

After we got home, Steve and I spent several hours cleaning and organizing the garage. It was hot and messy work and Ella had no interest in helping - instead, she rode her bike, rode her scooter, walked Cory, drew with sidewalk chalk, played basketball, asked us how much longer we were going to be, etc...

After we finished our hard work we were ready for a break in the pool. Ella cracked me up because she stretched out on the chair, hands behind her head, legs crossed and went "aaaah" -- as if she was finally able to relax after all her hard work - ha!

Painting the Rainbow Fish

My friend Carroll and I took the girls to The Paint Pub last Sunday for a kids class to paint The Rainbow Fish. Ella was very excited - she read her book in advance and wore her rainbow fish necklace from Aunt Kelly.  

She had a great time and I really enjoyed watching her listen to the instructor and create her painting.

She followed the instructions almost exactly and then added some of her special finishing touches at the end - the little black fish to the left of the Rainbow Fish, the 2014, and the cursive Ella in the bottom right corner. It is definitely a one-of-a-kind original painting!

Ta - da!!

Looks like she means business!

We were at our friends' house last Saturday night, and Ella was a little wild-woman playing with James' nerf guns -- look at this face!

Recycling Center Tour

We went on a tour of the Pearland Recycling Center last Saturday with Ella's daisy troop. It was pretty interesting, nothing at all like I was expecting, and we both ended up learned a lot. 

Out of all the different areas we saw, Ella's favorite part was the giant paper shredder. It could shred an entire phone book in a second and into about a square inch worth of paper strips. 

Throwing in a phone book

I love Ella's face while she was watching it work!

Getting to push the button

All the girls on the big scale together

By the weighed and marked bales

Group picture with the tour leader 

Definitely not our average Saturday afternoon, but pretty neat learning experience to see how the recycling center works!

Easter Sunday

 One of Ella's favorite Easter memories, that she talks about whenever she mentions Easter, was waking up on Easter morning in the apartment and looking outside her window and seeing eggs in the grass, so she knew the Easter bunny had been there. Last year we were in San Francisco for Easter so we weren't able to keep with our normal traditions, so it was nice to be home this year and able to make the 'eggs outside the bedroom window' happen again. 

Her view from bed - eggs in the grass!

Egg hunting bright and early

She finally spotted her basket!

Organizing all of her treasures

Ella got a ladybug notebook in her basket, and made this sheet in her notebook after breakfast. Translation: I like ladybugs because they are cool. They are pretty. Ladybugs are my favorite insect is a ladybug. 

Looking adorable before church

Some pictures in Mom's backyard after church

Washing the car with Steve before dinner

Perfecting her cannon ball 

Fun jumps with Daddy

And she found one more egg!

Adorable desserts by Grammy and Ella (mostly Grammy :))

Such a great Easter!

Easter Weekend

We had a wonderful Easter weekend last weekend with Mom and Glenn. Ella had off of school for Good Friday, and so she got to have a sleepover at Grammy and Grampy's house on Thursday and Friday nights.  She had a great time and lots of fun!

Helping Grampy change a tire

Making Easter treats with Grammy

Grandma and Grandad sent this cute little hamster to Ella for Easter. Coincidentally, she had built a 'hamster habitat' at a pet workshop for Daisies a few weekends ago that was just waiting for an inhabitant - voila!

Coloring book from Aunt Erin & Uncle Josh

On Saturday, we dyed Easter eggs

It was a beautiful sunny day and we spent the afternoon outside - after Easter eggs, we swam and then had a cook out

Looking adorable with Cory!

Picture Post

Some pictures from the last few weeks of March and the beginning of April --

Living vs. non-living theme week at school - Ella holding an earthworm!

Ocean Discovery Day in Galveston for Daisies

Walking and reading their shark books

Sea turtle rescue facility

Telling time with Grampy

We went to Central Texas BBQ for Glenn's birthday. There were many items of memorabilia (for lack of a better word) and we had to take the opportunity for a picture with this mummy!

Happy Birthday Grampy!

Adorable short haircut for spring

Pet Workshop 

Sleeping beauty -- And she also happens to take off her PJs more nights than she leaves them on!

This guy was on our porch one morning a few weeks ago, I couldn't believe it!

Ella's kindergarten teacher is really the best, and she comes up with the neatest learning experiences for the kids. Last month Ella came home very excited because she had brought in an incubator full of chick eggs. Ella learned a bunch about how chicks hatch, they did experiments to predict which eggs had chicks in them and which didn't, and she was anxiously awaiting "chick day" when they would hatch.  We had many, many conversations about the chicks in the days leading up to the hatching day. 

The day finally came and did not disappoint. Some pictures from the class blog - 

They have been watching them grow and change since they hatched. This has definitely been one of Ella's favorite lessons of the year. 

Fun at the playground with Addison

Lunch time with her friends

Karoake fun on Fine Arts Day

Having fun in the pool with Jake 

This was so sweet. She kept Andy entertained by counting his toes, over and over and over. He just happily stared at her while she counted as high as she could. So cute!