Thanksgiving

We have so much to be thankful for and I appreciate this time of year and the focus it brings back into our lives to be grateful for what we have.  We were blessed with the opportunity to have all of Steve's family gather in his hometown for Thanksgiving.  Carole and Russ had done a lot in preparation for the whole family and we appreciate all of the planned activities which included a family fun run, shooting guns at the range, Santa Claus, family pictures, art room for the kids, and lots of rides in Grandpa's classic cars.  It is nice to see everyone and their families.  They each are so unique and play a very special role in our lives for which we are grateful.

Here are Carole and Russ and their children: 
Steve, Doug, Greg, Melanie, Stephanie, Debbie, and Jessica.

And from that came this whole crew.  WAHOO!

Just look at the grin on Ellie's face--she was in heaven playing with all of her cousins.

 

The reflection off the window is bad, but Ellie is in the back with Gabe and Oliver and Lila is in the front on Steve's lap and they all had a wonderful time and were waving goodbye.

Da-da

Today Steve was able to meet us at Lila's tumble class and participate with her.  All day she has been saying Da-da and looking for him--I think it made her day!

Since this post is about Da-da, we also celebrated his 31st birthday two weeks ago.  I took him to see Inception and out to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory on Oct. 30, the Saturday before his birthday.  It was a nice outing.  He is a wonderful patient man and I am so grateful to have him in my life!

 The carmel brownies Ellie and I attempted to make for his actual birthday.

 One more picture of Da-da star gazing with the girls.

Costumes 2010

Steve thinks I'm "gang-bust" set on making a theme for our Halloween costumes every year, but really it is fun and easy, especially when you have a friend who lets you borrow from their excellent costume selection.  So here is our "gang-bust" themed costumes:

Peter Pan

I'm noticing a tradition of Steve always playing the villain...  
According to Charlie Brown in The Great Pumpkin, "Everyone should choose a costume in direct contrast to their personality."  :)

Ellie loves TinkerBell and I found this great costume at a thrift store for $3.  It was dirty and missing the wings, but a wash later, wings from the dollar store and tahdah
Ellie-TinkerBell

We had a green pair of wings, but Ellie insisted on wearing the red.  :)
 

Now you may be thinking Lila was a cat, Mittens, last year.  She isn't really a cat this year.  She is a lost boy or lost girl as pictured below from the movie. :)  Her costume I got on clearance several years ago for yet another $3 and by the way it is way soft.

Since Halloween is on Sunday we had all of the festivities today.  Ellie dressed up for school where they had a little party.  Then we went to Trunk-or-Treat at the church.

  Ellie and her friend, Megan enjoying a hot dog and some goodies in the back of our van.

 Checking out the loot.

Mrs. Malia gave the kids a cute Halloween notepad and pencil with a couple pieces of candy.  Ellie of course loves the notepad and pencil and spent all afternoon drawing.  Here is her picture of herself as TinkerBell.

Pumpkin Patch

This year we decided to go to Annie's Pumpkin and Produce to pick our pumpkins.  Man is that place busy.  Despite the crowds and the still quite warm weather we had a good time.

Steve and Lila on their way in from the parking lot.  Lila loves to walk everywhere and will hold your hand--isn't it so cute.

On the hay ride to the pumpkin patch.

Lila found her pumpkin.

Ellie found a pumpkin that had already been cut and was inspecting, but decided to keep looking.

 Here it is, Ellie's pumpkin.  She even helped Daddy cut it off the vine.

We decided to do the corn maze this year and we all had a good time.  Ellie called Mimi and said, "Help we're lost in a corn maze."  It was cute.

Lila walked most of the maze.  It was kind of nice because she couldn't go running off--I mean there are only so many paths in a maze.  The problem came more with the fact that she would get distracted by people's litter--discarded M&Ms she would want to pick-up and eat or old Gatorade bottles.

At station number 3 trying to decide left or right based on a clue. 

Map of the maze.

 They insisted on painting their pumpkins as soon as we got home. 
They had a good time and so did we.

I only had to stop Lila a couple of times from putting paint in her mouth and when Ellie was done her pumpkin was no longer orange, but completely pink, purple, and blue.

Fancy Shoes

So Mrs. Malia told me yesterday that Ellie and Jack have become quite good friends.  Jack is the boy who turned 5 the first week of school and started the when am I going to be 5 conversation.  

Well today she asked if she could where her fancy shoes to school.  When we were putting them on she said, "I wonder if Jack will notice my fancy shoes?"  Really?!?  I guess girls will be girls.

The shoes are pretty fancy, aren't they?  And doesn't her hair look so cute curled and she is wearing a little lip gloss.  :)

Good friends are like Starrs

you don't always see them,

but you know they're always there!

My friend Melissa Starr came into town for a family reunion and we managed to steal one of her evenings.  It was so fun to see her.  It truly is amazing to me how much I appreciate my college friends and the roll they played back then, but it is even more amazing how much I love them now and the good examples of righteous women they are to me.  It is true that we may not see each other often, but they will always be apart of my life!  

I'm looking forward to the Utah reunion Melissa is planning. :)

 

Poor little Lila, she had a stomach bug and I was afraid we might not be able to make dinner with Melissa, but she recovered enough and then had a blowout on the way to get Melissa so she had to wear the spare onesie in the diaper bag--ask Melissa she was super cute before the accident and now in the picture she is just tired and cranky.

The Word on the Street

Old Spice Parody



Love this!

Now for my monsters.

We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows last night for Family Fun night.  The girls had a good time even though Lila's scowl would tell you otherwise.

 The girls on the way to the Stake BBQ.  We stopped at the bread store where they turned in their colored Halloween pictures and got a nice Trick-or-Treat bag and a box of donuts.  Ellie was so excited that she got to pick a box that had donuts with powder sugar because as she said,
"I love sugar powder!"

My Princesses

Guess Who

wants to be like big sister

 she likes to put Ellie's shoes on because they are bigger and easier to get on.


and go to school.

School Work

Every day Ellie brings home worksheets and projects they did in class.  I enjoy seeing what she is doing and hearing the stories that come from discussing her work. Monday she brought home the following:

They were finishing up the color red and as you can see the assignment was to draw something red.  Ellie happened to be wearing her favorite red, white, and blue skirt with the matching red shirt--notice Mrs. Malia's note at the bottom. 

They have also been doing a lot of tracing activities to get ready for writing and Monday's tracing was circles.  When I asked about this assignment she smiled and said, "We were making circles so I gave the doggie some treats and the people some food."  Note they are all circles.

Now Ellie has been able to write her name since she was 2.  The last few months she has been exploring the difference between upper and lower case letters so when she writes her name it can have any combination of upper and lower case.  I once mentioned that the only upper case letter in a name should be the first letter, but never really pushed the issue--I figured eventually it would work itself out like the capital E with several extra lines (you remember).  Well today Mrs. Malia was helping them write their names correctly and Ellie said, "My Mom told me that at home once."  It will be interesting to see how she writes her name on her work next week.

Lila Moving and Shaking

Her favorite obstacle course this week.

When she saw this little boy coming she turned around and started reaching for his hand.  I thought she was going to shove his hand or something possessive like that so I asked her to leave him alone and keep coming.  When the boy finally grabbed the bar she nodded, clapped, and then continued forward .  I guess she was only trying to show him how it was done. :)

This is a much bigger one of the bars and she was so proud of herself for getting up there.