Ella Tidbits

Ella is quite the entertainer these days and is ALWAYS wanting to do what big sister is doing.  She never plays in her room, is always in Addy's, usually making a mess.  Her new favorite is emptying Addy's drawers - this does not make mommy and daddy happy.  Or Addy for that matter.  But we love her to pieces.  Here are some funny pics of Ella being Ella.

 I got most of these singing snowmen before kids, they were just funny, I loved them.  Now that I have kids, I love them even more.  Although they did lose their appeal, they were the best babysitters when we first brought them out - Ella would just play them over and over again.  She could start them herself and I was busy enough getting stuff done to not even care if she had 4 of them going at once. 

 Addy was painting, so Ella wanted to paint.  She wouldn't wear a smock, so the shirt came off!

Ella pointing out the Ariel on the brush, not sure if it is her "favorite" princess, but it is the only one she knows by name, so anytime she sees Ariel, we hear about it.  

Ella staying still, smiling for the camera = rare and cute

VIP Shabbat

Addy has been at Bertha Alyce since she was 6 months old, but this is the first year she has been there on Fridays and the first year she has regulary attended Shabbat celebrations. 

What is Shabbat you ask?  I'm not 100% sure, but my expert source, Wikipedia, has this to say about the Friday celebration (think technically Shabbat is Saturday, a day of rest, equivalent to Sunday for us), "According to Jewish law, Shabbat starts a few minutes before sunset. Candles are lit at this time. The Kabbalat Shabbat service is a prayer service welcoming the arrival of Shabbat. Before Friday night dinner, it is customary to sing two songs, one "greeting" the Shabbat angels into the house and the other thanking the woman of the house for all the work she has done over the past week. After blessings over the wine and challah, a festive meal is served. Singing is traditional at Sabbath meals."  I like the whole thanking the woman for all her work - think we might need to start our own Shabbat celebrations! 

So, every Friday the preschool does a pint-size version of the typical Friday ritual, with lots of singing and eating challah and grape juice (kind of like communion).  But on VIP Shabbat, the whole school comes together with their "VIPs".  Not quite what was in store, we headed over and it was really nice.  Granted I didn't know any of the songs they sang, Addy did of course, but it was really cute. Ella got a bit squiggly, but she certainly wasn't the only one! 

Inky

We'd made comments around Addy about getting a puppy at some point in the future, and somehow we decided we'd get the puppy when Ella was 3.  Well, we might as well have the dog now, it has a name, Addy has all kind of plans for taking care of the puppy in the morning, teaching it to walk on a lease...  she even made this sign

We are supposed to hang this on the door so that when people come over, they will know that we can't come to the door because we are busy taking care of Inky.  Inky, our dog of the future.  She could go on and on about plans for this dog that we do not intend to own for a couple of years.  It is quite entertaining, and at least for now she fully recognizes that it is a dog of the future. 

Santa 2011

 We got to visit Santa at The Little Gym (where Ella takes gym and Addy had her birthday) and not only was the process way better than the mall, but Santa was awesome.  Addy had written a list of what she wanted and we took it to Santa.  He took the time to read through the list with her and talk to her.  Then the pictures came - there were so many cute ones it was hard to choose!  For someone who only wanted to look at Santa from afar last year, she's come a long way. 

And then there was Ella.  Michael was holding her when we were waiting in line and when he'd ask her if she was ready to sit on Santa's lap, she'd immediately say "NO".  Well, we opted to be mean parents and just throw her on his lap for a quick screaming baby pic.  Fortunately Santa was awesome and the photographer was equally as great, so we got this classic. 

Snow in Houston

OK, not real snow, but Reddyice-made snow at the science museum.  We were invited to a birthday party at the museum and the party included playtime in the snow, and the kids of course had a blast!  It was really cute watching them too, they were attempting to make a snowman at one point and it was clear that these Texas kids had no idea how to build a snowman! 

 Giant inflatable Santa

 Of course the first thing that the kids did was start to build snowballs, which were apparently outlawed at the museum

 Addy and her buddies.

I just realized that it looks like she doesn't have hands in this pic - her white gloves blend in with the snow!

I found this the most interesting part - we got there early and saw them "making" the snow!  There were actually guys in the Reddyice truck breaking bags of ice into the snow making machine.  Cold, wet job!



Bike Rider

Addy is riding her bike without training wheels!!!! She still needs a little help getting started, but she does great once she is on the go. She started riding right before it got really cold (well, really cold for Houston) so we need to keep practicing on the warm days. 

She even does a good job stopping on her own.  We are so proud of her!

Ella's 1st Pony

29 Again!

Not sure who enjoyed opening presents the most... 

but if we were being judged on how much mess was made during the celebration - the girls would have won by a landslide!

Happy Thanksgiving

Such a fun Thanksgiving this year! In addition to the normal crew, we had the Schroeder's join us this year and Susan and Heidi. Missed Dave and Vicki though. The day was great, lots of hanging out and eating.  Unfortunately I appeared to be more focused on getting pics of the girls and not the rest of the family - oops!

Addy and Ella working on some turkey decorations.  Ella kept smearing the chalk with her hand - I think that Addy drew the face about 4 times!

The girls and their turkey skirts

Sitting together nicely watching a commercial during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

Official 2011 turkey dunking

I think that Ella really enjoyed hanging out with the "boys" outside

Aunt Susan and the little girls.  About 2 seconds later Ella was probably poking Heidi in the eye while saying "eye".  She knows her body parts, just doesn't know much about personal space yet.

Granddad modeling Addy's "Native American" hat.  Kids are being taught the p.c. version of everything these days.  Although by the time they are adults, someone will have found "Native American" offensive for some reason and we'll have to come up with something else! 

Addy showing Heidi where her nose is

Ella and Heidi in deep conversation

Ella trying to hug Heidi, a.k.a. smother her

Cousin cuteness

This is how the day ended.  Aggies losing the game, Ella climbing on the table and Addy passed out asleep on the couch

The Ranch

We missed out on Dewberry Farm this year, but got an opportunity to go to Gordon Ranch with the girls' school.  There wasn't as much to do as Dewberry Farm, but it was a nice afternoon.

 Addy with her classmate Alex.  During the hay ride we learned that Addy was one of Alex's girlfriends.  Apparently he has multiple.  Addy didn't confirm the relationship and last I heard William was her boyfriend (she's moved on from Ethan apparently), so who knows.

Pony ride

Addy has come a long way from her original days in petting zoos.  I think that it helped that these were the most gentle petting zoo animals we'd ever seen.  Normally if you have food they practically attack you.  Addy had trouble getting rid of all the food because I guess everyone was full.  

 Ella could have cared less about feeding the goats, but she walked around pointing to each one saying "goat" over and over again.  She also has no fear and just walked right up to all of them.  I think that the little black one was her favorite, just her size!

Ella is really into animal noises right now, so this was a great excursion for her.  We saw goats, roosters (her impression of "cockadoodledoo" right now is priceless), a small cow, pony/horse, and sheep.  

Ella was not sure about the hay ride.  She was a little confused about sitting on hay and being pulled in a wagon by a tractor.  

Have vertical surface, Ella will climb.  Our little monkey!

Playtime

 Such silliness - Ella especially loves Star's bed.  Addy is just a wee big for it, otherwise I'm sure she'd be in it more!  We always know when Ella is getting tired because she'll just go and lay down in the dog bed.  Fortunately Star doesn't mind!

Addy rarely dresses up these days, but when a friend comes over, it is almost guaranteed that one or both end up in dress-up clothes.  Here is the ballerina and rock star.  Note Addy's shoes, turns out princess dress up shoes also double as tap shoes.  We enjoyed several tap performances during Emily's visit. 

Pumpkin Patch

So, rewind a bit back into mid-October, there were tons of Jewish holidays, so school was closed and the girls got to enjoy some Grandparent daycare time.  And of course it only seemed fitting on their day off from Jewish school, that they go to church!  Actually it was to the pumpkin patch at St. Luke's, but there was also some playtime on a "grown up" Jesus statue.  It is important to specify grown up Jesus because most of the talk around our house is about baby Jesus, especially around Christmas!  But Addy does understand that he did make it out of the manger.  So, the pics...

 This one may go down in the record books, not sure what Dad was doing on the other side of the camera, but both girls looking at the camera with natural smiles is nearly unheard of these days.

2011 Feast with the Beast

Another great night at Feast with the Beast at the zoo with our friends Mark and Melissa! 

The B52s performed this year and while we were all kind of excited to hear them (since it has been probably close to 20 years or more - yikes!), turns out we only knew 2 of their songs and all the rest kind of sounded the same and not so good.  Still a super fun night and way too much to eat!

50 Days of School

 Friday, November 4th was the 50th day of school, and the pre-k classes celebrated with a 50's themed day.  Everyone was told to wear 50's attire and they had milkshakes for a snack, hot wheel races, a mummy wrap and more that I'm sure I didn't hear about.  Addy of course needed a poodle skirt - thanks to an easy to follow tutorial on the web, it turned out to be a quick nap time project.  She looked pretty darn cute if I do say so myself!

Mamma

Recently Ella has finally started saying "mamma".  It started when Addy had one of my old drivers licenses out and Ella pointed to the picture and said "mamma".  She still says "dada" more, but I'm excited to be in the cool crowd now.  And it is very cute when she actually says it!  She is pretty much a myna bird at this point and repeats almost anything you say.  New words I can think of that she uses regularly are

• Sissy for Addy
• thank you
• airplane, she has crazy good hearing and any time she hears a plane in the sky she starts saying "airplane"
• bike ride
• milk
• wawa for water
• night night
• meow for cat, plus a wide array of other animal noises
• Meme, Mary picked a good name, the other grandparent names are a bit trickier!  Tonight we were looking at a picture of Dad and she called him "meme".  Hey, whatever works!
• Heidi, this one is rough, but we've been practicing for Heidi's visit this month
• Elmo
• nana for banana
• apple
• apple sauce
• snack, this one is said A LOT as she opens up the cabinet and pulls out boxes of snacks
• buckle, either when she wants us to buckle her in her chair at the table or anywhere there is a buckle that she wants to play with
• all dum which is her way of saying all done - my favorite use of this was when Ella opened up the snack cabinet and pulled out a box that was empty (not sure why we had an empty box in there) and she brought me the box saying "all done"