"What's that?" asks Ellie's friend, Leah...

"Oh, that? It's a grilled-cheese-getter."

Said with such confidence and certainty! I mean, what else could it be???

November - Arboretum

We went to the Arboretum, and Kevin LOVED one little playhouse. He stayed there, pretending to pour and drink over and over again. He was so cute. When he was done pretending to drink, each time he would say "Ahhhhh." He is so cute!

November before Thanksgiving

Painting on the back deck is something the kids love to do! Kevin does eventually start causing trouble by trying to paint on Ellie's picture. But she loves for him to paint with her, so she only complains a little!

A visit to The Woodlands was really fun, but I didn't take many pictures. Yes, Mom, I will add more once you send me the pictures!

Kevin loved the dog crate, and both of the kids loved the dog! I kept waiting for Ellie to get tired of the dog, but she never did. She really loves animals!

We went to a tree lighting at Market Street, and Christmas festival as well. At the festival, there were ballet and Irsish dancers. Ellie loved watching them dance. She was fascinated!

We also had a tea party with Ellie's two grandmothers, one of her great grandmothers, and of course her mother! She loved the cake and was very cute! She has decided that she wants a tea party for her 4th birthday!

Trial run at Christmas card photos. The lighting was terrible, and I was the only adult around. I was testing out a silly idea for the Christmas card.

Halloween leftovers!

After Halloween, we had a bucket full of candy! We decided to help Ellie realize that she didn't need all the candy! So, we planned an activity. We had a bowl full of "sometimes" and "anytime" foods. She took each item out of the bowl and placed it on the green paper if it was an "anytime" food (healthy) and on the red paper if it was a "sometimes" food (unhealthy). We talked about how the food on the green paper makes us healthy and strong, and too much of the food on the red paper can make us feel yucky.

Then, we brought out the candy bucket and asked her where it would go. She correctly placed it on the red paper. So, we asked her how she would feel if she ate it all. She said yucky, and then said, "So I shouldn't have all of it, but I could keep just 3 pieces and then I wouldn't feel yucky." We agreed! So, she picked out three pieces and the rest of the candy was tossed - without a struggle!

I doubt this will work again next year, but we'll certainly try!

Ellie Reads to Kevin

I think she is more excited about this activity than Kevin is!

Longhorn Pancake!

Chris's dad is the pancake King! Ellie loves for him to make her pancakes in the mornings! She usually requests animal shapes, and mine are usually just round. But one morning, I was in for a treat - a longhorn pancake! Pretty impressive!

Halloween

Here are some pics from Halloween. Ellie had such a great time. We went to a party and went trick-or-treating in the neighborhood. Ellie was Supergirl and Kevin was Winnie the Pooh dressed up as a bumblebee (so he could steal the honey). During the trick or treating, Ellie fell down and spilled her candy about four times as she ran from house to house! She was so excited.

I carved my first Cinderella pumpkin. Ellie painted the smaller pumpkin and was so concerned that something would happen to it while were gone trick-or-treating. I assured her it would be fine, but oops! Some Halloween pranksters stole her pumpkin, and she was so upset about it! She wanted to "have a meeting, and ask everyone if they are the one who took my pumpkin." The cute part about the meeting is that she actually thought everyone would come and that we would find the pumpkin theif!