Halloween

Of course our little princess is a big fan of the one and only, CinderELLA. So, we were at the Disney store looking at the pretty princess dresses and Ella picked out the blue one. And boy does she enjoy wearing her Cinderella dress and glass slippers. We often find her asleep in bed at night with her glass slippers on (they are actually blue glitter jelly shoes).

Ella had a great time tick or treating. We mostly stuck around our house and went to a few houses of our super nice neighbors. We also ventured to the Montgomery's house that live very close to us as well.

We went to a Halloween party at the Shirah's house and got to play with friend Natalie's little kids Blake and Madelyn

Ella's school also had a fall festival. With face painting...
icee's

and a cake walk (unfortunately Ella was more interested in eating her icee than winning me a cake)

a pony ride

Hope you all had a wonderful Halloween! Even if it was a month ago. :)

Catching Up

It is just a little too easy to get busy and forget to blog! Then it is too overwhelming to try to catch up...so then I just ignore that I haven't blogged in weeks. Then weeks turn to months! Then we have computer issues and camera issues that complicate the matter. Sorry! I do miss keeping everyone updated on our adorable little girl that is just getting so big! Here are some random pictures....

Ella can trace her hand by herself

and draw a butterfly. She was so proud of both and came running to find us to show us what she had drawn. "Look, a butterfly!" We came to see her butterfly, and goodness, it looked just like a butterfly!

Team day at Samford. We thought the Samford cheerleading outfit was fitting. Although when anyone asks her what an elephant says she still screams, "Roll Tide!"

Posing with Brink Brink before Picture day at School

this one just cracked me up; Wuzzup?

Getting the hair fixed before pictures....yes, this is our morning ritual. She's quite tender headed

Every little girl should wear her daddy's sunglasses at the dinner table

Puppy Love

Ella likes to help feed the dogs from time to time. Even when they've already been fed. One evening Anne Marie's belly was looking quite full (it literally looked like she had eaten a basketball), then we realized that Ella kept feeding them, and feeding them, and feeding them. Anne Marie just loved it and apparently kept eating, and eating, and eating. We have since put a lock on it. She also decided John and her shoes needed a little feeding as well.

Ella loves her Brink Brink...

(just ignore the pile of laundry on the chair and look at how sweet Ella is covering up Brinkley)

and her Anne Marie....

Baby Sherman

A couple of weeks ago I helped throw a baby shower for our friend Jennifer Sherman. She is having a little girl due at the beginning of December (keeping the name a surprise for now!). This was the first event we've hosted at our house and I think it went really well! We are so thankful to finally have a place that we can have friends and family over and host special events at!

Look at that adorable diaper cake Jenny Strickland made! And yes, those are the famous baby bites from Pastry Arts in homewood. If you haven't tried them, they are a must.

Katie, Lisa, Jennifer S., Jennifer C., Keely (the little one), and me

Poor Jenny Strickland was at home with 2 very sick little ones, and came by just long enough to decorate my whole house and bring by the diaper cake.

Presents galore! The hostess gift we gave is going to be a thorough deep cleaning of her house while she's in the hospital, so her house will be spotless when she arrives home with her new little one! Best gift ever (in my opinion!).

Here is Ella sporting her new balloons after the party.

October!

Has it seriously been 2 months since I last updated the blog? Yikes, sorry. We're busy folks, what can I say? Ah, October is just about our favorite month! John and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary on October 11th! Hard to believe its been 6 years. Yesterday Ella was officially 2 1/2 years old. That is so hard to believe as well! I still think of her as my little baby...until we are having conversations back and forth. Then I come to realize I can't really call her a baby anymore.

Too much to try to catch up on, but basically we are pretty much settled in to our new house. Absolutely love it, love the neighbors, love everything about it. Except the Jefferson County sewer bill...I do miss my $25 water bill when we were on a septic tank! It doesn't help that Ella can climb up to the sink and wash her hands all by herself, and she likes to keep that water running. Even after she leaves the bathroom.



So many updates on Ella I don't even know where to begin:

- She is in a big girl bed, and will stay put! Getting her to settle down at night is a huge challenge. She always wants to read another story, wants a drink of water, then wants a drink of juice, then decides she needs to go potty on the big girl potty. Then wants to rock, then read another story. This could potentially be a 3 hour event every night. Her manipulation skills are definitely very good!

- We have started potty training. She went potty in the big girl potty for the first time on Labor Day! We are still working on it, but hopefully won't be in diapers too much longer.

- She LOVES to draw (see pictures below), paint, color, sing (she makes up her own songs), play and listen to music, read stories, play with dolls, swing, play with the dogs (or at least give them lots of hugs and cover them up with blankets). She can sing her alphabet very quickly, can recognize most letters and some of the sounds, count to 15 (and point to things and count them), knows all of her colors and shapes, the list goes on and on. She's actually been doing all of these for quite a while, but I think I forgot to post (bad mommy).

- She LOVES her new school, teachers, and classmates. Words cannot describe how much we love Samford's Child Learning Center. That deserves a whole post on its own (coming soon).

Here are some recent pictures:

Loves her new swing set

Ella and cousin Hayden on the see saw

our wonderful new back yard!!!!

LOTS of leaves and hickory nuts though!

before school one day

our little artist (found her easel at a yard sale for $4!)

they taught her how to draw the hair at school.

She taught herself how to draw the eyes, face and mouth.

She told me this was a funny face.

and John seems to think that says 1:80

Apparently she knows ratios at the ripe age of 2 1/2

:)

Action Packed Week

More pictures from Ella's action packed week with aunt Lindsay and cousin Hayden:

this picture just cracks me up....

New House!

Well, we are officially getting settled and somewhat unpacked in our wonderful new house! We all just absolutely love it and could not be happier! The neighbors are wonderful and very friendly, and we were already invited over to dinner last weekend at one of their houses. Ella made instant friends, and we've found out there are several young girls in our neighborhood that are Ella's age. The dogs made instant friends with the neighbors directly behind us. They foster dogs and find homes for them, so currently they have 5! They like to talk a lot, which I am sure our neighbors love.

The prior owners left us a swing set and Ella never wants to stop swinging! I still have some painting to do, and lots of decorating, but we now have some groceries and clothes unpacked. I haven't been able to post much for a few reasons....we left our camera at a friend's house, still don't have our computer set up at home, and haven't decided on the lesser of evils for internet yet. I am kind of getting used to not paying a cable/internet bill. And....we hooked up our TV just to see what would happen...and guess what? Free cable! I thought that was very nice of the prior owners to leave us as well. At least Ella can watch her Curious George in the mornings for now...

Ella has now finished up at her old school, and will start up at Samford next Monday! This week my sister Lindsay has been taking care of Ella during her transitional period to the new school and here are a few pictures she's taken from her phone during some of their activities:

Hoover Library

McWane Center

(cousin Hayden is jumping around and waving his arms while Ella stands and observes)

Lindsay dressed Ella up in her little fairy princess outfit, and she told Brinkley, "Look Bink, Bink, I am a pre pre princess!" (pretty pretty princess).

Tonight Ella is spending the night out at Lindsay's so we can avoid a little of the driving back and forth. And John and I have a date night for the first time since I can remember!!! Hope you are all doing well! We'll have a house warming party very soon. We are very much looking forward to finally being able to do some entertaining!