Daddy/Sweetpea Dance

It's that time of year again. Ella has been looking forward to this since last year. No joke.

She and daddy went to Costco (their favorite date!) and picked out a new dress. She just got some new sparkly headbands. We picked up their flowers today. Daddy's tux is fresh from the cleaners. Everything is in place for a wonderful night.

Here she is practicing her curtsy

Daddy getting dressed

Putting on her corsage

The silly but happy pair

Waiting for her carriage to take her to the ball

Ella's art

It's fun to see how her pictures have changed as she gets older. Here is a self-portrait. Note the big eyelashes and kissy red lips. I you click to enlarge and look closely, you'll see red, blue and green highlights in her hair. She has asked -more than once- when she gets to dye her hair pretty colors. I think we may be in for quite a ride with this one when she gets older. :)

Slater Cat

Poor Slater. She's old, like 16 or so; she's blind and we think she may be deaf. She drools, meows *really* loud and sheds like crazy. And Shane just loves her. I have found him carrying her down the hall- upside down, his hands wrapped around her tummy and her head bumping along at his ankles. We joke that she's going to die in self defense just to get a break from him.

They are cute together though.

Some things I just can't explain

Nekky man sitting on top of his sister's kitchen watching Max and Ruby. I don't understand it either so don't ask. :)

Oh, yes I know we need to paint in there. We're still deciding if we're going to knock down any walls between there and the living room and kitchen. I'm lazy and really don't like to paint so I don't want to have to redo it in the future. Yes, it has been like that for at least 2 years. The spackled drywall look is growing on me. And besides, some things just take time, ya know?

Chinese New Year

Grammy and Grampy bought the kids a Chinese New Year classroom craft kit so we had a big ol' party for our school friends. Ella was all too happy to wear her silk Chinese pants suit. If I could do it all again, I would have bought trunks and trunks filled with Chinese dresses. She loves any excuse to wear them.

While there are a lot of 'China' families in our church, Ella is the only Chinese princess in our little group so the kids learned quite a bit as they haven't really celebrated CNY or learned much about Chinese culture in the past.

I love China and could spend all day talking about it so it was hard for me to limit myself so the kids could do their crafts and have fun. In the end, I think they had a really good time and learned quite a bit in the process.

Exhibit A- Why I only took 3 pictures

One of the moms made homemade wontons (delish!) so the kids got to learn how to use chopsticks while eating them. and then we finished our shin dig with bubble wrap fireworks.

All of our friends were new to this concept and they were very skeptical that it would work.

Step 1- lay one sheet of 'big bubble' bubble wrap on the floor in front of each kid

Step 2- slowly count to 3

Step 3- watch as the kids jump up and down like maniacs popping their fireworks

People came from other parts of the building to see what we were doing. It was really loud and sounded just like fireworks. woot!!

Thanks Grammy and Grampy! We had a great time!!!

Snow day- last week

It snowed last week but I am so far behind in everything! We had more snow this morning but it has already melted to a yucky mess so no pix from today.

We have a sweeeet hill in our side yard. The snow had a nice layer of ice on it which made for some fun and fast sledding.

Thankfully Jake was on hand to carry Shane up the hill each time. Either I'm getting older or Shane is getting bigger, but I almost keeled over trying haul him and the sled up the hill. (I'm voting for Shane getting bigger) :)