Halloween

For halloween this year Ella was Mr. (or Miss) potato head. She even went trick or treating. She knocked on a few doors on her own (after we pushed the doorbell) and grabbed candy out of the bowl on her own (sometimes more than one time). Thank goodness for our smart thinking next door neighbors that had goldfish crackers ready to go...Ella picked them out herself - they were the only treat she was allowed to have...mean mom & dad ate all the rest!

Short on time so this is the short version of the day - but it was a fun filled weekend!

Super Girl

Our own little super-hero in her terry-cloth cape! :) After her bath she ran around with her "cape" on her head, laughing and dancing throughout the house. She thought she was pretty special with it on!

Pure Joy!

You can't have it mom, it's mine!

Shoe Fetish

This girl is starting early, she raids our closet and wears our shoes around the house daily. She hasn't mastered heels yet, but we see it in her future.

Children's Museum

Splashing away!

Ella enjoyed a visit to the Childrens Museum a while back. It was really a ploy to make her happy for a bit after we stopped giving her her pacifier. She started calling her pacifier "Bobby" so we decided it was time she stopped using it. She screamed the whole drive there and the whole drive home because she wanted her "Bobby" (that's about 35 minutes each way!) but she was a content little angel the whole time she was playing at the museum. She did eye some little boy's pacifier though - I saw a swipe and run cross her mind! :)

She loved the grocery store and water play areas the most. She is such a little collector girl, she got all the fruit out of the baskets & then put it in her cart over & over again.

No More Playin' House

Watch out spiders I'm comin' in, and I have a hammer!

Here are a few photos from taking the playhouse down. There was a really big playhouse in the back corner of our yard. It was right underneath a large pine tree, so it was covered in dirt,sap, pine needles and countless spider nests. We decided it took up too much space & was rather unsightly so down it came! We didn't know quite how nasty it was until we started dismantling the thing. It took a full weekend to take it apart. There were at least 5 different types of screws and nails holding it together. It must have been the last owners stress relief...they pounded twice the amount of nails into the thing as necessary. It would have been nice for Ella to play in, but we would have been paranoid about all the bugs, so we're quite content with it out of our yard!

Scrap wood for sale!

Ahhhh, much better!

Working hard...

We've been busy trying to get little projects done around our house and yard. This project was from about a month ago. The backyard wasn't fenced in totally, there was picket fence on 2 sides and cyclone on another. We needed to match the pickets and posts to what was existing in order to fence in the rest of the yard. After much searching we finally gave in and had custom pickets and posts made. After a weekend of hard work and lots of family help we now have a fully fenced in back yard....dogs and free-roaming children are now contained!

Drilling a hole in the concrete. We had to screw a bracket for one of the posts into the concrete.

Searching for the missing screw....check your pockets Jason,
bet you'll find what you're looking for! :)

Supervising from her playroom!

The finished project...still needs paint but the rain has stopped that from happening.

Broccoli

Just thought I'd share that Ella is quite the veggie lover! Today all she wanted for lunch was broccoli...dipped in hummus of coarse. She had 3 servings of the stuff almost 2 cups of just broccoli - she's gonna be one gassy girl later today! :) Thankfully its not much work (most of the time) to get her to eat her veggies, she loves green beans, and edamame too.

SO Precious - Love this picture!