....Girls just wanna have fun-unnnn....

That is the song that the girls were singing, totally straight-faced, at the top of their lungs. As you can see, they also accompanied themselves on the piano!

We met up with some of our favorites yesterday! (Linda & Sarah, Debbie & Noelle, Christy & Emma and Joy & Riley) Everyone had a great time! We were all laughing at all the different personalities! Sarah is the karaoke diva and usually randomly bursts into song which makes for some hilarious moments...Noelle is Ella's animal buddy. They usually can be found off somewhere together playing a variety of animal-inspired things. Emma is the sweetest, most polite little girl I think I've ever met and Riley is the spit-fire of the group! Interestingly, all their little personalities mesh extremely well together. We were together for most of the afternoon/early evening and we had very little drama! ;) The girls played until dinner time when we decided to have an impromptu dinner together. We packed up the girls (and Carter, too!) and headed to a nearby pizza joint, Vendetta's. It was DELICIOUS! Linda and I shared the most amazing pizza with garlic and artichoke hearts!! Thankfully we have plans today, or I would be bribing her to go back with me ;) The kids all behaved great and had such a great time together! Thanks girls, we had a blast!

Calling all Fairies...

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Ella was invited to Riley's 3rd birthday party last week. It was a Fairy/Princess themed party and all the little girls were asked to wear their favorite princess attire. Ella chose her beautiful, puffy fairy dress. It was SUPER cold that day, so thankfully she didn't mind being a layered fairy. We paired her dress with a leotard and leggings and she was all set! Riley's house was decorated SO adorable!! (Seriously, Joy...November 15th, right?!) I was holding my breath about how well Ella would participate with all the girly, princess-y things, but thankfully, she did great! Riley's mom, being Martha Stewert's twin, had the neatest craft all set up for everybody. They each got to decorate their own Repunsal-esque hat with beautiful beads, stickers and glitter paint! This was Ella's favorite part, ofcourse. She was also quite proud of her name writing skills and insisted that she do it herself.

Hard at work..

Ella and Noelle modeling their masterpiece

After the craft, we all gathered for a treasure hunt. All the girls were told this adorable story about lost treasures in the woods, ect. We all pretended that Riley's living room was the "woods" and the girls searched for their necklaces and pirate coins. They all totally got into it and frantically tried to recover the missing treasure ;) Finally, each girl got a turn to try and "Pin the Tiara on the Princess!" I was laughing SO hard watching Ella, blindfolded, wobbling all around trying to make it to the Princess. Amazingly, she stuck that tiara in exactly the correct spot! ha!

After some pretty darn good sparkly, pink cupcakes and a looooot of candy from the pinata, my fairy was a pretty happy camper!

Miss Priss.

Enough said! This is a proof sent to my email, but I just couldn't wait to post it ;)

My, how you've grown!

Halloween '06

Halloween '07

Halloween '08

Disney on Ice!!! :)

It's 2 days later and I'm still awe-struck! On Thursday night me, Ella and Guppie went to see the newest production of Disney on Ice. It was absolutely amazing! A-m-a-z-i-n-g!!! When we got to the arena, Guppie suprised us with front row seats! We literally had the best 3 seats in the entire arena! Right as we took our seats, "Cars" took the ice and Ella's face was just priceless! As Mater and Lightening McQueen swirved and drove on the ice, she was in awe! As they raced, they played her FAVORITE song, "Life In The Highway" and she sang and smiled like I'd never seen before! After Cars, Lion King took the ice. It was amazing to see these elaborate costumes and props literally 5 feet from your face. Ella loved Simba, Nala and Mufassa, and kept her eyes glued to the ice the entire time. We also got to see a Little Mermaid number. "Ariel" was beautiful and a phenominal skater. We have the Little Mermaid on DVD, so Ella was familiar with the songs and general plot. Again, it was just mindblowing. The whole production was out of this world and just SO firstclass. Last was a new part of the show featuring Tinkerbelle and all the fairies of Magic Hollow. The whole show was something that we'll all never forget!! Here are a few pictures of our night:

First, the obligatory "arena-offered-picture-with-a-Disney-prop" picture:

Here are a few random pictures of the show:

And finally, the post-show pictures!

Terrific Tuesday.

Ahhh, Tuesdays. Sort of a "lost in the shuffle of the week" kind of day. Not hectic Monday, not a day to mark the "hump" of the week, not a day that comprises 'TGIF' and certainly not weekend-day quality. So, I've decided to do my part to spice up Tuesdays ;-) Here are a few interesting little facts to jumpstart your Tuesday:

If you yelled for 6 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat up one cup of coffee. (Hardly seems worth it, huh?)

Banging your head against a wall burns 150 calories an hour.

A flea can jump 350 times it's body length. That's the equivalent of a human jumping the length of a football field.

Butterflies taste with their feet.

Right-handed people live, on average, 9 years longer than left-handed people. (Score!!!)

The catfish has over 27,000 tastebuds.

Pretty interesting, huh?

In other news, Ella is thoroughly enjoying the month of October. She's been working hard on lots of crafts that can help decorate our house. She's made my windowsill above my sink adorable :)

She also made a piece of foam board into the perfect Halloween decoration for her room!

*For all of you wondering about the drawing to the left of the pumpkin, that is Ella's "Halloween Horse" ;-)

Today we're just hanging out and getting a few things together for the rest of our week. Thursday night we're super excited to be going to "Disney on Ice!" I haven't told Ella yet so she'll be SOOOO excited when I tell her. This version of the show includes Cars AND Lion King. She'll be in heaven! Check back for pictures :) Friday we have a "Princess Party" at Ella's friend, Riley's house. All the little girls are going to show up in their best Princess get-up and head on over to Riley's castle. We will see how long Ella will tolerate her costume. LOL! After the party we will head over to "Trunk-or-Treat!" at a local church. The members line their parking lot with their decorated cars/trunks and the kids go from car to car "trunk-or-treating." We went last year and Ella had a ball. They have hayrides and inflatables and all kind of fun games. So we're looking forward to that, too. Saturday I'm thinking about taking Ella to get her pictures taken for Halloween. We'll play it by ear.

We hope everyone's having a great week! Ella is insisting on including Rudy in this post, so I'll leave you with this picture! :)

Funny.

I absolutely love this picture sequence!! This was from my birthday! LOL

Happy Birthday to Me! :)

Yep, Saturday was my birthday :) I sort of had a couple days of celebration this year. Friday night I had more of an "adult" celebration with lots of my girlfriends. We had an absolute blast! There was tons of awesome food (which was very thoughtfully planned as ALL vegetarian) We had veggie shish-kabobs, baked beans, deviled eggs, bean salad, pasta salad, twice baked potatoes and an array of yummy appetizers! Everyone went in together and gave me the most beautiful flower arrangement in a really cool vase. I also got several really sweet cards :) We all had so much fun together and I really appreciated all the people who really went out of their way to make my birthday so special! Thanks Linda and Joy--know you're reading! :) LOL!

Saturday, my actual birthday, I woke up to an excited Ella who sang "Happy Birthday dear Mooooommy!!" at least 15 times before 9am ;) Russ took Ella to McDonalds so I could relax in my jammies for awhile and that was nice. They came back and Ella presented me with a cute little cake adorned with about a million candles, LOL. We got ready and headed to a neat fall festival in Mcdonough. Ella was in asbsolute heaven! There was a petting zoo, cool inflatables and cool booths with arts and crafts, face painting, ect. I got a fresh squeezed lemonade <swoon> and Ella choose a frozen, strawberry lemonade. There was a band there, and Ella made her debut as a break dancer as she got down to "Cupid Shuffle." LOL! After we walked around for a few hours, we headed to dinner. As we ate my birthday dinner, out of the blue, Ella patted my back and said, "I really love you on your birthday, Mommy!" :') Who could top that gift?

Here are a few pictures to enjoy:

Galavanting With Guppie.

Guppers. Gup. Guppilicious. All terms of endearment for my Mom, Ella's "Guppie." Monday afternoon, Guppie and Ella had a date while I went and got my hair cut. They always have a lot of fun together, and this time was no exception! Ella was thrilled to have Guppie play "doggy" with her and was even treated to her favorite lunch! They always have adventures that crack me up. Their last outing consisted of an hour and a half browsing Target! LOL This particular afternoon was spent playing around on our square, a cool lunch together and of course, topping the afternoon off with a little shopping ;) I love the relationship Ella and my mom have. It makes my heart smile.

Guppie,

"I had fun with you yesterday. My favorite part was when we ate ice cream together! I love my doggy stroller! Maybe next time we can go bowling together!!"

I love you!

Ella

Goooo...um....Packers?

Sunday afternoon Ella and I headed over to a Sunday Football party hosted by some of our friends. Obviously, our agenda was purely social....as we had NO idea who was even playing ;) Ella had SO much fun with her friends! She was pleasantly surprised when we got there and she saw several of her little friends were there! They are all either almost 4, or newly 4. They entertained each other for hours! A lot of hide and seek, painting the sidewalk, and flashlight "tag" after it got dark! Sarah had a new baby kitten who Ella was smitten with. Another little girl there, Noelle, is also a cat lover--so Ella Bella had a little cat-holding-competition!! :) We got there around 3 and didn't leave until after 11pm! Every time I would entertain the thought of leaving, Ella would respond with an emphatic, "Noooo! We're having FUN!" Who am I to argue with that? So, I got to have a lot of "adult time" while Ella had a blast with the girls. It was a good day for everyone! :)


If you look closely, you can see Ella showing off her GORGEOUS lipstick that she also used for "blush." :)

The girlies snuggling with "Angel." Ella, Noelle and Sarah.

My date! :)

As most of you know, Ella is a girl who knows what she wants! ;) It's hilarious to have to bargain with her when choosing a place to go out to eat. She has her distinct favorites and ofcourse they are the most expensive establishments. So, I was most honored when she humbled herself for a dinner at O'Charley's with good ole' Mommy. After all....how can you resist those rolls?!

She had a lot of fun analyzing all the other kid's behavior (Including scoffing at a girl who appeared to be standing in her seat. *snort*) And, saved the day for the parents of a screaming 18 month who she completely entertained with her stuffed doggy. After making me read every last choice on her menu, she settled on the "sliders" (aka, mini cheeseburgers) and brocolli (because, "That is super HEALTHY, mommy!") We had a lot of fun together and she made me nearly choke on my salad many times!

In the middle of our dinner she exclaimed (compliments of "Enchanted," I'm sure) "Hey Mommy! This is like a date!!" And you know what? She was right!

Bonfire Shenanigans.

Last night Miss Ella attended her very first Bonfire! We decided to have dinner and roast marshmallows with a few of our neighbors! We went to the grocery store and made sure we had all the things we needed to make a first for Ella....S'mores! After careful consideration of all the ingredients, Ella made her own creation: a s'more sans chocolate! With her graham crackers and marshmallow's all lined up, she insisted on doing the roasting "all be herself!"

We all had fun seeing who could make the absolute perfect marshmallow. Just the right balance of blackness, warmness and "ooey-gooeyness!" At one point Ella had about 5 stacked on top of each other. As you can see, she was pretty proud of this. LOL!

We all had a lot of fun! We had a little sprinkle of rain as we were setting up the fire, but thankfully, the weather held out for us! It was great to just talk and laugh with our friends :) The kids all had a blast and got a huge kick out of "camping out!" After they had their fill of the fire, they were able to use up some left over sparklers! Ella has zero fear and was the leader of the pack; demonstrating to the others how you can make "shapes in the sky!" After a final romp on the trampoline, we were spent!

Whimsical Writings.

Although this picture is slightly blurry, I love it! I really think it encapsulates Ella's personality.

Isn't it amazing what you can learn from a 3 year old? Her enthusiasm for life is contagious. On the day this photo was taken, I had a million and one things on my mind. It was a Sunday and I was desperately trying to occupy her so I could devote a few hours to tackle things around the house. The weather was warm, but slightly misty. After taking note of said weather, Ella was determined to "play in the rain." Calling from the laundry room, I tried my best to redirect her attention and encourage her to play inside while I finished the projects I had started. Just as I rounded the corner, I was greeted with bright blue eyes and tuffs of curls peeking through her infamous ladybug raincoat. When I saw the pure enthusiasm on her face, I had no choice. I reached for her hand and allowed her to lead me into my own childhood memories. As we twirled and sang, I said a silent thank you. I'm thankful to have the chance to see glimpses of such purity and innocence.

Even if through a twirling ladybug's eyes.