Thanksgiving celebration

Ella is officially on her first holiday break. She has no school the week of Thanksgiving. Luckily, the grandparents are in town to keep her entertained so she doesn't start asking us about when school day is.

On Ella's last day of school, her class had a little Thanksgiving celebration for all the parents. I was so excited about it because after the party in her class, we were going to join all the kids upstairs in the music room to sing songs. I was envisioning this adorable scene of children jumping around and dancing like turkeys. I charged up the video recorder and thought it was going to be the perfect video post on here because it was going to ooze cuteness. Well, I am sure you have noticed that there is no video. I'll get to that in a minute.

Anyway, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving feast of apple juice, pumpkin bread, and bugles - just like what the Pilgrims ate! The kids then went around the room and had to say what they were thankful for. Ella stated that she was thankful for her mommy, her doggie, and cereal. I think the mommy comment was an afterthought since the girl before her had said that. Also, the placemat she was eating off of was a give away - "Ella is thankful for her doggie" and on the bulletin board "Ella is thankful for cereal."

Then the time had come for us to go upstairs for the singing celebration. So, we get in the room and sit in a circle and the children gathered around their music teacher. And what does Ella do? Well it looked something like this;

Yep, that's pretty much what she did the entire time all of the other kids were singing Thanksgiving songs. So, I have a 10 minute video of Ella just standing there with her hand in her mouth. She would occasional come back to stand by me. She did get a little exciting when they started to sing the last song, 10 Little Indians. I know she's a little shy when she is around a lot of people and that's all that it was. I guess I will just look forward to next year and maybe she'll be ready to dance and sing by then.

My sweeties

This is how I find Maddie now when I come in to get her in the morning or after her nap. Not sure that this fad is really going to catch on but she doesn't care. In typical Maddie fashion, she does what she wants.

Lately, I have just been in awe of Maddie. It is amazing how much she understands. She is starting to learn the concept of timeout and actually sits in the timeout chair until it is time for her to come out. It's only a minute but I am sure that is a long time for a 17 month old. And when she came out of time out today she said sorry to me. Wow! Yesterday, I turned the light on in the bathroom for her and Ella and she said thank you. Well, it was more like "tan - too" but that is thank you in Maddie language.

It's amazing how much the relationship between Ella and Maddie has changed in the past couple of months. Six months ago, I spent the majority of my time telling Ella not to hit, bite, poke, smack, pinch or perform the Heimlick Maneuver on her sister. I was so worried because I couldn't believe how violent Ella could be at times with her younger sister. I didn't know if she was ever going to grow out of it. Well, I am happy to report that she has. Of course we have the occasional smackdown here and there but it is nothing like it use to be. Now I watch them actually play together. Maddie will get on her wheely bee (that would be a bee that you can ride with wheels attached to it) and Ella will push her around. Or they will sit and build towers with blocks. Anther favorite is dressing up with their tu-tus, fairy wings, and grabbing their purses to go save the princess. The new favorite is playing time out. That's right, Ella places Maddie in time out when she deams that she is doing something inappropriate. Yesterday it was because Maddie was looking out the window.

It's such a joy for me to see them play together. Ella is so sweet to Maddie and is gives me some reassurance that Ella really is going to be a great big sister. I've always wondered what it would be like to have a sister and now I will get to see that special bond that my daughters will have. And the thing that melts my heart the most is that every night before going to bed, Ella gives Maddie a hug and says "Good night little sweetie."

With Thanksgiving only a couple of days away and I begin to reflect on things that Chris and I are so thankful for, I know we are truly blessed to have two little sweeties.

Trick-or-treat

Yeah, yeah...I know Halloween was three weeks ago but the girls were so cute in their costumes for Halloween that I had to put up a post about it. October 31 was a rainy day here in Atlanta. Luckily, the rain let up in time to go trick-or-treating. It's a good thing to. I don't know what we would have told Ella if she wasn't able to go trick-or-treating. She had been looking forward to it for weeks. This was the first Halloween that she really understood what was going on. She was so polite when we went up to every house and she would always say thank you after some candy was placed in her pumpkin. I think she was more focused on when we were going to get home so she could eat all of her loot.

Maddie cracked us up. She was so into it. She refused to let us carry her pumpkin for her. She dragged that orange pumpkin around the whole neighborhood. I was amazed.

It was a great Halloween and I'll never forget how much fun the girls had.

Ouch report

About 2 weeks ago, I received a call from Ella's school. Since we have caller id, I knew it was her school before I picked up the phone. My initial reaction was one of worry. Why are they calling when Ella doesn't need to be picked up from school for another hour or so. Then I thought, I bet she's sick! We've all been sick here so much lately that I thought she had come down with a fever. I was wrong. Her teacher was calling to tell me that Ella had fallen off of one of those bouncy ball things with the handle and her face had hit the slide. She had a black eye but surprisingly didn't really cry at all. Is this really the same girl who makes mommy kiss all of her owies? (Wow, how do you spell owie?) I appreciated the heads up because I would have been a little concerned when I picked her up and she got into the car with this bruised eye. I guess at times she can be a tough little girl.

That's the shiner in all its' glory!