Just today a friend's mom from school was saying her daughter in Ellie's class doesn't really play with toys anymore. It broke my heart. I also overheard a friend of Ellie's say, "Even though I'm eight now, I still kind-of like Barbies" when I suggested they go play them. It was like she didn't want to admit that now that she is older she still liked to play. I do not, at all, look forward to that day. Watching and listening to Ellie play is one of my most favorite things ever. EVER. Seven is awesome and if I could I would make Ellie stop growing. At least stop growing up.
Time just goes so fast....like this blog for example...I should be telling you all about our December adventures, but time went so fast and I'm two months behind still...so you now get October.
I love October - one thing I love to do is decorate my house for the season. This year because Ellie is a bit older I added a few scarier things for Halloween like spiders and ghosts, but still not too creepy. Ellie loves to decorate with me and we have fun putting things throughout the house. We seriously love it so much we did it the very first day of October. She does NOT like the ghost that makes noises or the Frankenstein at Grandma's. She was super happy when our ghost light/noise string broke and only the lights worked. Those things are still a bit too creepy.
She did brave the Halloween stores this year though. She said she wasn't too scared because she knew the stuff was all pretend. Last year the bloody stuff and crawling babies really scared her. She almost had a breakdown in the store. But this year....we fared much better.
On the first after we decorated, we were also invited to a tie-die and karaoke party for little Brooke Vanderlinden. She is a sassy and spunky four year old of my friend Kimese. We love her. The kids (and big kids) enjoyed making tie-died shirts and singing some songs. Ellie wasn't huge on the karaoke, but got into it a bit more with each group song effort.
We had to let our shirts sit overnight so the next day we rinsed, washed and repeated. This is how cute our shirts turned out - thanks for a fun party Kimese!
On Monday the third it was time for some pumpkins. We invited Grandma to come pick our pumpkins at the patch. We found just the perfect ones!
As we were leaving the wind picked up so Ellie had to adjust her clothes to accommodate. She cracks me up.
On the fourth we went for a Tuesday play-date to Gardner Village with Sage and Taj for our annual witch hunt. A couple witches were in tricky spots this year but we found them all and celebrated with a cookie.
Early in the school year Ellie had mentioned her eyes bothering her so we decided it was worth a trip to the eye doctor. We went to see an old friend of mine for Ellie's first eye exam. He was good with her, she was perfect as usual and luckily everything checked out okay. Yet he did tell her to not read so close to her face and gave her a way to measure out far out a book should be - hold your fist up to your chin and you book should be about as far as your elbow.
The morning of the sixth we woke up and the horses were all looking one direction (they had moved a bit once I got my camera) and just standing still. Because I'm writing this two months later, I can't remember exactly what Ellie said about it, but it was something cute about the horses praying or something like that. And if nothing else, I love that we have horses that we can have morning conversations about.
The night of the seventh we were invited to another birthday party, but Ellie had plans with her dad so Kevin and I had to Chuck-E-Cheese without her. :D
The ninth was just a banner craft day at Grandma's - we just love craft season.
After school on Wednesday the twelfth we left for one of our favorite trips. The annual shopping trip. This year Ellie hadn't been saving all year like the last year. I guess she got over spending her money and just knew she would spend mine. :D
When we got to our first night hotel in Las Vegas we laughed about our hotel last year and were happy about our new accommodations. There was no "ew, seriously, there is hair on this lamp" or changing rooms three times.
The next day we met up with our friends the Nissons and got our shop on. It was crazy to me how much of a shopper Ellie had become this year. She was looking through the racks...
seeing if they might work...
and trying them all on...(notice the organization in the hanging - totally Ellie)From this store she ended up with the pink and gray dress and the gray and white shirt. So cute.
I couldn't believe it - in just seven short years, she had become a shopper. But the best part of the day was that night (in our second and very clean hotel) she played with some of her new things. She gave me a pretend makeover and had fun for over an hour playing with headbands, hair elastics, and erasers.
The next day is always one of my favorites. We have our friends and then Mason and family usually meet up with us. We hit downtown LA where some people may not venture and have the greatest time bargaining for and buying things like iPod holders...
fancy watches...
matching black bags and a variety of other fun stuff.
The kids have so much fun just being together in the warm weather. Even the traffic doesn't stop them from having fun in the car.
In the evening at the Citadel (where we enjoy these delicious treats)...
..Ellie and Mason have found a certain lawn they run around on and this year they put together a full show for our viewing pleasure...and now for yours.
The next day after a sleep over for Ellie at Mason's - Uncle Levi dropped Ellie off and it was on to more shopping. We decided our first night in the first hotel that Ellie needed new luggage so we found her the perfect suitcase.
That night we headed back to Vegas and found an even bigger and perfectly clean room waiting for us. Ellie was in heaven.
And again...my favorite part...Ellie continues to play as we go.
We headed home and I caught Ellie outside in my boots and sweater doing a little jig. She was nice enough to let me get it on video.
I had to go to Boise that next week so Kevin and Ellie kept things safe at home and enjoyed their time together. They seem to play and laugh a lot. On Friday after I returned home they were making these fun animals from a gift Ellie received last Christmas.
The rest of October we were super busy and pretty much dedicated it to Halloween. We did Halloween crafts at Gram's house and decorated cookies at Sage and Taj's house. The cookies were a sweet gift from my neighbor. She brought them over to Ellie when I was out of town.
We went on a spooky ( or not so spooky) boat float down the Provo River.
We took Sage and Taj with us to Kevin's work for his annual Halloween party. Which was AWESOME as usual. They had a band and entertainers along the outside waiting path along with ice cream and other treats. I dared Ellie to touch the snake - you can see she is just barely touching it, but that's still pretty brave!
The girls had so much fun and enjoyed Kevin's Angry Bird section. It was pretty cool.
We carved our pumpkins. Kevin's was a skeleton, mine was the heart-breaker and Ellie's was number 1 with an official bum crack in the back. Kevin and Ellie either before or after that (I don't remember) were singing, "Bum crack baby bum crack" to the tune of Love Shack by the B52's.
Kevin and I helped with Taj's Harry Potter party where I was the potions teacher and Kevin was the wand master and Ellie was just having a blast.
After the party we were exhausted, but not enough for Ellie to stop playing.
My cute neighbor I mentioned before with the cookies told Ellie to come over and so in costume we went over and she gave Ellie a fun Halloween treat. I love our neighbors!
On Halloween we got Ellie ready for school with spooky vampire fangs and hair.
That afternoon I went to Ellie's school to help with the Halloween party. She had fun with her class and then as a school they played games and Ellie won the scariest costume!
That night Ellie's dad (or the North Korean President) took her trick-or-treating and Kevin and I stayed home and had fun watching Saw and giving out candy in our new house. We had more people than we expected (including a surprise visit from our neighbor) and Ellie came home with more candy than we could eat. As a matter of fact we still have some of the candy from all of those fun events as I write this post.
I had to go to Boise that next week so Kevin and Ellie kept things safe at home and enjoyed their time together. They seem to play and laugh a lot. On Friday after I returned home they were making these fun animals from a gift Ellie received last Christmas.
The rest of October we were super busy and pretty much dedicated it to Halloween. We did Halloween crafts at Gram's house and decorated cookies at Sage and Taj's house. The cookies were a sweet gift from my neighbor. She brought them over to Ellie when I was out of town.
We went on a spooky ( or not so spooky) boat float down the Provo River.
We took Sage and Taj with us to Kevin's work for his annual Halloween party. Which was AWESOME as usual. They had a band and entertainers along the outside waiting path along with ice cream and other treats. I dared Ellie to touch the snake - you can see she is just barely touching it, but that's still pretty brave!
The girls had so much fun and enjoyed Kevin's Angry Bird section. It was pretty cool.
We carved our pumpkins. Kevin's was a skeleton, mine was the heart-breaker and Ellie's was number 1 with an official bum crack in the back. Kevin and Ellie either before or after that (I don't remember) were singing, "Bum crack baby bum crack" to the tune of Love Shack by the B52's.
Kevin and I helped with Taj's Harry Potter party where I was the potions teacher and Kevin was the wand master and Ellie was just having a blast.
After the party we were exhausted, but not enough for Ellie to stop playing.
My cute neighbor I mentioned before with the cookies told Ellie to come over and so in costume we went over and she gave Ellie a fun Halloween treat. I love our neighbors!
On Halloween we got Ellie ready for school with spooky vampire fangs and hair.
That afternoon I went to Ellie's school to help with the Halloween party. She had fun with her class and then as a school they played games and Ellie won the scariest costume!
That night Ellie's dad (or the North Korean President) took her trick-or-treating and Kevin and I stayed home and had fun watching Saw and giving out candy in our new house. We had more people than we expected (including a surprise visit from our neighbor) and Ellie came home with more candy than we could eat. As a matter of fact we still have some of the candy from all of those fun events as I write this post.
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