WOOHOO!!!

PLUS

PLUS

MINUS

EQUALS

HAPPY SNOW DAY! Now I'm off to drink my coffee, park my rear end on the sofa, and enjoy my day!

Fever Free... for now

My whole household has been fever free for 22 hours as of 7:00. I haven't been able to say that since Friday, November 7. Isn't that sad???

I'll leave you with two of my favorite fall pictures of Ella. Happy (fever free) fall!


My parents have a picture of me doing exactly the same thing when I was little!

Down For the Count

We're not quite knocked out, but we definitely are down! About 30 minutes after e-mailing a friend that no one else was showing symptoms of strep throat, Ella started projectile vomiting... all over our bedroom and bathroom. On the plus side, Steve and I now have clean sheets, a freshly washed comforter, blankets, towels, a spotless bathroom and freshly steam cleaned carpets. On the down side, we did most of this from 9:30-2:00 in the morning. It was a lovely night! So we've taken two different kids to two doctors visits in two days and they have two different viruses. Parenting can be sooo fun!

This is how we looked for most of the day. Fortunately, there were new iCarly episodes and a brand-new iCarly movie on tonight!

As Promised...

See.. I told you I'd be back!

The girls had a really good Halloween. It was a year in the making (literally.) Last year, Madison was Sharpay from High School Musical. She and her friends planned to be all of the characters from the movie and they planned to go to our Creekside fall festival together. This year, since Halloween was on a Friday night, our church decided not to compete with football, and not have the festival. The kids were so upset because they had worked on this plan for a year! So, we decided to invite everyone over to our house to trick-or-treat in our neighborhood. It was so much fun and the kids had a great time. I love Halloween because it's the one night out of the year where your entire neighborhood gets out! As it turns out, I was actually glad our festival was cancelled, because the evening turned out to be so much fun!

OK- here we go. WARNING! Lot's of pictures below. Grandparents will want to keep reading, but I'm not sure anyone else will!

This was our group. Notice the two themes!

The Peter Pan themed group. Yep, he's in tights! :)

The High School Musical group.

Ryan and Sharpay

Gabriella and Sharpay

The blondes!

Even Allie got in on the fun. (She pooped on someone's sidewalk, so Steve had to leave the festivities to clean it up!)

Our kids don't do things in the traditional way. Instead of walking up to the door and saying "Trick-or-treat," our kids walked to the door and sang "We're All in this Together." A few people knew what that song was, but most didn't! It was really funny!

This was towards the end, so they were petering out a little!

Peter Pan was a gentleman!

Ella spent most of the night in this position. The rest of the kids would run to the door, turn and start yelling, "Come on Ella, Hurry up, Let's go Ella," etc. If you know Ella, that method does not work with her. That only made her go slower. It was funny!


This was about an hour into trick-or-treating. Notice the wings, headband and jack-o-lantern are gone!

Finally, the loot. This was a small portion of what the kids got. It will disappear, and it won't all be eaten (if you know what I mean!)

I'm going to try to do a better job of posting, so come back soon!

It's Been Awhile...

Like I said when I started this blog adventure, I would be a great blogger during the summer, but when school started all bets were off. Guess what... school has started!


I made a wonderful move this year to a new school- Madison's school which is located three minutes from our house. It is a completely different school from where I was teaching and I am in heaven. I am so thankful for my hellish year last year, as it forced me to make this move. Here are some pictures from our last few days of summer/first days of school.



I took approximately five loads like this... and that was after purging!



Ella helped... we called it helping anyway! :-)









My "new" (very old) room. They are building a new building right behind our school. The cranes and heavy equipment right outside of my room are not a distraction for my kids at all!



Outside of my room on the first day.



Outside of Madison's room (2 doors down from my room!) It's been a lot of fun getting to see her during the day. I even got to eat lunch with her on Friday!



Ella on her first day of preschool. She has the cutest frog backpack and lunchbox!


That's all for now... See you for a Halloween post! :-)

Swimming... What More Can I Say?

This is why she's so skinny! Constant motion! :)


This is what Ella does while we are at the pool- sing and turn. Most of the time, I don't even have to watch her because I can hear her!

The Little Mermaids

We've had a really hot summer (we're almost reaching Vegas temperatures this week!) I am so grateful for our neighborhood pool. The girls would live in the pool if they could. However, it's quite an ordeal to get packed, dressed and down to the pool that is 100 yards away. See what I mean.

First, we get dressed. It's always hard to pick which bathing suit to wear, and Madison doesn't want Ella to look cuter than her! Go figure!

Then we pack.

Let's see if we've got everything...

Floaties... check

Noodles... check

Swimming rings... check

Beach ball... check

Sunscreen... check

Sunscreen stick... check

Beach towels... check

Madison's goggles... check

Ella's goggles... check

Scuba breathing apparatus thingie... check

Diving rings... check

Barbie... check

Barbie's swimming pool... check

Crackers... check

Grapes... check

Small water bottles... check

My water bottle... check

Cell phone... check

Garage door opener... check

Pool card... check

Then we say goodbye to Allie here...

And here...


It's a looong walk to the pool.

Most days, we have this Jr. Olympic sized pool to ourselves!

Madison lets us in.

Sunscreen time...

Madison jumps in everytime. She was too fast for my camera!

Ella moves a little slower!

Let the fun begin!

This picture will probably end up in a senior slide show someday! :)

My secret strategy behind all of this swimming plays out in the afternoon... naptime and quiet time... for all of us! I took some cute videos of the girls swimming, but I'll save that for another day!

Lazy Days of Summer

So, we have been staying up SUPER late and getting up pretty late in the mornings. I beat the girls up yesterday and when they got up, they looked like this...

I LOVE SUMMER!!!! :)

The All-American Girls get American Girls... and a boy

While we were gone, Dave and Pat took the girls to see Kit Kittredge: An American Girl. Madison loved it (that's an understatement!) Madison also loves the fact that everyone thinks that she looks like Kit. Pat, the girls doting grandmother :) took Madison to the American Girl store to get Kit. These dolls should be birthdays and Christmas for the next two years! :) Anyway, Ella got the blonde-hair, blue-eyed Bitty Twins. Ella has always had imaginary twins named Katie and Anta, so now she has dolls to match. Here are the American girls with their dolls!

They're Going to Miss Us... (we think...)

See you after Vegas...baby!

Celebrate Freedom (or a tale of two sisters)

We went to Celebrate Freedom this weekend. It is a huge Christian concert with lots of things for kids to do. We went Friday and listened to a bunch of bands that I didn't know. We did stay (late) for the David Crowder Band. They were really good and I was glad we sat through the hour long sermon asking you to invite Jesus into your heart to hear them!


We planned to stay for the fireworks- Madison was going to be brave and actually watch them. However, the fireworks didn't take place until Saturday night- oops!



The girls enjoyed dancing to the music. We had to keep yelling over the music at Ella to quit lifting up her shirt (at the Christian concert), but that's another story!





During the day, I noticed how different the girls are. See what you think!


Madison with Bob and Larry.



Ella avoiding Bob and Larry.



Ella enjoying the concert.


Madison enjoying the concert.


However, they were alike in one way. Notice the time on the clock- and then notice how alive everyone looks!








Gotta love night owls!