Activities and stuff

Happy Thanksgiving! We had a great Thanksgiving. We spent the morning with my parents and then went to Jess's grandma's house for dinner. Ellen was in a great mood the whole day, we had fun with all our family, and of course, ate plenty of good food. I forgot my camera like always, otherwise I'd post pictures of Ellen playing the piano! There was a piano at Jess's grandma's house, and Ellen went crazy playing it. It combines two of her favorite things - pushing buttons and music.

Friday was Todd and Jessica's wedding. I was too busy during the cermony trying to keep Ellen from screaming and/or crawling down the aisle toward her daddy to pay much attention, but everyone said it was a lovely ceremony. We had a lot of fun at the reception, we're so happy for Todd, and we're so excited to have Jessica be a part of our family now! Congrats you two! I wish I had take more pictures, but here are a couple.




















You can't tell what Ellen is doing, but I thought this was a cute picture. She's actually wearing Jessica's shoes, and was having lots of fun in them! What a little girly-girl.






































Doesn't Jessica look amazing? This isn't the best picture, but she was just beautiful. Not long after this, a miracle occured! Ellen fell asleep in her stroller! We were happy because it allowed us to stay awhile longer and have some fun.

Saturday, we went to the Dutch store with Oma and Aunt Marty to see Sinter Klaas. Ellen was afraid of them (that's my girl!), so we took pictures next to him rather than on his lap. And of course we bought her some Dutch chocolate.




















After this, we watched the Ducks win Civil War! I'm always proud to be a Duck, but this game made it easy to be a fan. GO DUCKS!

We also had some time to play with daddy's glasses...




















And today we put up our Christmas decorations. Ellen wanted to help put the lights on the tree, but couldn't quite figure out how.

Now we're all sad the long weekend is over....

The candid moments

Mmmmmm... meatball!

I like looking at the blog and seeing all of the amazingly cute pictures that we take of our Ellen. But, I think half the fun of having Ellen in our life is the not so pretty moments. Here's a view of the pictures in between the moments that we post to the blog. Enjoy!

But, for every moment like this:

We get a picture like this:

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

(PS- Can you tell I wanted to post something but couldn't think of anything worth while?)

First Haircut

Before...

After....

She wouldn't tolerate pig tails and the hair in her face was driving me crazy. I was really sad to cut her hair, but it had to be done. I waited until she was asleep because I was so worried I'd poke an eye out!

I think she looks like Haley Mills:

and Nicholas thinks she looks like He-Man:

What do you think?

Happy Halloween!

Last week, Ellen and I enjoyed one last day of sunshine outside. She loves the leaves.

Last week, we took Ellen to the Halloween party at her daycare. This is pretty much how she looked through the whole thing. She was totally overwhelmed by all the activity and older kids.




















I was really disappointed with how her Care Bear costume turned out, so for the actual Halloween, we decided to do something more creative.
























Oma came down and we all took Ellen trick-or-treating at Bridgeport village. Here's a picture of the three of us.



















Here's Ellen showing off two of the suckers she got



















And here she is eating one of those suckers

After the trick-or-treating we all went out to dinner. I think we all had fun!

Weekend Update

I spent all day Friday baking, which was interesting. I haven't had a marathon baking day alone with Ellen yet. She had fun at my feet- trying to follow me around and digging through the drawers. Either my child is a genious, or those child-proof drawer locks are a joke (I think it's the latter). Ellen just pulls out as much as she can through the gap, and working to get at things keeps her entertained for a long time.

Saturday I threw the shower for Jenny, Josh, and baby Emily (that's where all the baking went). I think everyone had fun, and I'm glad everything came together well. They got lots of good stuff for the baby!

Ellen had a lot of fun playing with the balloons after the shower was over. Between her and the dog, we were all entertained for awhile.

Today, we went to the pumpkin patch at Sauvie island with Eric, Brenda, Caden, George, Berndadette, and Isla. I was really excited to make up for the disappointing experience we had earlier. It was a beautiful day, we took our hay ride, and we were glad to spend some time with our friends who just had babies. Ellen was much more excited this time too. She had a good time being walked from pumpkin to pumpkin.

Here are George and Bernadette with Isla. I can't believe how little she is! I forgot how stressful it is to leave the house with such a little one. Caden was hungry, so Brenda spent the whole time feeding him. Someday I'll actually get a picture of him!

Pumpkin Patch!

One of my favorite things to do is visit the pumpkin patch every year. Usually we go to Sauvie Island, but I really wanted to see THE Roloff farm this year. I was disappointed. They didn't have very many pumpkins, there was no hay ride, no warm drinks or elephant ears, and no market place with all the special squashes and corn and other veggies. On top of everything, Ellen still wasn't feeling well after her breathing scare, so she wasn't very excited about the whole thing.

We did find a few great pumpkins (that I hope will provide with millions of seeds for roasting), and the weather was perfect.

Welcome to the world! And other news

Welcome to the world baby Isla and baby Caden! We're so excited you made it here safely, and Ellen is excited to play with you when you're big enough. Seeing how I never remember to bring my camera anywhere, I totally forgot to take pictures of us meeting you both for the first time. We'll have lots of pictures soon.

Ellen has figured out how to crawl up and down the stairs by herself now, and it is her FAVORITE thing to do. She goes straight for the staircase when she gets home. I've never seen anything cuter in my life! (I just realized I also have no pictures of that, but I do have pictures of her using her walker-thing which is also pretty cute)

Ellen was excited to get a package from Grandma. Look what she made! The hat is too small, but it really made her laugh. I'm excited she'll have one more thing to wear for the Ducks games.

Every now and then, she'll even tolerate having her hair in pig-tails. I'm thrilled to be doing baby hair!