Growing Pains

So, for those of you who don't know, Christine has started dating a guy who has two kids. One happens to be just 6 months younger than Ella and of course, Ella just thinks that is the coolest thing ever.

It seems, however that it has been a bit confusing to her since Kerrington is actually a couple inches taller than Ella.

"So I'm actually younger than Kerrington."
"No. You are actually 6 months older than Kerrington."
"Yeah. But she's taller than me."
"Yep. That's right."
"So...she's actually older than me."
"No, she just grew quicker than you did. But she's younger."
"Uh-huh...so then she was born before me?"

Notice how she keeps re-wording the same statement... I think this is a little trick she learned from her Dad. I'm pretty sure she thinks she's going to catch me in a slip up and I'll suddenly realize that she's been right the whole time and taller does indeed equal older.

Anyway, they have made fast friends and have been pretty fun to watch. They have even been announcing that they plan to marry eachother...but, don't be too concerned...Ella told Carl and I she was planning to marry her lipgloss because she just loves it that much. :)

Here's a cute pic of the new best buddies.

So, while I have a deep seated fear of motorcycles...thanks mom :)...Carl is, of course, quite adept at them and has decided that Ella, having mastered her bicycle, might have a knack for motorcycle riding...and it turns out she does...On her first ride ever she quickly requested her Dad stop running along side her and just let her ride. She even took off in the little dirt track next to our house.

So, we made a little outing of it and got together with Carl's friend Briand and his 3 little ones and had quite the riding experience out in Emmett. All the little ones, who range from 2-6 years old did terrific. Don't get me wrong, we had a couple spills...Ella crashed into a cement barrier but fortunately only got a little scratch on her fingers, both the girls and one of the boys took some spills on the 50, and we ended the night with the 2-year old falling out of the camper and the 4-year old, Kohen, nearly getting run over by a runaway four wheeler out of the back of the trailer. We called it a day after that. :)

But, all in all, everyone had fun, they all got a turn on the small four wheeler, rode with their daddy's and learned to use the 50's. Plus, played quite adorably with each other...you gotta love how after one play date together little kids refer to each other as their 'friend' and give each other hugs before leaving. Too cute.

So, we had some pictures trickle in after my last post they I had to add because they were so cute. My Dad took them at the house with us in our Halloween costumes and I love them because we are all together as a family.

Carl didn't get to dress up but for some reason Ella decided he was a Cowboy and referred to him that way all day. "Hey, don't forget to get a picture of the cowboy!" He didn't even wear a plaid shirt or hat or ANYTHING that resembled a cowboy...But, here we are. Strawberry Shortcake, Robin, and 'The Cowboy".

We had to draw on freckles of course!

And here's Christin and I as Batman and Robin. We had to unskanify (yes, that's a word) our costumes! It's ridiculous how all women's costumes...even little girls...are so revealing! Almost all the teenager costumes show bare tummies!

Courtesy of my Dad. More pictures to come...this year Ella is Strawberry Shortcake, I will be be Robin to Christin's Batman...and Carl is still on the elusive search for a Officer Dangle Costume. :)

http://rgross.jalbum.net/Halloween%202009/slides/DSC_2532.html

Ahem. So I was just looking at my sister, Elizabeth's blog and thinking how long it had been since she had last posted when I saw a link to my own blog on her page...I think I win the competition since it has been a year since my last post. Good lord! A whole year has flown by!

Well, let's see, updates. Okay, so Ella is now nearing 6 years old! This year was the start of Kindergarten for her and she attends full day kingergarten at a catholic school. She looks quite adorable in her little plaid jumpsuit and white blouses, but I especially love the knee highs!

She has begun spelling new words almost everyday, usually without any help at all. Amongst her favorites are Mom, Dad, Love, Bear, Family and of course...Ella. I have some pictures of some of her writing I will post next time...pretty good if I don't say so myself!

She and her Dad are best buddies and it is the cutest thing I have ever seen. She follows him pretty much everywhere and when they have Daddy/Daughter nights she spends a lot of time repeating what happened pretty much verbatim. "And then I said...and you know what Dad said? He said..." And of course, since Daddies (and especially Carl) are so much fun I hear a lot of...'Dad said not to expect you to let me do that!' or 'This is just something special Dad and I do'

But my favorites are 'Dad is such a good man." :) and "Dad sure takes good care of us" It's just too cute!

Pictures and updates on the family will come in my next post...sigh....hopefully in less than a year this time! :)

Just a real quick story for ya'll...lately Ella has really been in to having everyone raise their glasses up together and say 'Cheers' before we drink anything - she'll do it at dinner or in restaurants. And sometimes she'll add 'Let's cheers to the girls' and then all the girls around are suppose to raise our glasses in a toast (this usually ends up just being me). :)

Anyhow, because of this recent interest in toasting each other before every meal, when Carl, Melissa and I went to Olive Garden for lunch last week Ella noticed the wine glass sitting in front of her and decided she would be drinking her ice water from that glass. So there we all are ordering our food and I made sure to specially request from the waiter that Ella's glass is filled with ice water when Ella added directly to the waiter, "Oh, and can I please have some lemon in my water also?"

HAHA!

Just a few photos to share of Ella, Carl and I playing our new favorite game, 'The Little Mermaid". We cut out a paper seashell bra and a fin for Ella, I was later informed the bra is actually the wrong color - it's suppose to be purple but we only had pink construction paper. And Carl got to be Sabastian, hence the crab claws, but as you can see he also played the role of King Titan which is why he gets a crown as well. I played flounder...fortunately for me this role didn't require a costume - don't ask me why. But I did get called 'Flounder' the rest of the weekend and if Ella ever slipped up and used my real name she quickly followed it up with "Umm...I mean Flounder?"

Too Loud But Loving It!

Doing a little light reading

Little Noah, sound asleep in his crib.

Overall I would say we had a pretty succesful birthday celebration for Ella this year. We had all the family over including my parents, sister and her boyfriend - and I'm happy to report that the families seemed to get along without a hitch :) (at least by all appearances).

Naturally, we had a princess theme and invited all knights and fair maidens to attend - which turned out to be around 30 people! My mom and I made a Princess Cake with a Barbie in the middle and the cake as the skirt...it was my first attempt and it ended up looking more like a Barbie stuck in cake than anything else but it tasted better than it looked so it wasn't a complete loss.

Here's a couple of my favorite photos from the big event:

Making A Wish

So, as most of my family knows - I am completely and irrevocably accident prone. I have fallen own many a flight of stairs (just ask Christine - I lived upstairs in our apartment!), smashed my feet and hands in doors, dropped things on my head, and tripped over just about anything you can name - more than once over my own feet or pants! There's just no hope for me.

But I think there is hope in sight for my future children. Carl has an insane sense of balance and tie that in with his...well he calls it fearlessness, I call it wrecklessness...and it seems like our kids might have a fighting chance. :)

Check out these pictures of Carl snowmobiling over the weekend. (I can't even stay up on my own two feet and here he is launching himself down hills and over jumps - yeah, I admit it, I'm a bit jealous!)

It's not that I need attention at all times, from everyone around me. In fact, there are times when I'm downright anti-social. I'd rather just sit at home, hair all a mess, eucerin smeared all over my face (that's a strange one, I know - I'll explain some other time), staring at the TV while huddled up under my blankets with my fluffy socks on.

But there are times, darn-it, where you find yourself wanting/needing attention at the most random and unexplainable times. Take this past weekend for instance. Carl, Ella and I all took off for a fun-filled weekend at Carl's family cabin. Now, generally when Ella spends time with us, it's just Carl and I. And, being the only woman in the house, Ella spends a lot of time with me. She follows me all around the house, mimicks the things I'm doing, and in general sticks by my side for the whole weekend.

You can see where this is going I'm sure. So there we all are, at the cabin - and I find myself in a near role-reversal with Ella. You see her Gramma is there, her little cousin, Jillian (her absolute favorite) is there, her Aunt Robin and her Great Gramma...and there I am checking in on her.

"Are you doing okay?"
"Come get me if you need me, okay?"
"Can I have a smooch?"

And you can guess what her answer was nearly everytime! All of a sudden I thought I had a little bit of an inclination what Mom's go through when their 5-year olds take off for Kindergarten. I've seen them sobbing their guts out all alone in their cars outside the elementary schools and I think, "Good God woman, get it together - they are going to be home in four hours!"

Ahem - sidebar. Anyway, you'll all be relieved to know my little moment of insecurity was put aside when Carl and I got Ellla home yesterday evening. After a little naparoo, and a good snack, she spent the evening playing make-believe with me, ate dinner with her chair pulled up next to mine, and cuddled up next to me for a movie...

But the kicker was when she announced that her and I are best friends and added, 'No more being friends with Christine!" HAHA! Poor Christine. If it's not Carl, it's Ella. :)

It's amazing to me how quickly I have grown not only accustomed to her little hand in mine but how much I depend on seeing her little face each week.

I love listening to little kids go in to great detail about their imaginary lives and friends. I always wonder where on earth they got the idea from in the first place. Just before Christmas, Carl and I bought Ella a Barbie movie based on the nutcracker story. And ever since, one of Ella's favorite things to do is dance like a ballerina with her boyfriend, Eric.


This amuses Carl and I both because up until very recently she spent a lot of time talking about her imaginary friend, Randall. It was always Randall did this, and Randall did that. Once I even overheard her in the bathroom trying to convince Randall to leave the room while she used the potty.


So when we heard she had this boyfriend, Eric, Carl started asking her a bunch of questions about what happened to Randall.


'So what about Randall?'


Oh, he punched my baby in the head so we aren't friends anymore. (I can only assume any references to 'her baby' is based off the fact that her mom is pregnant right now and I assume there has been a lot of talk about babies recently).


'Huh, so where did you meet Eric?'


At Wal-Mart. (Ha-Ha! Classy.)


Anyway, there has also been a lot of talk about her upcoming marriage to Eric and several detailed descriptions of how gently he will put the ring on her finger and how they will dance...this is usually followed by a demonstration of dancing around the living room with her arms out...


Needless to say the arrival of Ella's Christmas present from my sister, Elizabeth, and her family, only encouraged Ella's imaginary world of being 'The Sugar Plum Princess' as Barbie is called in the Nutcracker movie, since they sent her a princess crown, necklace, earrings, and *gasp* a ring, along with a little dress up skirt.

Ella admiring herself in the bathroom mirror

There is barely a moment that she spends at the house without requesting to be wearing her new accessories, if we leave the house she immediately asks if upon return she can wear her jewelry once again. She has even taken to wearing her ring to bed each night.

But my favorite part of the whole dress up procedure is that when we saw the little skirt, Ella and I decided we should complete the look of a ballerina with some white tights and a swimsuit top under her skirt. But, apparently we are going to need to invest in an actual leotard because once we had her all dressed up she took one look at herself and said, 'This is so silly to wear in the winter, it barely even covers my biscuits!'

Apparently, one thing she doesn't need is a lesson in modesty. :)

Merry Christmas! :)