Holy Sugar High Batman!

Ellie is bouncing around the house like a ping pong ball on speed! She dumped out her candy and started munching as soon as we walked back in the door. I'm not even sure what all she got her hands on. Every time I looked at her she had something else in her mouth. Hopefully she didn't finish all of them. We only went around one block of our neighborhood. The tight mermaid dress and 2 sizes too big high heels were slowing us down in a major way. We were home and she was out of the costume by 7:11. The big bowl of candy I left on the porch was empty. Luckily, I had a spare. We've only had about 3 more groups of trick-or-treaters come by since we got home. This is a pretty quiet neighborhood. On our street there were only about 4 houses with lights on. Sad! Here are the pics.

Nice Ariel
Scary Ariel

Ariel and Sebastian. Lucy just LOVED this.
Ready to go Trick-or-Treating. As you can see the wig did not make it out of the house. She would only leave it on for the pictures.


Knock-Knock

Checking out the loot

The first of many pieces of candy

And the fancy dress is off. It only lasted about 5 minutes after we got home. Now she is running around like a mermaid possessed. even the hairbow fell out. I guess the crash from the sugar high will come soon. It might be ugly. I'll spare you all that part of the story. Happy Halloween!!!

Bloggy Giveaways!!!

And the winner is......Angela! Congratulations! I'll be emailing you to get your info. Thanks for playing!


I've decided to participate in the Fall Ya'll Bloggy Giveaways. I really wanted to put my name in the hat for some of the great giveaways and thought I'd add something to the list. My giveaway is a set of 8 hand-stamped 3"x3" gift tags/cards with envelopes for all different occasions. They come in a decorated storage box and cover occasions like new babies, birthdays, and best wishes. Pics of the whole set and details of a few of the cards are below. Leave me a comment and I'll randomly pick a winner on November 4th. If you don't have a blog, please leave me your email address. To see all the giveaways, click here. There's some great stuff out there! Good luck!!

Mixed up Holidays???

Apparently, in Ellie's little world, there is a Trick-or-Treat Bunny that is going to hop out tonight and say "Boo" to all the kids. I'm not sure if she's confused, or if she saw it on one of her shows. Who knows? She is such a sponge these days, there's no telling. And also she told me tonight was going to be so "credible". She is very excited about getting candy tonight and even more so about ringing everyone's doorbells. We watched the Great Pumpkin last night and I taped it so she is watching it again now. Here she is getting ready for gymnastics today...

Happy Halloween!!

Have fun today!

Here is a picture from yesterday at Jazzercise. I was my standard ladybug and Ellie was a ballerina (not her costume for tonight....stay tuned for that). I'll post more after trick-or-treating tonight.

Girls' Day

The slide show below is from yesterday. Ellie and I went to the Dothan area Botanical Gardens. It was really nice. The reason we went this time of year is because there is a scarecrow display up until Wed and I wanted her to see it. Different businesses and groups around Dothan created scarecrows for a competition. Some of them were really creative! The flowers that were blooming were beautiful. Especially the roses. The butterfly garden was pretty too. I bet in the spring there is even more reason to go. The weather was great yesterday though. Warm, but not too hot. After the garden, we went to Landmark Park to play at the Farm themed playground. It was ok. There's only 2 pics of that because the batteries died. Then since we we'd made the long trip there :) we went to TJMAXX. and Old Navy. I didn't find too much to buy, but it was worth it. Girls' Day in Dothan was a success.

Girls' Day in Dothan

From Magical Princess Ellie

Attention royal subjects...

Watch me spin,

And jump,

or I will MAGIC YOU!!!

Lil' Punkin

We went to the Boll Weevil Festival today. Yep, a festival for a bug. There's a monument too. Right in the middle of Main Street. Click here to find out why....

The festival was pretty small. There were a few things for kids and lots of craft booths, but we didn't buy anything. Except food of course. BBQ , Philly Cheeas Steak and curly fries. Ellie was pretty sleepy and a little cranky so we didn't stay long. She didn't get really great rest last night. She kept talking and thrashing around. Not sure why. Here is a picture of her all dolled up in her new pumpkin dress for the "bestibul". Mighty cute!

We're going to buy a pumpkin this afternoon when she wakes up. We may attempt to carve it. Or I might just draw a face on it. I'm only allowed to make a nice face, not scary- Ellie's orders. I like carving them, but they go bad so quickly. I'll keep you all posted since I'm sure your on the edge of your seats waiting to find out.....

He's home!

Yay! Brandon is home. All the girls are happy! Lucy just about ran a hole in the floor when he came in the house. He brought Ellie a cute surprise that is a brush, mirror and hairbows. She loves it and tried it out right away. She gave him the royal salon treatment including a pink sparkly scrunchie.

Affirmations

On a blog that I read regularly called Simply Nutmeg, the author, Meg posted a list of affirmations that she repeats everyday. So many of them were things that I think to myself everyday and use to make myself feel better that I thought I'd legitimize them by making them my "Affirmations" too. So here is a combo of her list with a few tweaks to make it mine.

She suggests carrying them in your pocket, or saying them in front of the mirror each morning. I think I will just read them to myself from the computer everyday since I spend so much time surfing anyway.

1. I can solve any problem by buying shoes or a purse.
2. I will not hand over my sanity to a two-year-old.
3. I find intense pleasure in scrubbing floors and toilets.
4. Picking up toys is great exercise.
5. I am not too old to wear a ponytail.
6. Chicken fingers and fruit cups are gourmet.
7. All men leave their clothes in the dining room.
8. Noggin really is like preschool on TV.
9. All requests/demands from parents to children are followed by 1...2....3.
10. Reading and keeping up with blogs of people I don't know is just as good as actually making friends.
11. Children who never want to wear pants are creative and vibrant.
12. McDonalds, Wendy's, Burger King and nuggets from the freezer are healthy.
13. I am not defined by my feet sticking to the kitchen floor.
14. I will not scream today.
15. Surfing the net adds years to one’s life.
16. I am proud of myself for not doing crack.
17. Jumping on the bed will develop my child’s coordination.
18. I am not the only one who reads my blog (and thinks it's funny).

Minutia

We've been keeping busy since we got back from our Southeast Tour, but nothing has really happened worth blogging about. So I decided to take some pics and sum up the week.

Tuesday we went to Jazzercise and then to the Enterprise Playgroup meeting at the indoor playroom. Of course Ellie was excited because she loves that place. Two other mom/tot pairs showed up. It was fun. Hopefully we'll get some more participation soon.

Yesterday we went to gymnastics and then the commissary. The cupboards were bare since we've all been gone about 2 weeks.

Today we went back to gymnastics for a makeup lesson and then to a Tastefully Simple party at Melissa's (the jazzercise instructor) house. Lisa, a fellow jazzer is the TS consultant. If you look at the site and see anything you want, let me know and I'll send you her email. Everything is yummy!

Tomorrow Brandon comes home!!! But not until late afternoon so we will have to find something to do to keep busy (like go to Kohl's since it's right by the airport!). Here are some pics of Ellie playing this afternoon.

Back in East LA

Well, we're back again. The trip was fun and just the right length of time. We got to see everyone and do a lot of fun things.

Ellie went to numerous dance and gymnastics classes with GranJan and we got to spend tons of time with Zoe and Becca.

In TN we finally got to meet cousins "Sid-en-nee" (Sydney) and "Kate-e-lyn" (Katlyn) and we went to Ketner's Mill, an awesome craft fair held every year.

Highlights

(besides the ones I already posted)

Ellie's first ice cream sandwich (thanks Uncle Wes and Aunt Abbie!!)

Hanging with Zoe and Becca

Literally "hanging" with GranJan Hanging with Austin We had a great time. Thanks everyone in GA, SC and TN. We miss you all already and we'll see you soon. (and those of you temporarily in OK especially)

Southeast Tour Part 2

Sunday we went to the Children's Day Festival in Mount Pleasant. It was the 20th year they've been having it and I was depressed when I realized that I remember the 1st ones. I am old. Oh well, watching Ellie enjoy the games and events was fun. Even if she was in a royally bad mood! Here she is meeting Dora, diggin for trash in the "beach", enjoying ice cream, playing music and playing on the "jumpy fings". She did not, however, enjoy meeting the clown. She didn't even want to get close...

Southeast Tour Part 1

So far, the trip is going very well. We

made it to Atlanta without any trouble

and stayed with Davis and Lori. We had lunch with Davis and saw the campus where they both work. Their house is awesome! And so was the spaghetti. Thanks guys.

Then we went to Augusta to see Wardie and all his friends (aka Sol Driven Train) play a kids' show. Also awesome. Check out their website http://www.soldriventrain.com/ or their myspace page to hear the tunes (kids stuff and also their regular music). Ellie loved it. Here she is rockin' out.

Next was went to lunch with Ward and traveled on to SC, where the spoiling began immediately. Yes, that's E in her pj's sitting on the counter eating white doughnuts at 10pm instead of going to sleep.

Saturday we had a baby shower for my cousin RJ and his girlfriend. They are having a little boy and will join these 2 cuties (and 2 more that live in WI) in the great grand generation of our family.

Austin came over and helped with Ellie and Zoe during the shower.

After the party, we went to a "bestibul" with Grandma at her church where there was face painting and pony rides. The camera batteries died, but here's her happy painted face when we got back.

That night we hung out with Zoe and had a great time.

There's never a dull moment when we travel! Stay tuned for more....