Christmas Break

 Another great thing they have here is this cute couple of streets in one neighborhood that just go all out with Christmas Lights. Each house has a theme with huge character cut-outs. We loved seeing the Grinch Themed house. It was so fun to get to park and walk around to each house. Someone from our ward arranged a little FHE get together to go look at these lights and we also enjoyed cookies and hot cocoa afterward.

 Maddi and a couple of her cute little friends from church.

Christmas Parade

 In the little city we live in, they do a Christmas Parade every year. It's always fun to see the local tradititions when you move somewhere new. The day started off cold (or so we thought) and by the time we got to the parade we realized it was going to hot. Ella had fallen asleep in the car on the way there and since I had to park somewhat far away and walk to our parade spot I realized I was quite unprepared for all the sun. So what you see above is my makeshift attempt at using a jean skirt to create a Sun Hat to shield Ella's (still somewhat bald) head from sunburn! We were cracking up that she stayed asleep through the whole thing.

 It was fun to meet up with our good friends and a few families from our ward. I think the kids in our little group made up the the loudest cheering section.

 Ella and cute little Brian

 Maddi borrowing accessories from whoever is willing to lend them.

I love this picture....it was a LONG parade and I think we all felt this way when it was over!

The Ginger Bread Girl

 One of the highlights for us these past couple of months was getting to watch Mia's Kindergarten play, "The Gingerbread Girl". The whole thing was just adorable and it was so fun to watch Mia doing her part as the Gingerbread Girl. All the other parts were made up of at least 2 children but she had to do her part all on her own so we were impressed with her bravery. I took video of the whole thing but can't seem to get my videos uploaded these days....hopefully I will get it fixed at some point so we can put the video on here. It's just too cute.

 After the play the kids got to bring their families back to the classroom to show off their bakery story line stuff that they had been working on. They had a whole portfolio where they wrote and drew about how they created their bakery as well as a cupcake they had made with their art teacher from clay.

 Maddi really enjoyed getting to the see the "inside" of Mia's classroom. When we drop her off we rarely go inside so this was a treat for her.

 One of Mia's favorite friends from school, Rory.

Mia and her cute teacher Miss Murray.

Ella 20 month update more like 23 months now!

These pictures would definately sum up Ella at 20 months. AVID BOOK LOVER!!! A good portion of Ella's free time is spent doing just this...sitting by the bookshelf or our box of library books and flipping through them one page at a time. I think she has seen a lot of reading going on in our house since she was tiny so it's natural for her to have a love of books, but I think she really enjoys all the pictures, and ALSO loves the feel of the pages on her fingers. I've noticed that magazines (currently the conference addition of the Ensign...our church magazine...is her favorite) are an especially favorite of hers for page turning. It's a soothing thing for her or a way of just zoning out.

The other thing she has been "into" these days besides reading is trying desperately to keep up with her older sisters! :) It's been a learning experience for all of them as she has had a new desire to really play WITH them rather than just AROUND them. I've had to remind Maddi of when she was Ella's age and how she wanted to be included with Mia. I saw a lightbulb go on when she thought of it this way! :) I notice with the oldest child they are so excited to have a playmate that they are willing to put up with a lot in order to make it work. With the second child they already have a playmate so it's not as exciting however they seem to have more empathy for the one who is left out since they have experienced the feelings of being included AND what it feels like to be excluded. At least this is what I observe in my children! :)

But anyway back to little Ella...we have enjoyed her sweet and loving little personality as always and are getting a kick out of her vocabulary as she has started to put sentences together and we can have an actual conversation with her. This really is such a cute age.

The rest of Grandma's trip and an Anniversary Trip

 Little trip to the park....in December...I still can't get over the fact that we can still go outside here, without jackets, in the winter.

 This is seriously what we did for the bulk of the time that my Mom was here. Grandma loves to read books and anyone that's spent any length of time with Ella would know that the key to her heart is to offer to read her a story. Once Ella figured out that Grandma would read her a story pretty much anytime she brought her a book, they were great friends. We miss you Grandma!

Lance and I were so excited to have a day away by ourselves as an early anniversary celebration. We always trade with good friends of ours here. So it was great fun for the girls to have a little sleepover at their friends house and then to spend the day playing while Lance and I got to go to the temple, go out to eat, do a little shopping, and Sleep In!

Thanksgiving

                                                    So fun to have my my Mom join us!

                                                              Preparing to fry the turkey

 This looks so gross but Mia really wanted to eat this huge turkey drum stick so we let her go to town. When you fry a turkey it comes out totally black but tastes delicious!

 Getting to open a Christmas present from Grandma a little bit early

 Ella very excited to participate in all the unwrapping festivities. The first of many more to come...

 We like to give our kids a new ornament each year. This year we did Disney themed ones b/c they had just reached their goal of earning $100 and we had promised them we'd plan a Disneyland trip when they had done this.

 Decorating the Christmas Tree

 Lance's family was planning a Family Reunion right after Christmas and the colors they picked for family pictures were grey and black (colors this family of girls does not own a lot of) so we used it as a good excuse to buy these cute little matching dresses and have them double as Christmas Dresses. Lance picked out the red headbands to go along with the dresses...I was quite impressed with his sense of fashion! :)

Yes Ella has one too but was sleeping while we were taking these picutures!

Thanksgiving was great. Calm in comparision to last year when we had almost my entire family at our house (which was SO fun) but great none the less. Lance got to play in the Turkey Bowl, we got to fry our turkey (alwas a highlight for us), and it was so nice to have Grandma Tresa with us as well as some friends from our ward. And a rare treat for Lance and I was getting to go Black Friday shopping together while Grandma kindly watched the girls.