Oh, Christmas Tree

We decided to bite the bullet and put the Christmas tree up today. I was really dreading it, just because I know it will be a huge attraction for Ella. Gracie didn't really want to help with the actual tree or even the lights. She just stood there saying, "I want to do the ornaments." I assured her she could do the ornaments, but the lights had to go on first. Her patience wore a little thin in the process. Finally, we were ready to put up the ornaments and string the gold beads around the tree. When I left the room for a moment Gracie strung all of the beads on the tree. It was a little thick in the front. Actually, it was pretty to a 4 year old, but I felt compelled to even things out once I got back in the room. We thought the tree was beautiful when it was done. I have noticed that the ornaments are slowly being rearranged. Actually, I remember Gracie doing that last year too. She would look at the tree and feel like she needed to change things up once in a while. Hopefully her fascination will end soon. Next, we will be wrapping gifts to see how much that tempts Ella.

A Trip To St. Louis....Minus the Kids

Friday afternoon Brent and I dropped off Gracie and Ella in Moberly at my parent's house. We were heading to St. Louis to do a little Christmas shopping for the girls before we watched the Clark County Indians play in the State Championship game. We managed to find some good sales at Target and Toys 'R Us, so I think the kid's shopping is pretty much done. We stayed with Brent's Uncle Robert and Aunt Deena on Friday night and had a good time visiting with them. Brent didn't get much sleep, however, because he was too excited about the big game!

Saturday morning we headed out for a quick round of shopping before we headed to the Edward D. Jones Dome to cheer on the Indians. We were playing the Maryville Spoofhounds. Isn't that a ridiculous name for a team? Maybe it's no worse than being a Putnam County Midget! :-) I'm sure most of you reading this are well aware that the Indians played a great game and won their first State Championship game. It was so thrilling to be there and see the celebration afterward. Half of Kahoka was there, if not more. Brent managed to get down on the field when the buzzer went off, so he got to give some hugs to some of the coaches and boys he used to coach. It was a wonderful moment and I was glad we could be there to watch history in the making.

Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving day was spent in Moberly with my side of the family this year. We were in Unionville the weekend before for Thanksgiving with Brent's side of the family, but my camera was broken, so I have no pictures. After lunch, Brent sacked out on the floor to watch football and catch some zzz's, but Gracie quickly joined him. I'm not sure he could breathe under her weight.

Once she revived, we headed to the park. Gracie enjoyed the new playground equipment at Candy Cane City in Moberly so much! Actually, I think we all enjoyed it!

Uncle Dana may not get to see Gracie that much, but when they get together they are pretty good friends!

Gracie thought it was hysterical that Uncle Dana tried to go down one of the slides and got stuck!

Happy Thanksgiving from one of our little turkeys! Gracie shouldn't have been outdoors on Thanksgiving because she was coughing a little, but we couldn't resist letting her play on the new equipment.

What? Is that Grandpa going down the slide? Now, if I had only been ready to take the picture when he fell off the slide. Poor, Grandpa! I'm sure he wishes Uncle Dana hadn't been videotaping when he fell. Now we can watch it for years to come and get a chuckle. Hope your hiney heals soon, Grandpa!

Here ducky, ducky, ducky. Gracie still loves the ducks. We didn't bring any food for them, but she still had to watch them swim for a little bit.

Uncle Dana and Gracie decided to pose for a picture on the ladybug. Who says the park is only for kids?!

Teguh didn't think the park was only for kids! He had a good time trying everything out. We were glad Teguh could stay in Moberly over break and have Thanksgiving with us.

Gracie The Pilgrim

Today was Gracie's Thanksgiving program at her school. She was given the choice to be a pilgrim or Indian, and she chose to be a pilgrim. She was a great pilgrim and sang every word of the songs her class sang. She did chose to not do the actions because there were too many people watching, according to her. They sang a really cute song about how we should eat pizza instead of turkey on Thanksgiving!

Brent was able to go watch Gracie perform and he taped it for me since I was at work. It was really cute to see her participating since a year ago she wouldn't have dreamed of singing along in front of a crowd. She was very proud of herself, and so were we!

More Teeth

I have not been blogging recently for several reasons. First of all, I'm finding that as Ella gets older and busier, I am busier too. Also, my camera broke, and I had to send it in for repairs. It's not as fun for me to post without pictures, so my mom has loaned me her camera so that I can get some pictures up on the blog.

Last week I thought things were awfully quiet, so I started searching for Ella. She was in the kitchen and had gotten into a sack of red potatoes. She was teething furiously on the raw potato. It was gross, but I also had to get a picture to capture the moment. Ella is trying to cut her second top tooth, and it has been hard work. I don't remember Gracie having this much trouble getting teeth, but maybe I have just blocked it out!

A Week After the Election

Gracie and I have a Tuesday night tradition. It's the only night of the week that we really try to watch something on TV. Gracie and I both like The Biggest Loser. She has no concept of what the show is totally about, but she knows people get healthier, weigh themselves at the end, then they vote and someone goes home. We usually only watch the last 30 minutes to catch those parts of the show. Our favorite part is seeing the contestants at home when it shows the progress they have made. Anyway, having said all that...this afternoon I told her "our show" was on tonight. She got pretty excited because last week it wasn't on due to the election. I said, "We haven't seen it in two weeks since it wasn't on last week." Gracie replied, "Yeah, and I don't want to watch that show we watched last week ever again." I said, "Yes, you didn't enjoy the election, did you?" (I promise I'm not making this next part up!!!) Our four-year old says, "Obama won. We wanted John McCain to win." Now, at this point I was starting to snicker. Gracie said, "I wonder who McCain will be for now?" Not really understanding her question I just said, "I don't know, Gracie." She looked up from her coloring and said, "Maybe Texas." Maybe I'm raising the next great political observer of her time. I think Tim Russert would have been proud to hear our daughter, at four and a half, discussing politics!

Ella's First Sickness

It may not look like it in the picture, but Ella is officially sick. She is running a low-grade temperature, has a runny nose, watery eyes, and a yucky cough. I found one of those thermometers that you stick to your forehead when I was looking for the ear thermometer, so I thought I'd give it a try. She thought it was kind of funny to have that thing stuck to her forehead. Plus, she has been around long enough to know to smile when the camera is out! The only good thing to come from the day was that she cut one of her top teeth. The tooth could have contributed to her sickness, I suppose. That makes 3 teeth! Yea, Ella!

Gracie's Fall Party

Today was Gracie's fall party at school. We went just for the party, because Gracie doesn't go to school on Friday, but I didn't want her to miss it. They played a really fun game she has been telling me about called The Scarecrow Game. Her teacher, Miss Dawn, has been telling me that Gracie is too scared to play it, but she loves to cheer for the other kids. The point of the game is that Miss Dawn pretends to be a somewhat scary and intimidating scarecrow. She says, "I'm the scarecrow. These are my pumpkins on the wall behind me. No one can steal one of my pumpkins from my garden." Then she says a child's name and says, "Tommy, you can't get the number 3 pumpkin in my garden." Tommy then tries to get around her and get the pumpkin off the wall. Well this time Gracie decided to play when her name was called.

As you can see, she was oh so proud of herself after she successfully got around the scarecrow!

Gracie displaying her number 8 pumpkin that she snatched from Miss Dawn's pumpkin patch!

The kids played a rousing game of Hot Potato with a pumpkin. It was a huge success as well. We had never played Hot Potato in our house, so Gracie thought it was really fun.

You can't have a party for preschoolers without cupcakes, so one of the moms brought beautiful cupcakes from Sam's Club. This is Luke asking Gracie if she wants to try his green frosting. She told him no before I had to intervene.

Gracie enjoyed her cupcake, the games, the craft, the take-home treats, and having Ella with her at school. All of her classmates loved her little sister and wanted to love on her.

School Day Blues

Gracie didn't want to go to school today. The way my work schedule is set up, she goes to school two days in a row and then gets to forget about it for the next 5 days. Sometimes I think that is poor planning, and it might be better if she went a couple different days throughout the week instead. Anyway, today when I announced that it was a school day, she protested. I didn't have too much sympathy, but I got her all dolled up for school and then took her pictures outside. Sometimes if you just ooh and aah over her, she works her way out of a bad mood. It worked today.

" OK, I think I'm ready to go to school now. Just make sure you don't forget to pick me up!" :-) (Sorry, but that's an inside joke! Someone who is reading this will understand!!!)

Ella Is Into Everything

This evening I noticed that Ella had disappeared, and when I found her she was in Gracie's room...alone. She was helping herself to Gracie's toys. Gracie would have been mortified (I think) to see Ella getting into her prized possessions.

Doesn't this look like a lot of fun for a little 9 month old baby??? Ella thought so. Fortunately, all she did was look at it and never really made any moves to disturb anything.

She did, however, latch on to one of the Barbie dolls that Gracie left in the middle of her floor. Finders keepers, right?

Raking...again!

Ella always looks at Brent with interest, but he's not around enough for her to be 100% familiar either. I liked this picture because it looks like she was exploring him and reacquainting herself.

Big sis has to sneak in any pictures that involve only Ella. It's her job to get jealous, right?

Gracie has really been wanting to climb a tree, thanks in large part to Curious George. I told her several weeks ago that I wasn't strong enough to help her. Well, while we were raking she remembered her desire to climb a tree and Brent helped her up. She thought it was great!.

Gracie was extremely proud of her accomplishment and her bravery. The smile says it all!

Gracie has a lot of big ideas. This idea involved pulling the leaves off of the tree so that we wouldn't have to keep raking everyday. Another idea was to rake the leaves still on the tree. She had her little rake stuck up in the tree branches trying to rake the leaves off the tree. :-)

No more raking for Brent. He spent 30 minutes raking and threw his back out. It's just not worth it to me. I would rather do all of the physical jobs and have him in a lot less pain.

Happy 9 Month Birthday, Ella

It's hard to believe that in 3 short months we will be celebrating Ella's first birthday! Where has the time gone? She's a remarkable little girl and we are glad she's in our family.