Prepping for the holidays/fun traditions

Christmas Party at dance class

Frosty visited dance class today and they got to dance with him. Ellery thought it was pretty fun.

We were invited in to the classroom again to see what they are learning. It was pretty cute. This time, I brought the "real" video camera, and I don't know how to upload video from that. I taped the little dance that they did for us today on that.

A visit with the Claus.

Tim thought this Santa looked like he had just hopped off of his Harley-what do you think?


Disney Princesses on Ice:
My mom and I took our little "Belle" to see the Princesses. She really liked the princesses, but the witches and Ursula were really scary to her.

Baking Christmas cookies with Grandma G.

Our second time in the snow. Ellery lasted all of about 2 minutes and then she said "my eyes are cold."

Christmas with the Joneses.

We celebrated early with Tim's family because Grammy is now in Georgia visiting the rest of the family for Christmas. The above is playing the "dice game" which Grammy plays with the kids every year and gives them little gifts. The kids think it's pretty fun!

Here's Ellery in the "Christmas Moose" shirt. This started off with Nicholas, and we decided that since everyone except Katy had worn this shirt, we should have Ellery wear it too. She wasn't the happiest when we put it on her and covered her pretty dress, but she dealt...

His first RC car-from Grammy.

Our finished product-Chex mix. They did help me make it too.

Goofy again.

Her Christmas dress.

Helping Grandpa put out the Christmas decorations at Grandma's house. It is blurry, but it was just cute seeing him evaluate the decorations with my dad. He was very serious about where the figures should go.

This is her new coat and hat that I just couldn't pass up at the craft show. Tim thinks she looks like a cupcake!

Goofing off in the cupboard. Just a little silliness :)

Oh and for those of you who get to the bottom of my entire post...if you check out the little tickers on the side of my blog, you will see I added a little ticker to my blog...

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Happy Halloween 2009

Here the kids are on our front step with their pumpkins. They were so excited to go out and get lots of candy!


With our neighbors-the boys were all characters from Star Wars-big surprise. They all had a really fun time together as they do every year.
Check out my loot!

Cleaning out "the girls' " pumpkin. Ellery and Caleb decided that the pumpkin carving would go by gender. Caleb wanted to be with dad despite the fact that dad had his own ideas about carving. I said next year dad would have to get his own pumpkin so Caleb could do his very own design on his pumpkin instead of a combo deal with what dad wanted!

They had a lot of fun anyway. Caleb still did not dig the "guts" He said dad had to get all of it out. He touched it once and made a face. He was done after that. Queasy stomach I guess.

Caleb with his best buddy, Ty, at preschool.

Can't you just see his excitement for singing the songs. He had been singing them for a few weeks at home and knew them very well. When I asked him if he was going to sing the songs (he was in his classroom just before the little parade) he said "Well, I don't know about that!"

His anxiety totally taking over. Oh well, at least he didn't run away!

Happy Fall Everyone!

My Little Ballerina

Here's a little clip of Ellery at dance class today. They had a little halloween party and they let the mommies watch for a bit. It was really cute!

Check out the last post as well if you haven't already for photos from our Montreal trip and some other ones of the kids too...

Montreal/Quebec and 2 seasons in 2 weeks.

If you are friends with me on Facebook, you may have seen some of the Canada pictures. Sorry for the duplicates.


Montreal

So, here we are at a Portugese restaurant in Montreal. It was a Tapas restaurant and the menu was all in French. The waitress was explaining the items to me, but unfortunately most of the items were seafood. I am not a fan, but my brother told me that we were going to experience some new things with this meal. I reluctantly agreed. The man with us was the owner of the restaurant and he was very fun. His name was Jack and he helped us order. He brought out the first item, served it to us and said "if you don't like this, you don't like anything in the world." So, I tried it, being true to the agreement I made with Jon...it was strange. It was OCTOPUS!!!! I knew we were getting that and I had suspected it. Thankfully I didn't get the pieces on Tim or Jon's plate-they had the suction circles on their pieces. YUK!!! It wasn't as bad as I may have talked myself into thinking if I had known before eating it, but I certainly would never eat it again. I was proud of myself for even trying it. I wouldn't say the night was a total bust though. The food was not the best, but the ambiance in the restaurant and the owner/waitstaff were fantastic. I appreciate those kinds of things. It was a really small restaurant and it was very nice. Just not the kind of food I was looking for.


Here we are in a little pastry shop by Mount Royal. This was the only place where we had any trouble with the language barrier. They were VERY french here, but we were still able to get by. Besides, how can you go wrong with pastries!


Here we are on Mount Royal. We didn't quite make it to the top of the mountain. We had already done so much walking. It was cold-thus the hats. I bought mine when we were shopping before we made it up to the mountain. Thankfully, I did find one that I liked or I would have been in big trouble! It was windy and pretty freezing. I had mittens and everything. Despite the cold, we did have a nice hike up part of the mountain. It was nice to spend some time just Tim and I.

There was a road that we could have tromped up, but we decided to be more adventurous and go up some slightly beaten paths. It was interesting. This was after we had climbed back down from that hill, this was also when we decided we weren't quite going to get up to the top of the mountain to see the view of montreal. We asked Jon to take us there later-by car!

The view on Sunday morning from atop Mount Royal. It was a nice view, but much easier to get to by car.
Quebec City-Saturday trip.

Chateau Frontenac. This is a huge hotel in Quebec city which first opened in 1893. It was indeed HUGE.

The view from the boardwalk in front of the Citadelle (the area where some battles were fought long ago)

Aren't these great fall colors...and on one tree!

Back to home life...

She falls asleep in some crazy positions-and always with books and some kind of doll or baby. it's pretty cute-Oh and I can't forget blankie!

The 2 seasons in 2 weeks...

Fall, just yesterday cleaning the leaves up in the yard.

"Mom, no more pictures!"

Fun jumping in the leaves.

A leaf salamander. They also made a leaf fort, but Caleb kept getting mad at Ellie because she was running through the "walls" and not using the doors. It was a little funny for me!

Buddies goofing around.

At Gertens checking out the pumpkin piles

Another curious sleeping arangement. At least she fell asleep. Naps are really few and far between for this girl!

And now, the 2nd season...WINTER!!! It was back on 10/12-just plain WRONG!!! Caleb liked it though. I was complaining and he said "but mom, I like snow!" I told him that snow was okay, but Not in early October!

The snow we got was PERFECT for snowmen.

"I need some doves (gloves)" I didn't have any for her yet so her little hands got pretty cold. I did pick up some for her a few days later though so we are ready for the next snow-hopefully it's a few weeks away still!

And our little snowperson.