Pre-K pumpkin patch

We made a second trip to the pumpkin patch this year.

Alex and I tagged along with Ella's pre-K class to the KC pumpkin patch in Gardner.


It was a VERY CHILLY day... the high was 42 and the kids were COLD by the end of the morning!!!




But we had a great time!



Ella and her two best buddies Sophia (Steketee) and Macie (Boerigter) were inseparable for the morning. Those girls are TONS of TROUBLE!!! But so cute.

Happy Orange Day

It's one of our favorites...













Ella was decked out...













for her pre-K, Orange Day! (that's Mrs. Dick, her teacher)

The Monster in the Mirror

Ella is a good sleeper. She always has been. This is the kid who slept 12 hours at night and took a 3 hour morning nap until she was ready for preschool. I asked the doctor if I should be concerned and he basically told me to "shut up before another mother heard me!" She wouldn't even sleep in our room as a baby. She switched from the bassinet at 3 weeks!!! Okay, so you get my point, now her latest escapade.

Ella has been showing up in our room the last couple of nights and tonight, I just couldn't get her to settle down and go to bed. Two nights ago, she had a bad dream and insisted that there was a "frog faced monster" in her bedroom mirror. After 4 trips to our bed between 2 and 4 a.m. Troy and I didn't care WHAT she saw in the mirror, we were ready for sleep! We basically brushed it off!

The next day, she still insisted the monster was there, in the mirror, in it's own bedroom, watching her. I offered to take the mirror away, but she likes it, it's like a fairytale mirror, and she has pictures stuck around the edges, so it's part of her room. Finally, we found a compromise. I told her we should draw a really happy picture and put it on the mirror to keep the monster away. We did, she taped it up and last night was fine.

Tonight, we put her to bed and she kept getting up. Troy talked to her, then I heard her up there just quietly sobbing!! I talked her to and finally got her to tell me that she's afraid of the monster in the mirror and it's scaring her every night. OKAY I'M A HORRIBLE PARENT!!!

So I ask if she wants me to take the mirror and she sobs more, "NO I WANT IT BACK TO NORMAL!" So I take the picture off and she sobs more "BUT THE MONSTER IS THERE!" So we walk up to the mirror, I carry her, she points at the mirror to show me what's scaring her, I call Troy we turn lights off and on, looking in the mirror, finding the scary spots, and finally realize it's a picture frame and Tinkerbell figurine on her shelves which are casting the ominous reflections in her mirror!!! I move them, even let her hold Tinkerbell and suddenly the monster is GONE!!!

My girl was smiling again when she went to bed. Troy and I both felt better for having stuck with this until we made it okay for her. She was happy, and safe and comfy in her room again tonight. Thank goodness!

Pumpkin Patch 2009!!!

A brisk Saturday morning was perfect weather for this! I think it was in the upper 40's or lower 50's so the jackets were fine once we got moving, but it was cool and windy out there!





We love this annual tradition! As hard as we tried, we hated that we couldn't coordinate and schedule to go with our friends this year... but the kids still had lots of fun! Papa and Grandma came along and we WORE PAPA OUT!








2 and a half hours later, the kids were exhausted!!!






We brought home 150 lbs of pumpkins! Sounds like a lot, but it was actually 5 large pumpkins, one wheelbarrow FULL for Troy to push onto the scales.








Ella rode a pony (Alex wasn't happy that you have to be 3 or older for this), Alex climbed all over a real firetruck, both kids loved the petting zoo and they were all over and through the pumpkin vines. This is always one of our most fun days of the year!

5 years... and counting!

Troy and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary Friday night. Boy, it's amazing how much we're survived, and accomplished in our short time together!

We met in December 2002, got engaged and bought a house in 2003, married in 2004, had Ella in 2005, (2006 must have been a year off???) then had Alex in 2007!!!! We've lost 3 grandma's, Troy's brother Nick, and seen a good friend go off to war.

Through it all, we've had each other. I can barely remember my life before Troy, and I don't want to imagine a day without him. I love my man! Isn't he handsome in this picture?

Just the two of us....

Alex and I are solo today, for the first time, in a long time!

I've been taking care of another almost 2 year-old boy, Liam for the past several months. They just relocated last week, so Alex and I are on our own for the 3 days when Ella is off to pre-K.

Today, he seems a little lost. It's chilly and windy outside, but he asked for Kung Fu Panda, so we're watching that and getting ready to share some lunch. We've already made a trip to the unemployment office, saw at least a dozen school buses, and 2 trains.

Not a bad first morning, but I hope to spice it up for him! We're gonna try Deanna Rose Children's Farmstead this week, and maybe the park, so he can enjoy the fact that he gets playtime while Ella's at school, with Mommy, all to himself!

Back 2 School

Ella is officially a pre-kindergartener. It's hard for me to believe!


We decided to keep Alex home for one more year. He'll start preschool next fall, when he's 3, just as Ella did. That lets us put in just one kid at a time, which is a huge tuition savings, and gets Mommy some quality time with my boy before he goes off to school next year.





Ella was a little nervous. We have two sets of teachers this year. Her T/Th class in the Rainbow Room was all new kids, except for Ella's best friend Sophia. But the teachers, Mrs. Dick and Mrs. Pantalleria are wonderful and Ella is already hugging them every morning at the door!





Monday is an enrichment class which provides a little extra Language Arts, Math and Science focus. We're paying extra for this, but hope it will help since she's going to be one of the youngest in her kindergarten class. Her August 20th birthday means she only makes the age cut-off by 11 days! She's doing great so far, but does learn some things a few months later than her friends who are almost a year older... so we wanted to give her every advantage we could.




This is Ella's first year to pack her lunch for school and that's been a learning experience for both of us! The school is nut free and dairy free, so no PBJ allowed. Luckily, Ella likes hummus and beans and pasta, so we've been pretty creative in what goes into that Hello Kitty lunchbox.


She's pretty proud of herself so far, and we are too! (These are just a few photos from her meet-the-teacher sessions, and her first week of class.)