Disney on Ice

It was Steve's idea and it was Awesome!

We surprised Ella with tickets to Disney on Ice. She had no idea and even when we started to say, it's a surprise it is....Ella would yell NOOOO don't tell me. So cute!
About half way into the program she turned to me and said, "I Love this Surprise!" That made it all worth it, a magical lovely evening.

The Nutcracker

I think I might be one of those moms, you know the ones who want to be involved in every little thing and who vicariously lives through her child. Well maybe I'm not that bad but I've been so excited for today.
First off, Ella has been in Ballet for a little while now and seems to really love it. We decided to sign her up for The Nutcracker and tonight was her performance. There have been many, many practices and today we spent a majority of our day at practices, finally resulting in the big performance. I am so proud of Ella. She has come a long way, she is listening better and for now has stopped chasing, tickling, and tackling. Ballerinas don't do such things we have been told and she has been working hard on it. For the past month she has been such a good listener and doing great. She is a sweet angel.
Ella, mommy and daddy are so proud of you and love you so much!









Amy and Kimberly came to see Ella dance



(here is Ella with her teacher Ms. Chris)

Waiting for the Ball

I took these photos on the last warm day in November and thought it would be nice to get a few more pics of Gabriella in her costume.
Enjoy!

Happy Birthday Mamie!

Today is Mamie's birthday, so Ella sang her a song. The song is "Thank you for the music", originally sung by ABBA, but this one is sung by Amanda Seyfried on the Mamma Mia soundtrack.



We felt, however, that her best performance was her first. After filming this one, we found out that our digital camera has a setting to not record sound while the zoom function is being used. Ha ha! That was a new one. Anyhoo, here's the "outtake" one.

Made my Day

Today I came home to a special gift. I had just gotten home from an activity complete with a nice headache and sore feet when Ella ran up to me and gave me a paper with mommy written on it, one of the first written all by herself. I can't express the joy I felt when I got this sweet little paper. I remember giving my own mom numerous gifts of mugs, boxes, and trinkets with the word MOMMY stamped on. Now it's my turn and I love it!

Stir them in my witches brew

Getting ready for Halloween

Ballet Practice!

Not too bad considering she wasn't able to make it to all the practices. Classes start back up soon and then we have the Nutcracker in December! YAY

Cowboy Day

Cute songs and a very cute cowgirl!

Enjoy

Finally!

Changes

Recently, Meredith and Ella took a trip, and left me here to eat microwave burritos and pizza (ok, Meredith instructed me to eat better, but you know how that goes). At any rate, when Meredith goes away, I tend to undertake ambitious house projects. I tend to keep them a surprise as well, just in case I fail at them. Well, this trip, all projects were (mostly) successful. Here's a quick rundown.

In the bathroom, I painted the area around the skylight (and repainted the trim), retextured a portion of the ceiling and then repainted the entire ceiling.

Beyond that, I also put new trim around the bottom (though Meredith showed me that I missed a piece...stupid hidden piece). I also put a frame on top of the bathroom mirror, which I made from crown molding.

Other than that, I also installed new molding in a small area downstairs next to the dining area.

On the day that Meredith and Ella came home, house painters began to work on the exterior of our house. I'm sure Meredith would do a better job with this, but I just wanted to post a quick picture of the outside of the house. I still need to put the numbers up, but we're pretty happy with how it turned out.

True Blue

Had fun at the BYU/Air Force Game!