puzzle mania

i picked up this puzzle for the girls to work on over the thanksgiving holiday.

they finished after school on wednesday!
(you have to look sideways)

so, ryan ran the girls to the store and they picked out the two below.

ella chose the deer puzzle. and afton chose the puppies. ry and aftie finished the puppies just a few hours ago.
they also did three other smaller puzzles.
my mom had us all working on a big puzzle when she visited us in october, and the girls have been begging for puzzles ever since. ryan's family and my family always had a big puzzle going over the holidays while we were growing up, so i suppose the tradition must live on!

five years old

i can't believe this girl is 5 years old.

ella had a good day and requested the following:

a pink heart cake with pink frosting.

a day filled with game playing.

lunch at mcdonald's crazy slide (playland).

pancakes for breakfast.
two ponytails.

i'm happy to report that all requests were fulfilled.

we sure love our ella-girl and wish her a wonderful year!

thanksgiving

we had a nice thanksgiving celebration with our friends, the chiapelli family. we ate and ate and the kids played and played. we even got to snuggle their new baby girl!
these are not our best photographs, but they show our true, silly, half-closed eyes, selves.

heaven...

this morning i've been feeling like there's a bit of heaven right here at our home.

thanksgiving was lovely,

we stayed home together,

ryan's home today,

ella's birthday is today,

and the weekend hasn't even begun! we still have that to look forward to.

i love being home with my little family, not having to worry about where we need to be or what we need to accomplish. it's all about being together and having fun.

book fair

ryan, aftie, ella and i made a gigantic airplane for our book fair display. it took us part of saturday and sunday and filled the entire entryway of our house.
the book fair theme was "destination: book fair". we had the kids do a coloring activity where they described a place they had traveled to in their reading. they did an amazing job. we hung them in the cafeteria around world maps. it looked great!
above is a sampling of what the book fair looked like.

and here is ella and our front lobby display.

ella's classroom happens to be right next to the front lobby. her teacher told me that every time they pass the display, ella smiles and tells everyone that "we made that airplane". her teacher said, "it's like a new experience everytime we pass by"! ella is obviously very proud of her family's airplane making abilities.

on a side note...parent teacher conferences coincide with the book fair. we are happy to report that aft and ell are doing great! they are such good girls and were amazing helpers over the past few days at the book fair. they spent a lot of time at school with me this past week and were such champs. we love our sweeties!

daddy-daughter activity night

ry and aft attended a pie making activity last night. they made apple pie, which neither of them like! but they gave it a good effort and the beautiful pie they brought home went into the freezer to be baked for thanksgiving.

for an after-activity dessert, they were served apple pie. ryan had some, but aftie said "no thank you"!
when i asked afton if they had a fun time she said, "what do you think?" "why wouldn't i have a fun time?"
well, alrighty then.

acorn squash-not a keeper

whenever i try out a new recipe, i ask ry and the girls if it's a keeper. tonite, i made fettucine alfredo with grilled shrimp (which is not new) and i roasted an acorn squash for a different vegetable than we usually have.

afton gagged on her squash, but managed to get three bites down-only with a promise of cold stone ice cream later.

ella declared the squash, "not a keeper" after nearly vomitting her microscopic squash bites.

seriously. i am not exaggerating on the gags and near vomits.

i remember gagging at the thought of having to eat some dinner items in my youth. in fact i still remember sitting at the dining table refusing to eat a pimento bologna sandwich. i must have been 3 or 4 years old. remember that mom?

a funny week

TV

i think we're finally down to only 2 televisions on right now. earlier all tvs were on and have been for most of the week with a bunch of sick people laying in front of them. blah. blah.

it's funny how sometimes you need a week of nothing and you get it in a different way than you expected. i've been home all week with sick people and with another surgery. more calcifications were found on my last mammogram. surprise, surprise. so the newest calcifications are now out and we're hoping there aren't anymore forever and ever. so we all stayed home today, even ryan. i declared a day of rest. and rest we have. in fact, we've all rested so much that it's now time for bed and everyone's awake!

and did you know that you can buy happiness for only $1.00 from the target dollar section? at least ella and afton think so. i picked up some hello kitty dry-erase boards today and they have been busy writing and erasing for hours!

a good message

thanks eliza!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYhDhiojBPA

hulse halloween

this is chester the racoon, from the Kissing Hand book. ella gets to bring him home from school for the week, because she is the star of the week. she wanted me to take lots and lots of pictures of her with chester. unfortunately ella has taken ill over the weekend, so i'm not sure how exciting chester's week will be.
friday night we went to the trunk or treat at church. our friends met up with us there and played games and trunk or treated.

friday afternoon was aftie's school party. here she is with her fun teacher dressed as cruella deville. he's a super-fun teacher who plays music in the classroom sometimes, which the kids totally love.
ella had her class party that morning, but i was unable to attend because i'm not a room mom for her class. but i secretly peeked my head in to get a quick look...and all looked well and fun and ella looked so cute in her blue fairy/pixie costume.
saturday, we planned to play with our friends. but ella wasn't feeling great and their family had been sick all week as well. so, we felt very sad but made the best of a lazy day at home together.

one important thing about halloween, was that aftie made part of her own costume. we saw a cat costume in the pottery barn kids catalog. part of the costume was a cute black skirt. aftie decided she'd like to make her own skirt. luckily, marmee was coming for a visit and could help aftie with the details of measuring, etc. but aft did all the sewing! way to go little sewing lady! the skirt turned out very well and she looked like a sweet little kitty.