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!