Disney Rockin' Ever After

So, I got to go on the most fun Mommy-Daughter date with Ellie on November 2nd.  Steve and I kept hearing ads on the radio for a Disney on Ice show coming to our area, but tickets started at $20 and up, and for a 3 year old, that's just more than we could justify.  However, a young male co-worker won tickets at our all-staff meeting at the end of October.  I decided to be bold and offer to take them if he didn't know anyone who would want them.  And he agreed!  I was soooo grateful!  The best part was thy weren't tickets, they were vouchers.  This meant that I went to the ticket office and chose the show that worked for us that had the best seats available and got over $120 worth of tickets for free for Ellie and I to go enjoy the show.  So, we got to sit just off center in the 4th row of seats.  They were great seats and Ellie could see everything!

So Saturday evening Ellie and I headed out to the arena in town.  We got there a little early so we could eat and get settled before the show.  Ellie enjoyed her kid's meal rip-off (hey, enjoy a special event, right?) with her hot dog, capri-sun, and fruit roll-up.  

 Then we went and picked out her prize for the occasion.  She wanted a light up toy that was cheap-o and expensive, but I convinced her she could pick out a stuffed animal or toy instead and she settled on this bear from Brave.  (We had watched the movie Brave the night before to gear up for our adventure.)

 We also got her all dressed up in her princess shirt, Repunzel dress, sparkly shoes, and a necklace she picked out so she could feel like a princess.

This was Ellie's favorite part - Under the Sea.  She was so excited when she saw Sebastian, Flounder, Ariel, etc.  Once again, it helps that this movie came out recently and she had seen it an fallen in love with it in October.

 The picture doesn't do it justice, but I have to admit, this was the coolest part.  During "Under the Sea" they had people dressed up as and controlling tons of sea creatures and then went down to black light and everything fluoresced.  It was neat.

 Ellie was so captivated the whole time.  She did awesome, and I had soooo much fun watching her and being a part of her joy in the experience.

Daddy and Mckayla had fun going out to eat fish and chips while they were having their own special time.

When Ellie and I finally got home it was way past her bedtime, but she loved telling Daddy in very fast speech all about our night.  The orange soda may have helped her along...  We had such fun, and Ellie was hilarious in the car to and from the arena singing, saying funny things, and just being a hoot to be around just the two of us.

The following week we made cinnamon rolls and Ellie helped decorate this Thank You card for Jordan, the young man who gave us the tickets.  I don't know how we could have possibly thanked him for the awesome experience it was for Ellie and I to enjoy our special day together, but this was our attempt.

I will be so grateful for such a long time that we had the opportunity to spend special time one-on-one in a way that was so exciting for Ellie.

Halloween Week Festivities

Our Halloween festivities kind of spread across the entire week of Halloween, so I figured I would simply make them all one post.

On Monday the 27th we took the girls to our local library's Halloween party and story time.  Ellie loves our librarian Miss Carol, but misses story time due to preschool now, so we figured Ellie would like seeing Miss Carol and participating in the crafts and story reading that night.  They had lots of crafts for the kids to make, but Ellie just enjoyed making and eating the cookie spider and a couple of other spider related crafts.  She definitely does not get her interest in spiders from me...

Here are the pictures I took of the girls in their costumes that night.  I realized after the fact that we'd forgotten to draw Ellie's nose and whiskers on, but no big deal because she will dress up several more times, right?  Except that these ended up being the only pictures I ever got of her in her costume... Mom of the year, I know...  So, just imagine she has a little black cat nose and three black whiskers on each cheek and you've got it!

The girls enjoying pretzels and oreos from the spiders they made.

 Ellie showing off her Katerina Kitty-Cat (character from her favorite PBS show Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood) costume we put together.

 This is who Ellie was, only after not being able to find a green dress we decided to go for the episode where Katerina wears her teal leotard and a pink tutu instead....  Ellie loves being a ballerina anyway...

 Book time with Daddy!

On Tuesday we had our ultrasound, and tried like crazy to catch the end of our ward Halloween party.  We even had the girls at the ultrasound in costume.  And of course, showed up long enough for Ellie to run around with other kids, Mckayla to flirt with a lady in our ward, Steve to help clean up, and me to scarf down some chili in the last 5 minutes of the party...  Oh well...

The girls also decorated their pumpkins Tuesday night.  We had actually gotten the girls pumpkins at the orchard where we picked apples earlier in the month, but being late in the season the pickings were slim and they only had large pumpkins left.  Ellie really wanted a tiny pumpkin, but we knew she'd get to pick one up at her field trip later in the month.  These the the pictures of the girls' pumpkins from the orchard though, which they painted and picked faces for thanks to a package from Grandma and Papa Bennett.

Ellie managed to streak her face while painting...big surprise. And you can see her very faded leftovers of a nose and whiskers.

 I love this "am I going to get in trouble for touching this?" face of Mckayla's.

 She was so excited that she could touch and play with her pumpkin!

 Their final masterpieces.  Ellie chose a cat - shocker!  And Mckayla chose random face pieces as I held all the eyes, noses, and ears in front of her in turn.  We tried to get Mckayla to finger paint, but that didn't work out at all as she just got mad that I wouldn't let her eat the paint.  Ellie, however, was not content till she'd used every paint color all over her pumpkin.

Wednesday is normally not a preschool day for Ellie, but due to high demand that was the only day that her preschool group could go to the pumpkin patch for their field trip.  So on Wednesday the 30th Ellie, Mckayla, and I joined Teacher Tammy and her older and younger preschool classes at a local produce/gift shop here that puts on a fall festival each year.  Ellie on their train with her best buddy Addi.

The kids got sugary juice and cookies for a snack, ran around a mini hay maze, climbed on some hay bales, looked at some farm animals in a "petting zoo" that was more just to look at for them, and rode a tractor out to pick their own pumpkins out of a field of pre-picked tiny pumpkins just their size.

Ellie took FOREVER as every pumpkin was "too heavy!" or too huge, etc... Keep in mind the biggest pumpkin would not have been large enough to sell in a grocery store chain...  She finally decided on this, the tiniest pumpkin we could find, and by far the smallest of anyone in our group, even 1 year old younger siblings of her classmates...

 We also treated ourselves to a lunch at the store there - too expensive for everyday but delicious!  Mckayla and I shared my delicious turkey and veggie sandwich (standard craving for me this pregnancy) and Ellie decided she wanted a chicken Caesar salad.  It was huge, but I snacked on it some too and salads are cheap...  I love that she loves salad.

 This is how Mckayla spent most the the day out and about.

After all that fun, all that was left was Halloween.  You'd think I'd remember pictures on this day, but you'd be wrong because of all that we had going that day.  Ellie had to be in costume for her preschool party that morning, after which we came home, grabbed lunch, and napped both girls because we had to be at Mckayla's one year check-up that afternoon.  These were Ellie's Halloween treats for preschool.  I thought they came out cute.  Thank goodness for internet searches when it comes to themed preschool treats!

After quick naps, we packed costumes with us and headed to the doctor's.  I forgot the camera at home.  After the appointment we were running behind, so we headed to the mall (not our initial plan) for some quick trick-or-treating, toddler style.  Ellie loved it, and Mckayla got lots of compliments on what a cute boy she was... Blue monster, first thought, not worth correcting with total strangers over and over...

After the mall we headed home to do some quick rounds covering just a block or two of our house, but there were a ton of trick-or-treaters around the house and the only candy we had was in Ellie's bucket, so we didn't even go in the house, just parked the car and left - still no camera.  After a few houses - enough to give Ellie the whole trick-or-treating experience but not too many for a toddler, we got back in the car and headed to Walmart to get candy for the kids in our neighborhood who were still out and about.  Here was the only place with enough light to get a cellphone picture, so here is my one costumed picture on Halloween - trying to capture the chocolate mouth ring Mckayla had since she was so tired only slowly feeding her M&Ms got us through Walmart...

By the time we got home, the girls were so tanked we just stripped them down and got them to bed, no pictures.  Oh, and no trick-or-treaters either, of course...  I told myself I'd dress them up for pictures in a day or two, but it didn't happen.  So, once again, I fail, but I decided the pictures we had would suffice for this year.  Anyway, it was a busy but fun week.  Ellie is still asking when Halloween is and what her and Mckayla might be next year.  I have to say, even with all the chaos, as Ellie gets older, holidays are MUCH more fun.

October 11-13 Seattle Trip

Way back in October, I started working Saturdays, and knew that I wouldn't have another Saturday off until Thanksgiving, at which point the weather wouldn't be great and we'd be traveling to see family for the holidays.  We also knew that come spring time when the weather started to improve, I would be super pregnant or have a newborn and we wouldn't be up for much travel.  As a result, we decided that the one weekend I didn't have work in October needed to be a mini family vacation, since we never had fit one in during all the chaos of our summer.  I have to mention that we were really blessed that I was hardly sick at all this weekend despite battling morning sickness.  It was a major concern for us that had us considering cancelling our trip, but despite our worries I only had to take one or two of my anti-nausea pills the whole weekend and we were able to enjoy time as a family.

So, with all that unnecessary explanation, on October 11th we headed out after Steve got off work and drove to our hotel in SeaTac.  It was a classy place, folks....

This was the frame (but only on one side) of our bed.  But, it was a bed and it suited our needs and budget just fine.

Saturday morning we woke up and headed out for our first day of adventure to the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium.

We saw lots of fun animals of course...

 Pretty Kitty!  It's nice to get pictures during a zoo keeper's talk where he throws meat and has her attention...

 Steve's favorite... A bit obvious maybe, but I love him anyway.

 These guys were amazing and walked right up by us!

 Everyone was cracking up at these guys totally falling asleep while sunbathing.  The tongue out is a nice touch of course.

Don't worry, I didn't just take pictures of animals, though.  See, proof that we were there and that the girls had fun.

 Mckayla enjoyed the mirrors in the petting zoo of course.

And Ellie loved the touch tanks, even if she couldn't remember the "one-finger touching" rule...

Of course, not everything went smoothly.  The last thing we did on our way out was let Ellie ride the carousel, because she really wanted to, and we were hoping she'd be over her past traumatic carousel experiences.  It was good we did it and left, because it went BADLY, but it probably didn't help that she was exhausted...  Here she was, excited to ride the lion (which she was excited to choose) before the ride started.  She screamed and cried the entire time the ride was in motion though....  Eventually we'll have to see if she does alright on a stationary carousel animal...

Our favorite part of this day though, came at the very beginning of our zoo visit.  The aquarium now has a stingray touch tank (barbs removed for safety).  Ellie wasn't real sure about touching the rays off and on, but did touch one and talked about it randomly for weeks after.  It was awesome!  The first picture here is showing that they always have a worker on hand to watch over the touch tank and who has a plastic sting ray so nervous children can practice how and where to pet the animals.  Ellie loved the stingray, came back to touch it many times, and at one point tried to take off with it...

 Our camera had issues going from the cold outside to the humid tropical aquarium at first, but this is where Ellie touched her first stingray!  Mckayla enjoyed watching everything as well...

 On our second time around Ellie obviously didn't feel secure being held up over the tank anymore, but she did enjoy playing in the water and trying to touch the rays who swam by her just a little too deep to be within her reach.

After the trauma of the carousel, it was way past nap time, we'd seen all the animals, and it was time we headed out.  We enjoyed driving around the beautiful park that surrounds the zoo though, and even drove past two different families of raccoon!  Here is one set.

 Of course, the girls didn't enjoy the beauty of the ride as much as we did.  They were participating in activities other than sightseeing after such a long, exciting day.

The rest of Saturday was spent eating pizza and watching tv in the hotel room as the weather wasn't good enough to do anything outside.  But we had fun cuddling and hanging out in our room together.

We had decided, after much discussion, to stay over into Sunday too, where this trip would be our only one in quite some time and for quite some time.  So, Sunday morning we headed to the Imagine! children's museum in Everett.

I love these pictures of Steve using his vet training to help Ellie take care of sick animals in the vet hospital.

 Mckayla and I headed off to a toddler area for some of the time.

 Ellie enjoyed driving a bus.

 And an airplane.

But then was ready to be a passenger again on her next flight.

 She spent a TON of time playing in the water area, as she does at every children's play place we've ever visited.

 And then enjoyed building with Daddy to round out our time there.

 Mckayla's favorite activity was playing in a black light area with shapes that fluoresced.

It was great to be there on that day because the weather was rainy and cold.  That meant we couldn't take advantage of their amazing roof playground, but we had so much fun in their light areas, building, pretending, and watching Ellie play and play and play on a pretend stage they had there.  She is such a ham!  Neither of us have any idea where she gets it...

After a few hours at the children's museum we hit the road and headed home to get ready for work the next day.  It was just a quick little weekend trip, but we had a lot of fun with the girls and enjoyed finding time to do something special as just our little family.  We can't wait for our next little adventure with these amazing girls!