Ellie made up a joke at dinner.

Ellie: how did the cow jump over the moon?

I don't know. How did the cow jump over the moon?

Ellie: with lunar magnets! Haha!

This kid. 😂

No discussion on magnets or the moon lately either. 😀

Ellie looks down the crack of the elevator. "Look! It's yucky down there!"

Handing daddy her milk as we get Ellie out of the car "here, mommy, you can take my milk for me."

"I miss you when I at school."

Ellie takes my diaper bag off a box where I am hiding the chocolate that Opa and Oma brought the girls. "Don't worry, Mom.  I help you," she says after going back for seconds. Needless to say, I moved the chocolate. 

Thanksgiving 2013

We have much to be thankful for this year. Great job, beautiful home, but most of all an amazing family!

At school Kate had to disguise her turkey so that people wouldn't eat him for Thanksgiving. She finally decided that we should disguise him as a paleontologist.

Tuesday, her class had a fun afternoon. They played games and did all sorts of thanksgiving related items. She made a book about the pilgrims on the Mayflower and landing at Plymouth. They made a bracelet where each bead represented part of the Thanksgiving story. It was cute! She really remembers this story,  too! They made butter which we enjoyed that night as dinner. Her favorite thing was the Indian dress and headband from a pillowcase. She has worn it for the last 3 days! She just loves being an Indian! I know, we just moved from an state where we were surrounded by reservations!

Today, the girls colored. We all helped to create our first Thankfulness Turkey. I was suddenly hit with the craft bug yesterday and decided to create this large turkey with blank feather that we could fill out. Since Kate reminded me that there was popcorn at the first Thanksgiving, I decided we needed cute snack cups too! I know I went crazy but it was festive!

Kate decided to play Mayflower this morning. She piled playmobil people into the bottom of the ship and sailed it to America. I remembered that I had an Indian set so we pulled that out too. It was perfect, according to Kate!

Finally, here are our little Turkeys and our wonderful meal together.

Galaxy of Lights

The Botanical Garden has an amazing display of lights here! 2 weekends before Thanksgiving, they open it up for walking tours as it is usually warmer at night! USUALLY! The first weekend, it wasn't bad but Chris was sick. The second weekend, and the weekend we decided to go, the temperature dropped drastically! Oh well, we bundled up and off we went. the first part was fun. We had free pictures with Santa as well as hot cocoa (even a warm version for kids!) and cookies. We raced through the second half. We'll come again later this season but in the car. 

Ellie and Kate loved the lights. She recognized most of the nursery rhymes and and princesses. Kate loved the dinosaurs and anything with a horse.  

They had an icicle forest with fake snow. Kate tried catching the flakes. :)

Kate was eager to tell Santa that she wants My Little Ponies for Christmas. Ellie wanted nothing to do with him. Oh well. There were many other photo ops areas though!

Our Artist

Ellie has been known to draw and draw when you give her crayons and paper. She's even been known to draw on our new walls!

Last week I decided to put her in her highchair and give her paint! She has really embraced the spirit of Thanksgiving because she was full of "Tank Yous!" She just adored all of it! We started with fabric paint to make turkey hand prints on shirts. The next day, we made cards. She was mad when we washed hands because she thought she was done and really she wanted to free paint. of course, I was just cleaning her hands so she could free paint but trying to explain that to a 22 month old is just impossible.

On Thursday when we painted, Ellie had three sessions all prompted by her. She couldn't get enough and pouted every time we had to stop!

Painting is serious business!

I went out and found a few fallen leaves. She loved painting them and smashing them onto her paper.

She decided to turn the pie tin over and paint the top.

It is aggressive painting at its finest! Later, we made an imprint of the tin.

Oh and Yes, Ellie does draw predominately with her left hand. Somehow we have ended up with 3 lefties in our immediate family. (Kate can really write with both, but is neater with her left.)