Ella's 1st Day of School

Ella had her first day of school on Sept. 8. I wasn't sure at all how she would respond to being in a class room setting totally outside of anybody and anything that she is familiar with. But I should have known, her being the outgoing social butterfly she is, that she would adapt with no hesitations.

She loves her school. Heath gets the privilege of dropping her off each morning that she has school and he said everytime he pulls into the parking lot her face lights up and she becomes so giddy. I'm so thankful she loves it. It would be really hard to make her keep going if she hated it.

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The obligatory 1st day of school picture in front of the flowers.


Is it just me or is that backpack bigger than she is?


Putting her lunch box on the lunch cart for the first time.


"Okay mom, I will smile cutely for you one more time if you will just leave." I'm sure that's what she was thinking.

Love you sweet girl!

Ella Starts Preschool

A couple of weeks ago, Ella started preschool. I still need to post her 1st day of school pics.

This was are first time to go school supply shopping with her and it was so much fun! We let her pick out most of her stuff herself and of course it all involved Disney princesses and Tinker Bell.











She was so excited. And she is LOVING school!! I'm so proud of her.

Ella Loves to Paint

Ella's new thing is painting. She loves it. And it keeps her busy for hours, which is so nice. I love when she is doing something that is stimulating her mind (AKA something besides watching t.v.). :-) And is so stinking cute.

1st Cowboys Game

Our family was ready for the first Cowboys game of the season. Was yours?




I actually don't care a great deal to watch the game, but I do appreciate the love of the game and for our Cowboys. My husband, however, is their #1 fan. :-) The feeling he gets when it is the first full day of football season is almost equivalent to Christmas morning or walking in the entrance to Magic Kingdom.

So, as you can probably guess, Heath is actually the one that dressed Ella for church this morning. I think he did a good job.

Ribs Anyone?

Ella has always loved a good rib, even since she was little. Her favorite are her daddy's ribs. That girl can clean a rib bone better than me.

Ella's In Choir

This year, Ella is in the 3 & 4 year old choir at our church. She started 2 weeks ago.

After we got home from church this past Wednesday, I asked Ella what song they sang in choir tonight and she busted out with this...

Ella Singing "Catepillar" from Janelle on Vimeo.

It was too cute!!!!

HILLSONG Concert!!!!

Last Tuesday night, the Worship band at our church got to go see Hillsong in concert!!!

I'm a little obsessed with them, some would say a lot obsessed with them, so I had been looking forward to this for months.

And it was AWESOME! We had such a blast worshiping and being totally crazy jumping up and down for 3 1/2 hours! My right arm was actually sore the next morning.





Check out this crowd on the floor. Now these are the hard core fans. I don't think I would have been able to handle this for that long and that close to people. But they were fun to watch.




Brooke Fraiser!!!! Who doesn't absolutely love her?!




It was a great night! Thanks Jared!

Ella In San Antonio

Last weekend, Heath, Ella, myself, and my parents spent the weekend in San Antonio which is where my sister and her husband live.

We had a great time.

On Saturday we headed to the River Walk. We decided we wanted to walk the "new addition" of the River Walk. Well, little did we know, it was about a 2 mile walk. A 2 mile walk in 103 degree heat = not a good idea. Despite having very funny memories of our MISERY, it was awful.

At one point, I was so delirious from the amount of walking and the heat that I literally got the giggles and could not stop laughing. So then I just looked crazy to my family.

Half way through our walk, our goal was just to make it to Le Margarita, which is a restaurant we always go to when we visit San Antonio. After 1 1/2 hours of walking, we finally made it there.

















Resting from our long walk.




Ella finally gave in to the exhaustion and the heat.


Dada bought his sweet girl a puppet at Market Place.












Sunday, we forgo another 103 degree/2 mile trek and decided to spend the entire day in the my sister's pool! Ahhhh...amazing!






The point of this trip was to leave Ella with my sister for the week. My sister has been wanting to do this for a very long time, and we finally thought Ella was ready. Boy, did she have a good week. My sister bought her a season pass to Sea World so they could go for a few hours everyday. And they swam everyday. And did all kinds of other fun things.

So while Mama and Dada were at home so sad missing our sweet girl...Ella was having the time of her life. Thanks Aunt Michelle!

The Amazing Race

A few weeks ago, Heath and I came up with the brilliant idea to try out for the Amazing Race!

Heath and I have watched this show since season 1. We love it. We had been meaning to try out for the past few years, but just never did.

But we finally went for it a few Saturdays ago and it was so fun. We stood in line for 3 hours and then finally were called into a room and had to record a 2 minute video. So we made up a little skit of why we would be perfect for this show. It was really funny, thanks to Heath.

If you know us, you know we would be perfect for this show!! Heath is the funniest man I have ever known...and some might think that I am slightly dramatic and highly emotional. And by some, I mean me. Just what this show is looking for.

Well, despite our best efforts, we didn't make it on, but we'll probably try again next year. They really have no idea what they are missing out on. :-)

It was a fun memory for us.

Swim Lessons

For the last 2 weeks, Ella has been in swim lessons.

It was so neat because we signed her up and since she was in the very last session of the summer, there was only one other boy that had signed up and it happened to be our neighbor boy that Ella loves. So it was so fun. It was like private lessons because there were 2 teachers for the class. I could not have been any happier about how this worked out.


Ella was so cute to watch. The parents had to sit in the bleachers across the pool from them, so from that far away she looked even tinier than she already is.


She was so brave! She did everything they instructed her to do.


Of course, she was in Level 1, so I think the main point of Level 1 was to get them used to the water. They did a lot of under water stuff. Ella definitely learned how to hold her breath, which is huge! I am so proud of her.




They tried to teach her how to float on her back, but I'm not sure how much she caught on to that.


Ella actually got swimmers ear really BADLY after the first week. Her ear hurt her SO badly after week one that we ended up taking her to our awesome Dr. friend late Sunday night before week 2 started. Sure enough...she had an outer ear infection otherwise known as "swimmers ear". So we had to keep her out of her lessons Monday and Tuesday. But she got to go back on Wednesday and they so sweetly let us put her in her normal class and then the class after to make up for the 2 days she missed.


Ella was so cute to watch and SO BRAVE! She loved her swim lessons. She is quite the little fish this summer. As amazing as she is...her summary sheet on the last day said, "Great job, Ella. See you again for Level 1". We thought that was funny. So we will be repeating Level 1, but that's okay. She'll do even better the next time.