Ella's 6th Bday!

Ella turned 6 on February 15 and we had a fabulous day!!! 

Every year, I take a picture of Ella the last night she is a year younger.  So this is her last night as a 5 year old!

I told Ella when she was going to bed, that on her last night as a 4 year she wanted to sleep on the floor. Well, of course, she wanted to spend her last night as a 5 year old on the floor too! :-)  So this is what I discovered when I came in her room after she had fallen asleep. Our dog sure must be thinking "finally!"

Birthday morning!!

We asked Ella the day before if she wanted to go out to eat for breakfast or if she wanted her Daddy to make her breakfast.  She choose her Daddy.

And, of course, her choice was pancakes!

Our birthday girl!

So Ella decided TWO YEARS ago that for her 6th birthday she wanted a Spongebob Party!  We had Spongebob everything.  Once this girl makes up her mind, it's hard to change it.

We brought brownies and McDonalds to her school for lunch and for all her classmates.

My most favorite tradition on Ella's birthday is the picture I take of Ella at exactly 3:32p.m. every year, the exact time she was born and changed our lives forever! (for the good of course)

Trunk or Treat

This was our first year to go to a Trunk or Treat. My sister-in-law had a "trunk" at her church's and invited us to come. Sounded like fun, plus it gave Ella another reason to wear her costume and wig that she loves!


Ella & her Aunt Ashley!


The toilet paper throw! Apparently my girl has impeccable aim! I honestly would not have thought this. Ella is the sweetest child ever, but not the toughest. She'd kill you with kindness but not so much with her muscles. Well, after this day, that thought changed! Almost every "trunk" at the Trunk or Treat had some type of tossing game. I am not kidding when I tell you that Ella never missed. Not once. She would walk up to the game, aim, and it went in every time. It was pretty incredible! I think she might be a softball player like her Mama after all!!! :-)


Bam!


Bam!


We were at this one game that had 5 buckets placed at different distances and the goal was to get the bean bag in each bucket one right after another. Ella got all 5 bean bags in all 5 buckets on the first try! The boy (probably about 12 yrs old) working that "trunk" was so impressed that he ran over to his friends and said so excitedly, "She got all 5 of them!" Ha! Love it.




This has nothing to do with the Trunk or Treat, I just thought it was cute. :-)

Pumpkin Patch Tradition

Our fall tradition is to go to this cute little pumpkin patch by our house. The past 2 years, we've been able to go with our good friends the Lewis's. It's a lot more fun with our besties!




Like father, like daughter. My two crazy heads.




This is how Laney & Ella greeted each other. They love each other.


And then they were off.












Some good friend's of the Lewis's were also there. They have a precious boy named Max from China they adopted a couple of years ago. Him and Ella hit it off. They ran and ran and ran!






This year, we didn't even have to ask the girls to pose. They did it freely on their own! :-)

Pumpkin Patch Field Trip

Ella's school went to the Flower Mound Pumpkin Patch for a field trip. I'd heard lots of great things about this patch but had never been. It definitely lived up to it's expectation. There was tons of stuff for the kids. We had a great time.





We got to take a hayride to a small patch of pumpkins to pick one out to take home!






I'm not sure why...but this might have been Ella's favorite part. She thought it was so cool! :-)


They had this very elaborate hay maze. It was a little daunting for the smaller children. I definitely pulled a few crying toddlers out and over the side who could not find their way out, bless their hearts.




The reward to making to the end was this slide.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween was different for us this year. For the past 5 years we've done the same thing. It was definitely a tradition. But things changed up a bit this year so we had to say so long to that tradition and do something new.

The day started off already so fun! At the school I teach at and Ella goes to, we had a fall festival. Everyone wore their costumes to school and we played games and made crafts!

Here is my sweet girl dressed up as Ariel!! Let me tell you that she wore that wig for 3 solid days! She wants her hair to be long so badly that she'll take towels, shirts, or a jump rope...whatever she can use to imagine her hair is long. So this wig was just the best thing ever.






This is one of Ella's really good friends, Annie.


Part of my job as the music teacher is that every Monday morning I lead the entire school in some silly songs. This morning I had to get a picture of all the kids (or some of the kids) in their costumes before we did our songs. They were just so cute!






This is one of Ella's teachers! She's so sweet!


Ella & Joshua...Melissa (Josh's mom) and I were SHOCKED because we can never get a picture of the two of them together. It's one for the record book.








This is Ella's Kindergarten class!


After school was over, Ella & I headed home and rested for a couple of hours. We still had a whole evening planned. After resting, I took Ella trick or treating for a just a bit around to our neighbors houses that we know.


We live in a neighborhood with a lot of retired people. We love them. They are so sweet and love Ella and are always looking out for us. I can't tell you how many times one of them have come over to let me know that I left the doom light on in my car. ha!


Our normal Halloween tradition is to go to our church's huge Fall-A-Palooza! It's always so much fun and Heath, Ella & I always go way out on our costumes (which is always a bit stressful for me). This year, our church switched it up a bit. Instead of having one big event, we had church families volunteer and throw kind of like mini Fall-A-Paloozas at their houses. That way we're taking our church into the neighborhoods. It was a way for families to build relationships with their neighbors and be able to share with them in a smaller setting the Gospel. It was a HUGE success. Every host home had amazing stories to share. I'm so glad it turned out so great.

Ella and I went over to our good friend's house, the Murrells. They were a host home and we wanted to support them. It was lots of fun. This is Ella & her precious friend Klaire. This year, Heath and I did not dress up as tradition, which took a load off of me!


The Murrells had a bounce house, which I think Ella would live in if given the option. :-)






Another picture of Josh & Ella! 2 pics of them in one day is definitely a record!


When Daddy got off work, he was just in time to enjoy some bounce house time with his little girl!