Jay, Sara & Ella

Friday, April 10, 2020

February 2020 Happenings!

Things happen and I forget to update this blog. So, I will be getting caught up in monthly happenings AGAIN!

Ruby Pearl in the snow (random)

This lady did some research for Career Day and created a poster about her chosen career and brought props to school for the presentations that parents could attend! She did great! She remains confident on wanting to be a pediatrician to help kiddos. She'll be great!

To celebrate her amazing presentation for Career Day, we headed to DQ for afternoon ice cream!

Ruby got into the Valentine's spirit!

Ella's classroom valentine's this year!!I think they turned out so cute! I think this might be the last year of classroom exchanges (I'm not crying, you're crying!) SO SAD!

Our letterboard messages are still going strong....

At Ella's insistence, we did the annual Valentine's Scavenger hunt! She didn't have school on Valentine's Day this year (I think it was a staff development day) so we didn't have to have the hunt at 6 a.m. which was nice!

Jay made Ruby's morning extra special!

Ella and I went out for a girls date to Dunkin' Donuts!

And she made me this sweet Valentine. She's so sweet!

It was the MVES Musical this month too! Ella was a French Lady in this year's musical JOUST!

One of her BFFs Julia was also in the musical along with her friend Leah. Not to be left out, her other BFF Emily came to the show so we got them all together after the performance! These girls are so great! Hopefully their friendships continue to remain strong!

First dance competition of the year....First Place in High Kick with the highest score ever received by a Farmington team (whoo hoo!) [Note, that I was so excited I totally forgot to take a picture of Ella with her winning ribbon, but we did get a group shot!]

Her hip hop team also performed, and did great, but they didn't place. A little bit of a bummer, but you can't place every time!!

The very next weekend was the second dance competition in Sauk Rapids!

Her high kick team placed 3rd and hip hop didn't place

We feel lucky to have gotten these dance competitions in before the pandemic hit!

Another end of February event was African Drumming at MVES!

Ella really enjoyed it and the entire 5th Grade did a performance for parents and it was so cool!

Heading into March twinning!!!!! HAHAHAHAHA!

Tuesday, January 21, 2020

January Happenings!

Happy 2020! Our flip of the calendar to the New Year was pretty quiet. Jay's mom was in the hospital so Jay made a few trips to visit her and otherwise it was quiet! Ella and I tackled her toy room which has been on the list of things to do for a long time now! I bought a cube organizer from Target and we were able to clean up a lot of the miscellaneous toys laying around. How does she accumulate so much stuff?!?! Anyway, it's a work in progress on getting rid of stuff she doesn't play with anymore, but I'm happy to see less clutter!

These two....

The MN Vikings made the playoffs and then disappointingly lost to the 49ers.

Boo.

My letterboard sign didn't bring us any luck!

Ella has been losing teeth like crazy!! Another molar was out last weekend so then her retainer didn't fit (again!!) This is our struggle right now. LOL! We made a quick trip back to the orthodontist and they were able to make a few adjustments so she can get that retainer back in her mouth.

Hey look - all the girls on the couch in our Vikings gear!

(As you can see, taking a good selfie is still an issue for me...in this one I even cut off Ruby's head - OOPS!)

After a snow storm last Friday, Ella and I had to venture out on Saturday afternoon for a dance special session (turns, jumps). The roads were terrible and she really didn't want to go, but when you sign up for something you need to show up, right?! So, I pretty much made her go (even though I really didn't want to drive those roads!) Afterwards, I treated her to Culver's for ice cream!!

We are looking forward to some warmer weather this week and decorating for Valentine's Day!

Tuesday, January 7, 2020

Christmas #3!

Hey hey! Our last Christmas was celebrated between Christmas and New Years with Jay's family. We didn't have to host this year (whew!) so we headed to Shakopee for the afternoon of fun! This year's food theme was soup & sandwich. I made Chicken Wild Rice soup and bread. There was also a Cheesy Ham/Potato chowder, some type of Italian soup and Roast Beef Sandwiches and then meats and cheeses to build your own sandwich. Of course there was loads of goodie trays too! I don't have any food pics to prove the spread was delicious, but it was!

We drew names this year for the gift exchange, but Tara also planned a few games to play!
We played the dice game with the gifts in the center and you choose a gift if you roll doubles. Everyone had a good time and got some fun items! We also played a reindeer ring toss game. There were teams of us and the winning team scored gift cards! Nice! Here are a few pics of the game!

Jay and I were gifted a gift card for a restaurant by Annie & Andrew and they offered to have Ella over while we go out. Super awesome! We all had a great time chatting and relaxing on a chilly winter break day!

I can't believe the holidays are over already! It was a whirlwind for sure. We are back to a normal week this week and getting into the swing of it all again! Ella is in the school musical coming up next month, so her weeks are going to be busy for a while! Looking forward to the weekend already!!

Smurf Elf 2019

It was another fun year of shenanigans with Smurf Elf.
(p.s. shenanigans is on Ella's spelling list this week, so I didn't need to use spell check - ha!)

Smurf Elf arrives at our house on December 1st. This year, she came with a Lego Advent Calendar for Ms. Ella.