November Happenings....

The month of November has flown by!  I can't believe tomorrow is December 1 already!  I thought I better get this blog back on track!  Here we go with some November reminiscing....

 Ella had a check-up for her braces and they added a chain along the front four teeth, which apparently means that they are happy with their location, so the chain helps to keep them in place while the rest of the teeth are still moving. We have another check-up soon with an x-ray to see if all the teeth are in the right place!

 I brought out the Christmas PJs a bit early because it has been so cold!  

I love the Old Navy waffle PJs and last year's printed legging is still my favorite!  

Speaking of favorites, we did something new this year with some friends and went to Turkey Bingo at the Farmington Fire Station!  It was madness!!  A lot of people there to support the cause, play bingo and win some prizes!  I have never played Turkey Bingo before, so I was a rookie.

  But I won a turkey!!  BINGO!!!  The winning call was B-4.  It was amazing! :)

Turkey Bingo was also a pre-birthday bash hanging out with friends, which leads to the big birthday. To be honest, I didn't really celebrate too much.  I wasn't feeling well and my aunt passed away early in the morning, so I wasn't in a very celebratory mood.  But, because it was a big event, I did have the day off (duh!) and I got the largest most delicious peppermint mocha frappuccino from Starbucks (below). I took a picture because it was made so cute and the barista wrote Happy Birthday on my cup!

 And this is 40.

I will say that my selfie game has come along way, am I right?!  :)

I also baked myself a birthday cake.  A mint chocolate birthday cake.  It turned out great and tasted amazing, but because I wasn't feeling well, I had a slice on my birthday and that was it.  

Boo!  But isn't it cute!

Just before Thanksgiving, Ella had a PJ day along with crazy hair day at school! 

Here's what she wanted to do this year...

 

And then it was Thanksgiving!  It came so fast!  We spent it in Worthington this year.  But, it was a late start. Have I mentioned I wasn't feeling well?  Yep, still wasn't feeling great and I wasn't sure I was up for the trip, but as the day progressed, I felt a little more energetic, so we loaded up the truck and headed out. I felt better the next day, so thank goodness we didn't stay home!  We would have missed out on all the yummy food, like Grandma's potatoes and Kaila's salad!  :)

 Sitting in "chairs" with Grey Spots to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade!

 Showing off our Thanksgiving Day hats we colored!

I got this cute Turkey before Thanksgiving.  We each wrote something we are thankful for on a feather along with the date.  It was fun to read each other's messages and I think it will be neat to pull out every year and add another layer of thankful feathers!  

Gobble Gobble!

The weekend of Thanksgiving we decorated the house for Christmas! 

I love this time of year, but it is a LOT of work to get the house decorated! It took me the entire Saturday and I didn't even finish. Ugh. But, I had the Christmas music playing and just tried not to stress out about it and enjoy hanging out with Ella (the best helper!) to make the house cute!

 This year's Grandma Alice tree in the front window 

with family ornaments that used to be my Grandma's.

And this is our big tree in the family room this year! 

Isn't sitting in the dark with only the tree lights on the best?!  

I love it!

And that about sums up the major happenings of our November 2018. 

We are looking forward to lots of fun things in the upcoming weeks!

Ella will be starting musical practice, basketball practice, she will have a dance winter show and church Christmas program too! Whew!  On top of those, we need to sneak in Christmas movie nights, our Cozy Cocoa Christmas Cruise to check out the lights and visit SANTA!

Family Pics and Halloween!

A few things to document from the past week or so!  Last weekend we got together with Jay's side of the family for some family pictures.  Luckily, the weather wasn't too bad!  I snapped a few cell phone pictures since I'm not sure if we get to see the proofs or not! 

 All the cousins! 

 Grandparents with the grandkids!

 Another grandparents with the grandkids!

How does Ella look like she's 16?!  What in the world these kids grow up so fast!  

I think she looks so adorable in her little top, scarf and tall boots!  Love it!!

 I snapped a married selfie while we were waiting!! HA!

 This photo is maybe a favorite of all time!  

Ella is totally ready and all of the boys are just a disaster!  LOL! 

Mom/daughter selfie...we coordinated ourselves.  :)

We had some great MN weather last night for Halloween 2018!  This year, Ms. Ella chose to be an ice cream cone.  Originally, her and friends were all going to be farm animals (which apparently inspired Jay as you will see below), but then the girls changed their minds.  So, in the interest of time, we bought Ella's costume instead of making it.  The kids were able to wear their costumes to school for the entire day (lots of fun activities at school!) and that made it nice because she was all ready to go trick-or-treating!

 My little ice cream cone and dairy cow! (Get it?!)

 Always posing...

 I did not dress up.  Maybe next year!

 I thought it was hilarious walking around with this guy dressed as a cow and he was carrying Ella's glow stick wand which I thought looked like a light saber.  Dork!

 Like I said...always posing!!

 We were snapping weird selfie pics while Ella was getting candy!

And of course she got home and had to sort that bucket of loot!  LOL!  I always did that too.  And then she had to count to see which type of candy she got the most of!  This year she also sorted into piles that she can and cannot eat (because of her braces).  :)  Love it!  

In case you wanted to know, she got the most Reeses Peanut Butter cups this year!

Weekending!

Fall is in full swing here!  We had a few cold and windy days so all of the leaves are pretty much gone!  Didn't take long!  We had a good MEA weekend - it was nice to have a break from school obligations and homework!! :)

So, here's something.  This year I bought a 2nd scarecrow to join the older one that I've had for a long time. We picked out a cute girl scarecrow.  However, when I opened the blinds on Sunday morning....

 She is staring right back at me!  CREEPY!!!

Also this weekend, we were able to paint our pumpkins!!  This year we decided to do farm animals. HA! Ella chose a pig, I chose cow and Jay decided on a chicken....

I think they turned out really cute!  It is so much fun to paint vs. carve pumpkins!

What's Up October!

Well it's mid-October.  Countdown to Halloween and all the holidays thereafter has started!  It's a short week of school here in MN for MEA, so looking forward to some family time without having to work on homework, study for tests and spelling!!! 

This month has been pretty low-key so far. We celebrated National Taco Day on October 4th with homemade tacos at home (Ella's favorite) and then we went to Cold Stone Creamery for a super fun ice cream taco!  We shared...it was HUGE!  So delicious!

And then this past weekend....

We got the white stuff!  SNOW!! Insane.  October 14, 2018.  SNOW!! But, it melted pretty quickly and Ella had fun making a tiny snowman family on the deck! The weather people tell us it should be warming up into the 60s by the end of the week -- hurray!  We still have pumpkins to buy and paint for Halloween! 

Catching Up Post - September!

We are a month into this school year already, which seems so crazy!  

Here's a look back at our September 2018....

First day of Fourth Grade! 

I can't figure out what went wrong with the tomato plants I grew this year.  Look how giant it was!  But it didn't produce any tomato.  Not one.  Such a waste!  I think next year I'll just skip it all together.

Ella had her first braces check-up and picked pink bands for her braces!

Her smile is coming along nicely!

We went to a car show in Northfield to meet with my dad. He brought a newer specialty car (can't remember what it's called!) so Ella wanted to sit in it! 

Afterwards, we all headed to Culver's for some ice cream!

At school, Ella had to make her arm reflect things about her.  She did a great job!

The new dance season started!

Turkey Day in Worthington this year was SO HOT!  We went to the parade for a short bit and then we left for ice cream and air conditioning!  HA! 

Homecoming!

 Field Trip to River Rendezvous! Weather was totally opposite from the previous week of hot weather!  It was freezing!  We should have worn winter apparel.  It was still fun though!

On the last day of September we headed to a new orchard this year in Northfield (new to us). 

It was a really fun place to get apples and enjoy the grounds!

They had lots of cool pumpkins!

Cold Apple Cider! YUM!

She can't get enough of the posing with anything that looks picture-worthy!!

 YES! LOL!

Watch out - Ella's driving! 

We love a fun apple orchard!