Monkey See Monkey Do

Ellie,

You loved your cousin Lulu so much. She is such a good dancer and the two of you were putting on a dance show for us. You were trying your hardest to do everything Lulu did. You learned some pretty good moves. Thanks Lulu for being such a good teacher!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I Love This

I hope you two are always this sweet to each other!

 

Mommom, Poppy & Lulu

Mommom, Poppy and Lulu came out to Arizona for a visit last weekend. It was the first time you two met your cousin Lulu, and the first time Poppy met Patrick. We had so much fun with them while they were here. We spent a lot of time hanging around the house watching you all goof off, dance, sing and wrestle. They even got to witness some of Patrick's first steps.

Lulu had a sleepover with us everynight! She is the best little guest. Most nights she actually fell asleep before Elise because of the time difference. Ellie absolutley loved Lulu and Patrick did too. One of the nights we went out for some frozen yogurt and Ellie and Lulu were putting on a show. Actually, it was mostly Lulu but Ellie was in the background trying to do everything she was doing.  

We spent a morning at the zoo. Patrick, you loved the zoo. It was the first time we had been there where you really noticed, pointed, and "roared" at all of the animals. Ellie, you were in heaven because after a million and one times of asking if you could have cotton candy and being turned down at ALL of our visits to the zoo over the past year, Poppy was the one to finally say YES! He is allowed to spoil you though since he is your Poppy. What a treat! You were also able to feed the giraffes.

Mommom took Ellie and Lulu to see Snow White at the Children's theater one day. Ellie, you loved it. You got to touch Snow White's hand and talked about that for a week!

We had a big party one night to celebrate Daddy and Ellie's birthday (again). Mia, Ellie, Lulu and Chloe had a sleepover. Lulu and Chloe really got along well and ditched the little ones at night to go off and sleep by themselves. But, they both fell asleep before Mia and Elise who stayed up until around 11.

         We also went shopping and swimming at the hotel. What a busy weekend. It was the best kind of weekend because Mommom, Poppy and Lulu were here.  Thanks for coming to visit. We had a wonderful time with you guys here.

Ballet/Tap/Soccerball

Ellie,
Now that you are 3 we were able to sign you up for some different classes through the city. We signed you up for a ballet/tap combo class and Soccer Tots. You were always talking about being a ballerina like your cousin Lulu, dressing up as a ballerina and playing around in your tap shoes. You couldn't wait to go to class. We thought you were going to love it. When we got to the class you did a great job for the first part when they were doing tap. When it came time to change into your ballet shoes, you had a break down. You didn't want to do ballet. You stayed in the class with a lot of encouragement from daddy. When it came time for you to go the next week you wanted no part of it. So...we will hang your ballet shoes up for now and maybe try again if you want to later. Whatever floats your boat! Here are some pics of your one and only tap/ballet class.

 

Soccer was a completely different story. We got you a princess soccerball and just signed you up to see if you would like it. You never talked about soccer before. Now you talk about "soccerball" all of the time. You loved it! I am glad you loved it because it poops you out. The next week, you were excited to eat your 'soccerball power' (oatmeal) for breakfast and go to practice. It is fun to watch you at practice. You do a pretty good job of listening and following what the coach does. Natalie came with us to watch you at your first practice. Patchy, you have fun being Ellie's biggest fan. You clap and cheer and crawl all around playing with balls, cones and dogs.

 

 

    

 

Happy Halloween

Halloween 2012 was a hit!

Pumpkin carving with Daddy. Elise, you thought it was pretty gross but you sure liked digging in there and flinging all of the insides all around the kitchen. You were very excited and proud of your pumpkin.

So many costumes. Thanks to Grandma, you had a lot of Halloween cosutumes this year. You wore Alice to the church festival and Mops. You were Ariel at your birthday party. And you were Brave for Trick or Treating. Everybody commented on how they couldn't believe you keep your wig on. Little do they know that Halloween has got to be the best holiday for you since your favorite thing to do is dress up.

Patrick, you were Scooby Dooby Doo or a little train conductor when Scooby was too hot. You weren't too into the dressing up.

 

 

 Trick or Treating. For the first time, we stayed in our neighborhood instead of going over to Grandma and Papa's spooky house. Patrick, you could care less about the treats. You were so excited to see all of the neighborhood dogs. I think you said dog about 100 times that night. Elise, you were in heaven getting to chat with people and get treats. You loved touching all of the blow up decorations in the yards. You were enjoying the night until you touched an ugly girl/monster statue in front of someone's door and it scared the living day lights out of you when it started moving and talking. After that, you were ready to call it a night. I don't blame you...it frieked me out too.