Attack of the Ella Monster!

Pretty Girl (and patient dog)

Grandma's Dress

Our not-so-baby Ella, in the dress that belonged to her Grandma Eleanor:

Another California trip!

We had a lovely visit to California a couple of weeks ago. We drove out on Sunday, and even though we left in the afternoon, still had a pleasant drive.


On Monday we went to Tewinkle Park with some friends for lunch, and drove up to my sister's house in the evening. We had lots of fun seeing Katie and Elijah -- Rand LOVES babies and thought he was just great. He tried to give Elijah lots of hugs and kisses.

We went to the Discovery Science Museum with Grandpa on Tuesday. The kids had so much fun playing and exploring everything. On Wednesday we went to the beach. We saw a dolpin and a pelican and the weather was just perfect. Rand had so much fun playing in the waves. Ella was content to sit in the sand.

We headed up to Ventura on Thursday to visit Grandma McVittie. After a grueling 4-hour drive, we made it in time for lunch at the harbor. Ella was enamored by all of the seagulls, and Grannie bought her her very own stuffed animal seagull at the nature center. They both loved looking at the fish and lobsters in the tank, and Rand got his first Magic School Bus book. We also played at the beach for a while; Rand found a ladybug and was very gentle about letting it crawl on his arm.

Snow Day

Rand had been asking to go play in the snow for weeks, so last month I decided to JUST DO IT and took the kids up to Flagstaff for a day.

It was a great day. They were so good on the drive (about 3 hours) and we had a blast. We played with a gigantic sundial at one of the prettiest rest stops ever:

The pay phones were also incredibly exciting and unusual.

At last, we made it to the snow. Rand was so good about being patient, even though he could see the piles of snow out of the car window. I decided that if we were going to play in the snow, we were going to a place where there was a) food and b) bathrooms. We went to a specific Snow Play location, which was perfect because there were tons of families and kids all having fun.


Rand LOVED it. He was laughing out loud as he ran through the snow. He fell down on purpose a lot, made snow angels, and wanted to make a snowman but I didn't bring my gloves so it was a little chilly for me. We compromised and had a snowball fight instead.

We had corndogs and a candy bar for lunch.

It was such a nice sunny day -- we didn't need jackets or hats (Rand just liked his hat)

Finally, we bought a sled.

Rand had so much fun sledding down the hills. The three of us all would climb on and he was laughing and shouting the whole way down. I wish I would've been able to record it, but trying to juggle steering, two kids, and a video camera would've been dangerous.

He even wanted to go down the big hill. We did a couple of times, but Ella was absolutely terrified, poor thing, so we stuck mostly to the smaller hill. Hopefully next year she will have more fun -- she liked watching the kids play, but she did not want to be set down for more than 2 seconds. My arms were very tired by the end of the day.

We didn't even make it back to the main road before this happened:

Oh, Happy Day!

Both of my kids slept all night for the first time.

Which is pathetic, I know, but really, Ella's waking up isn't that bad. She wakes up a couple of times a night and just needs a little love and then she goes right back to sleep. The problem is that I don't always go right back to sleep.

I went to bed at 10:30, woke up at 6:30, and checked -- both kids were sleeping quietly in their own beds. Hopefully this becomes such a regular occurrance that I don't feel the need to blog about it.

A Great Idea

I snuck away downstairs for a few minutes to check my email. Ella was playing outside, and Rand was downstairs with me.

I came back upstairs to find that Ella had poured dirt inside my tennis shoes and dumped several scoops of dirt on the hallway floor.

Rand surveyed the mess and helpfully suggested, "Mom, you should put up a sign that says "NONE [sic] DIRT ON THE FLOOR."

4 1/2

Rand turned 4 1/2 today, so we celebrated with a trip to Yogurtland. Chocolate, vanilla, and sprinkles!

Top Remarks Today:

"What would happen if God touched the sun?"

After singing "He's got the whole world in his hands" -- "What would happen if a person walked off the world onto God's arm?"