Funny phrases

We have had the Goodyear blimp flying around our house the last two days. As soon as she hears the motor, Ella yells, "Blister!"

Ella seems to have entered a whole new stage of language development. She's always been good at sentences, but now they are getting very complex and you can actually have a conversation with her. She knows all of the horses at the stable by name and can even tell apart the ones that look a lot alike. Yesterday she said, "That's my friend Bourbon!"

Rand has discovered ravioli and thinks it's the most delicious food ever.

The two favorite albums to listen to are "Les Miserables" and the soundtrack to "O Brother Where Art Thou." It is pretty adorable to hear them sing together.

They both love wearing their cowboy boots. Ella's are hot pink and I'm almost-ashamed-but-too-cheap-to-really-be-ashamed that Rand's are brown girl boots. After searching and searching for decent priced boy boots, I finally hit up Walmart. If I had known that he would love them this much, I would've paid for real cowboy boots. Ah well!

First Horse Show

Rand and Ella were in their very first horse show last week. All of my other students were participating, so Rand decided that he wanted to ride, and then of course Ella wanted to as well!

We had to leave the house really, really early so by the time 10am rolled around, they were both pretty tired. I had to briefly be the mean beauty pageant mom but once they were on the horses and in the arena they both had a lot of fun. The judge talked to each participant and everyone got a GIANT ribbon and a bag of candy. Ella got lots of compliments because she was just so dang tiny but super confident.

If you ask Ella about her horse show she will proudly tell you that "I ride Bourbon in the horse show!" Since poor Rand is the teacher's kid he got the tallest horse (and one he had never ridden before) but he did a great job at being flexible and still having fun.

I Spy

Happy Halloween!

We had a fun Halloween with our Jedi and Monkey. We started the festivities with a party at Rand's school, with crafts, food, and hanging out with Rand's friends.

After that, we went to a Harvest Festival at the church where the kids go to Awanas. Very fun -- petting zoo, bounce house, all of the fun carnival games, train rides, and cotton candy! It was just the right amount of fun for Halloween.

Today's Highlights

Ella, after eating her breakfast this morning: "MAMA, I SPILLED EVERYWHERE! OATMEAL ON THE CHAIR! OATMEAL ON MY TINKERBELL JAMMIES! OATMEAL ON MY PANTS! (surprised voice) Look! My belly button is clean!"

Rand: "Mom, I need to ask you a sweet question. I love you, mom."

Red-Handed

I came downstairs to find Ella on the counter, sucker in hand, after she had been told to leave the Halloween candy alone. Her response? "I'm not eating candy, mama, nope!" "Then why do you have a sucker in your hand?" "I'm just holding it."