Dentist Appt. ~ Nov. 2017

Pictures taken Nov. 15 ~
Elli had a good dental checkup.  Still no cavities!

Elli has fun playing in the underwater-themed children's dentist office.

Elli on Ice ~ Basic Skills 3-6 Nov. 14

After Elli's group ice skating lesson and before she skates in the public skating session, Elli always helps set up the cones around the center circle of the ice skating rink for the private lesson area.  She is such a sweetie.

Ready for Sunday School!

Picture taken Nov. 12 ~

Pearls and a flower in her hair... just like her JieJie.  <3

A Little Morning Piano Practice

Picture taken Nov. 10 ~

Practicing for the Christmas recital!

Marshmallow's Haircut "Tribble"

Pictures taken in Nov. ~
Mom gave me a haircut, and ANOTHER "tribble" appeared!  Where do these things come from any anyway?

"The Trouble with Tribbles" (Star Trek)

Ready for cold weather with a warm (dolly) nightgown!

SaveSave

Elli on Ice ~ Basic Skills 3-6 Nov. 7

 Working on Shoot the Duck.

Ice skating friends.  :)

Halloween ~ 2017

Pictures taken Oct. 30-31 ~
We had a Harry Potter theme for Halloween this year!  I love that all three kids dressed up together even though one is at college and one is in France!

Daddy and Elli carving a pumpkin.

Drawing out a design for the jack-o-lantern.

 Daddy carved Elli's design!

We made mummy bars for our trick-or-treaters this year!  We printed off a mummy wrap design from Pinterest, taped it around a Hershey's milk chocolate bar, and added googly eyes!

They turned out so cute!  We didn't have any trick-or-treaters again this year in our neighborhood (we left later to go trick-or-treating too), so we have a nice supply of milk chocolate bars for s'mores!  :D

For our Harry Potter theme, we were able to do a video call on the iPad with Kaitlyn in France!  She was a magical painting of the Harry Potter character, Luna Lovegood, that came to life and started talking!

Kaitlyn had bought a witch's hat and then carried it all over Scotland and Ireland on her trip so she could dress up with everyone on Halloween night! <3

We also did a video call on Jeff's phone with Brady at college!  He was the Harry Potter character, Sirius Black, in a magical picture in the newspaper!

Elli dressed up as the Harry Potter character, Hermione Granger, and even had Hermione's magic wand that we got at Harry Potter World this summer in Florida!

Video!

Ready to go trick-or-treating!

Happy Halloween!

Pumpkin Patch Brownies

Pictures taken Oct. 29 ~
We made pumpkin patch brownies!

We tried a new healthier brownie recipe with avocado and coconut palm sugar.  They were pretty good! 

We made a sign with popsicle sticks that said "Pumpkins $0.50".   :) 

We baked the brownie on a round baking stone covered with parchment paper.  After baking, we sprinkled some crumbled gluten-free chocolate sandwich cookies and added some candy pumpkins.

So fun!

Pumpkin Patch ~ 2017 (Video!)

Pictures taken Oct. 28 ~

Elli loves going to the pumpkin patch, especially to see the kittens.  The kittens at the farm this year were a little older and were so big!

Hay maze.

Corn maze.

Found a kitten!

We got some yummy chocolate pecan fudge.

So cute.

 Elli found her perfect pumpkin!

 Playing on top of the big hay bales.

Video ~

Trunk-or-Treat ~ 2017

Pictures taken Oct. 27 ~
Elli was recognized for the school's Pirates R.O.C.K. (Raising Outstanding Character Kids) "Pride" character trait at the Halloween Trunk-or-Treat community event!

Taking a picture with the Pirates R.O.C.K. mascot.

Local businesses decorated their car trunks for Halloween and handed out candy for the trunk-or-treat at the YMCA community center.

Our bank's Dollar Bill mascot.  We had just opened Elli a Dollar Bill Savings Club account earlier that day!

For opening a Dollar Bill Savings Club account, Elli got a few little goodies including a blue piggy bank and a little money bag for deposits on dollar bill day at her school.

This business had their car trunk decorated as an elephant, and the candy came out the elephant's trunk! 

 Elli also had fun playing inside the YMCA!

2nd Grade Parent/Teacher Conference & Book Fair!

Picture taken Oct. 26 ~
We had a great parent/teacher conference with Elli's 2nd grade teacher.  Her teacher said that Elli is sweet and kind and she keeps on task.  Elli is comfortably reading and taking quizzes with nearly 100% accuracy on books at a 4th grade level, and she is already doing some 3rd grade math!

Elli found a cute "Puppy Secrets" book about dog breeds and a multi-color pen at the book fair!

2nd Grade Music Field Trip

Picture taken Oct. 25 ~
Elli looked so pretty for her 2nd grade music field trip to see a ballet performance.  The Nutcracker dances were her favorite!