Painting and Pumpkins!

We've had a pretty exciting day of crafts/special projects in our home the past few days. I must admit that I'm not one of those moms that likes to get down and dirty and messy. I'm usually not planning any type of activities that might involve finger paints, glue, scissors, glitter, or any of those other "messy" arts and crafts items. So when Ella and I made a trip to Hobby Lobby (LOVE that store!) this past week, and picked up some wooden letters, paint brushes, and paint, Ella was pretty excited to be involved in the project that was to come. We covered the table in newspaper, got out all of the supplies, and before long we had the letters E-L-L-A hand-painted to match the colors in Ella's room.

Here's my little artist at work:


And here's our finished product! (completed with just a *little* help from me)



Then on Saturday, we decided to make our way to a pumpkin farm to pick out a few pumpkins. There were goats and llamas to pet, play houses to explore, hay piles to climb on and walk inside, and many other fun things that Ella enjoyed running back and forth between. If my camera display hadn't died on me, and Ella hadn't done such a great job of running away each time we finally caught up to whatever attraction she was involved in, I would have captured a lot of cute pictures. But this is about the only one I got.



We did find a pumpkin for myself, Dave, Ella, and Pumpkin. After a much needed nap, we once again covered our table with newspapers and the pumpkin carving fun began!

Ella was our professional pumpkin-scooper-outter. (:



And here is our new pumpking family - a "classic" smile for Dave, a kitty-cat pumpkin for Pumpkin, a goofy smile for mine, and a scary-faced (chosen by her) pumpkin for Ella.


Ella was less than excited when I told her that pumpkins' home would be our front porch. She really tried to talk me into keeping them in the house where she would then be able to see them all the time. Sorry, they had to be outside where they were able to get a good view of the snow (yes, SNOW!) that we had blowing in the air today. Brrrrr!!

Colors of Fall

So I guess one of the up-sides of living in Wisconsin is that we actually get to experience a taste of the fall colors. I am absolutely in love with the deep reds and oranges that the leaves on some of the trees have turned right now. I can't remember seeing anything so vibrant growing up in California.

So, this past Sunday, Ella was all dressed up for fall as we went to church. It took some fancy talk to get my anti-tights child to put them on, but I think the number of people who commented about how cute she was in her pumpkin tights I think made her pretty happy to be wearing them.

It was such a beautiful, sunny afternoon that I decided to take her outside and try and get a couple of pictures with all of the leaves in the background. Here are a few of my favorites.








So, aren't her pumpkin tights pretty cute? (:

Ella Talk

Well, I figured it was high time to post another enty onto my "abandoned" blog. And I figured I'd let Ella do the talking on this one since she's been amusing me so much lately. Here are just a couple of our recent conversations:

The other night Ella pulled out one of her very heavy and vibrantly illustrated Bibles that we had not really looked at before. We were looking at the pictures of the creation story, and then read the story of adam and eve. After describing how the serpent had tricked eve into eating the forbidden fruit, I asked Ella if that was what God said to do. She immediately said "No." She paused, looked at the picture of the fuit, and then asked me this:

Ella: "Mom, what kind of fruit is this?"
Me: "It looks like an apple"
Ella: "But she didn't even wash it before she ate it"

Oh, how great of a sin that was commited on that day......

Then just this morning we were talking about all of the special days coming up, and started talking about Christmas. I asked her if she knew whose birthday it was on Christmas. She said "baby Jesus." I then asked her where Jesus lives. Her response: "Is it in another state?" Ha ha. I guess you could say that...... Kind of funny though since she's been talking so much about how Jesus and God live in her heart lately. I guess all of this moving and traveling and talking about the different states where different people we know live is affecting her thinking.