Happy Easter!

We hope you all had a WONDERFUL Easter Weekend! We had a great time spent celebrating Jesus' death and resurrection. What made it even more special was that we were able to spend it with some out-of-state friends that we had not seen for a while.

On Thursday morning my good friend Sarah was able to come for a short visit since she was in the area - well, a little ways away visiting her family in a Chicago suburb. She came with her two little girls and Ella had an absolute blast spending time playing with them. I had an equally good time talking and catching up. And it was fun to see her pregnant belly too! :)

Thursday night our church had a Maundy Thursday service. It was led by the choir and was a service of shadows. Ella thought it was pretty cool how all of the lights went out a little at a time. And she really paid close attention to the Christ candle, which was the last light at the end, and was carried out to end the service. It was a wonderful opportunity to talk with Ella about all of the symbolism involved and how it related to the death of Jesus and how we felt about that. And a great build-up for what we would be celebrating come Easter morning!

Late Thursday night our friends Gerrit and Michelle and their two kids arrived after making the 6-hour drive from Pella, Iowa. We were very excited to have them here and looking forward to spending Easter with their family. And to the many rounds of Settlers and Euchre that we could manage to fit in during our time together. :)

On Saturday morning the dads took the girls to the local easter egg hunt. They had a lot of fun, but we didn't get any pictures since I forgot to give Dave the camera. According to him, Ella had more fun running around and couldn't be too bothered to take the time to stop and pick up many of the colorful eggs abundantly scattered around her. So she came home with a much lighter haul than she could have had. But that was just fine as far as I was concerned.

Later that day we dyed and decorated eggs with the girls. This was the first time Ella has done this, so she was pretty excited. Here are a few pictures of the process and the results:

Getting the different color dyes ready:

Ella carefully decorates one of her colored eggs with stickers:

Showing off her work:

Admiring her four works of art - two glittery eggs and two sticker-decorated eggs:

Tessa and her beautifully decorated eggs:


Later on Saturday the dads hid a few plastic eggs and other little items in our backyard for the three kids to find. They did a great job hiding and the kids did a great job seeking (with just a little helpful hints from us when needed). Ella was pretty excited at how full her basket was at the end.

On the hunt:

Look what we found!

The girls and their loot:


On Easter Sunday we enjoyed a beautiful Easter church service. Ella was not too happy that we chose a lily to take home from the front of church instead of one of the tulips. We tried to explain that we picked the lily to honor her grandma that died since that was her favorite flower. She told me that next time we can order a tulip too for my dog Ginger that died. :)

After a very yummy ham dinner we had to say goodbye to our friends. That's never fun but we were happy to have had such a great time with them and will hopefully see them again soon.

Oh, I almost forgot what happened at the very beginning of our weekend - our 18-week ultrasound on Thursay morning. We know what we're having! It's a....
























































... GIRL!! :)

Hi Everyone!

Well, Hello to my mom anyway! It's been a looooooong time since I've posted anything, so I thought I'd better get something on here. So this one's for you mom - finally! (:

We've done quite a bit since December. There's been Ella's fifth birthday, a trip to the Milwaukee museum, kindergarten registration & readiness testing, getting ready for and beginning the hunt for our new home, and last, and most exciting - finding out about the new little brother or sister that Ella will be getting!

Ella is VERY excited about starting school next year. She is definitely done with being at home with me, and ready to move on to more exciting things. I know she would have really enjoyed it if she had been able to go to pre-school but, circumstances being what they have been the past couple of years, she missed out on that. So I know she will begin her first year of school next year with an extreme amount of gusto.

On February 17 Ella turned 5 years old. I still can't believe that my "baby" is growing up so fast! I took Ella and her friend Emily (who is just a few days older than Ella) to lunch and a movie. Then it was home to play for a bit, then have a special birthday dinner, cake, and open presents. Here are a couple of picture of Ella on her big day - one with her friend Emily and one with her princess cake.




She's also very excited about becoming a big sister. It's such a joy to hear some of the comments and suggestions she comes up with. She pretty much took over all of the pregnancy books I have, had to discuss each of the diagrams and pictures, and now claims to know everything about babies. I guess we'll see how she really feels about it all sometime around September 12.

Things to Do In December

Decorate the Tree!



Run Through the Snow!



Take a Little (okay, maybe a BIG) Taste Of the Snow!



Make a "Car Bus" out of one of the many boxes that have been coming in the mail the past couple of weeks!



Wear Rudolf Clothing! It's especially fun if the nose on your shirt blinks and you have socks with reindeer on them as well!



Enjoy what Ella calls our "Beeee-yoooo-ti-ful" Pointsettia that Pake and Beppe sent to us!



So those are the fun things we have been up to lately. Hope you are having a great December as well! (:

Who Wants To Come Over?

Good luck getting here if you do! We have about 11 inches of snow on the ground right now. It's still going - but looks like it will end soon. Here is a picture I took around 10am. I don't think the guy across the street got too far this morning, hee hee.


All of the schools, government offices, and even some malls are closed right now. People are getting their cars stuck all over the place - after spending an hour or two burying them out of the snow. It's a good thing Dave has today off. He worked this past Sunday, so could pick a flex day this week to make up for it. I think he made a great choice!

There's no question that WE are gonna have a White Christmas!

Weekend Fun!

For Halloween/Reformation Day this year I was a good frugal dutchwoman and talked Ella into wearing the same costume that she wore last year. Even though she told everyone who asked that she wanted to be a sprinkler for Halloween, we had no arguments when it was time to put the old kitty-cat suit on once again.

Here she is, ready to go!


It worked out pretty well because we left to go trick or treating at the same time the neighbor girls came out with their parents, so we were able to walk along with them, which more than delighted Ella.

After many blocks, a few meltdowns (not by Ella though), donning of the glowbracelets, bags of candy getting heavier and heavier, and Ella asking "When is it time to go home?" it was finally time to call it quits for the evening.

We had a great time, and what made it a million times better was that the weather was absolutely BEAUTIFUL! Last year we went out for just a few minutes, and Ella had on her huge coat, gloves, and hat. It was freezing, and not really much fun to be outside. This year we didn't even need any extra layers. Definitely a rarity that we thouroughly enjoyed!

Then, on Saturday morning we were up bright (well, dark actually) and early, so that we could be dressed, packed, and ready in time to catch the train to Chicago. Considering the fact that we could ride the metra train an unlimited number of times for $5 each (and Ella was free) for the entire weekend, we thought that would be a great way to travel down to the big city and would be a fun and somewhat cheap day out.

Ella had a ton of fun on her first trainride. Of course she commented on and questioned just about EVERYTHING. But I think she provided a lot of entertainment to those seated around us. Once we arrived in Chicago, we found out that they had trolley busses that ran for free and would take you to any of the major areas and back. So our cheap weekend became even cheaper. Woo hoo!

We ended up on Michigan Ave, and had to go into the American Girl Store. It was pretty crazy and busy in there, so not as much fun as it could have been to browse, but it was definitely an interesting place to be. Dave called it a whole separate culture. And I would have to agree.

We walked around, found a restaurant that served the deep-dish Chicago-style pizza, and looked in a few more stores. Then we got back on our trolley, rode back to the train station, and boarded the train back home. When we finally arrived at out stop, I told Ella that she was becoming a train expert. She replied "When I grow up, I want to be a train expert." A young woman in the aisle started laughing out loud and had to tell us how cute and entertaining Ella was. Yep, that's our Ella!

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!!