a little florida sunshine

this thanksgiving we travelled to florida for 2 weeks. it was great getting to see both sides of the family and spend good quality time with my mom, dad, aunt and uncle. we discovered a really cool park near my parents house. complete with a castle fort and tractor slides!

what florida trip would be complete without a trip to disney world??!! well, this was one of the firsts i could remember going to the magic kingdom in jackets. it was a perfect day!!

ella talk

so we've been in central florida since thanksgiving visiting family. one day corinne was taking a nap. ella and i were sitting in the sunroom together and my mom asked how long corinne had been asleep. ella responded, "for 20 years" very matter-of-factly. we just busted out laughing.

i've got joy

ella on the way home," i've got drink like a river in my whole". instead of, "i've got peace like a river in my soul".

child-like wonder

so, this thanksgiving we traveled to florida to surprise my mother-in-law for her birthday party. as we were taking off from san francisco ella asked, "oh, but how are they going to put dust on the tail?" "dust?", i asked, "you mean pixie dust?" ella and corinne thought tinkerbell was making the plane fly. then as we were ascending corinne started chanting, "go tinkerbell, go tinkerbell!" i just love them.

abin5

so this is my latest obsession, baking artisan bread. our family got addicted to having bread with dinner when all our lovely friends were bringing us yummy meals with french loaves to boot! so after that i was buying loaves of artisan bread from the store. i started looking for some good recipes to save some money AND so we could have it on hand. last week we tried the whole wheat recipe and this week i'm on the white bread. it's awesome, you combine all the ingredients for a week of bread and make a wet dough that stays in the refrigerator. you just pull out what you want each day and bake it. so good!! it's even better with fresh ground honey roasted peanut butter from whole foods...ahem, not a low calorie snack. i got the recipe from: www.artisanbreadinfive.com. it's so easy and delicious!

coloring contest

tonight we took the kids out to mary's pizza shack for dinner. they are currently doing a coloring contest for halloween. so while we were waiting to be seated ella and i were admiring the entries posted on the wall and window. i commented on how nicely the kids had colored their pictures and ella was quick to agree.

so we were seated a few minutes later and the hostess (who is actually a gal from our church) gave ella and corinne crayons and coloring sheets. ted and i got to work getting jackets off, moving things out of corinne's reach, seating bohdan safely, and deciding what to order.

i looked over at ella and she had begun coloring her pumpkin. for the first time she drew a face and mostly colored in the lines. ted and i were so surprised!! usually she colors "swatches" of color all over the page.

you can't see the eyes here because she colored over them. i guess she was really inspired by the other pictures.

corinne also colored more than normal, but she was more interested in taking the crayons in and out of the cup.

this is corinne's finished product. they both entered their pictures in the coloring contest. ella was quite pleased with having an entry as i filled in her name on the back she said, "that's right mommy, i begin with 'e'".

medtronic trick-or-treat

every year for halloween ted's office puts together a little fesivity. family members can bring in their kids to trick-or-treat through the different departments. so, the kids got to try out their halloween costumes early.

corinne got her minnie costume for her birthday. she actually stood still while i fixed her hair!!

ella surprised me on monday when she told dr. brewer she was going to be a ladybug. it was the first i'd heard of it! so, there was some late night shopping at target to put this thing together.

she was pretty excited about it!!

here's little minnie looking very tiny in a big office. so, this year the office had a haunted house as well. we didn't take the kids through, but there was a section right at the beginning where you could take your kids and get glow sticks and candy. unfortunately, you could hear "boo's" and screams in there. ella was so scared she dropped her glow stick as she headed for the door. luckily only one small part was the haunted house and the girls enjoyed well-lit, scream free trick-or-treating out of the rain. we even got to eat lunch with ted (which i think was their favorite part).

the excitement was too much for corinne and once again she fell asleep on the way home.

here's ella concentrating very hard on how she's going to open her candy.