Dancer-rina

I don't believe I've posted about this for awhile but Ella's still doing ballet. She continues to love it.

Her dance studio is wonderful. They're very reasonably priced and very laid back. Her instructor is also the owner of the studio. The recital costumes are always very tasteful and at a decent price. She's been with quite a few of the girls for the majority of the time she's been doing it.

Memba this 3 y.o. girl from her very first recital? Love her baby chub!
She's in the purple leotard with the pink flower headband.

I'm not well versed in ballet but I think Ella's doing one of the positions. Something about opening the window and closing the window.

Group skipping in a circle. They seem to do that a lot. This must be important to the team dancing competition.

I told E this was the move where it looks like she's pinching her own bum. She didn't find it as funny as I did. I think that might be a ballet move, too. Who knows. I just pay the tuition, ok?

This might be first position...maybe...

I think this is where she was one of the Lords a Leaping...

This might be an arabesque. It's sad that after almost 6 years of this I still don't know anything about it.

Party Rock Anthem

I took a day off work last Wednesday to help out with Ella and Luke's class Christmas parties. The kids insisted as part of the day that I join each of them for lunch with Subway in hand (they're not spoiled or anything, right?).

The day was pretty packed and went a little something like this:
7:40 AM I dropped off chocolate milk, cups, and marshmallows to Luke's class so his teacher could make hot chocolate in a crockpot.
7:45 AM-10:15 AM I joined Ella's class for their Christmas breakfast and games.
10:15 -10:45 AM I ran to Subway to get some yummies.
10:45 -11:15 AM Ate 1/2 my lunch with Ella and her buddies.
11:15-11:45 AM Went to my car to make some phone calls.
11:45-12:15 PM Ate the other 1/2 of my lunch with Luke. Realistically, it was only about a 1/4 of my lunch because Luke helped me eat my lunch as well as all of his.
12:15 -12:45 PM Ran back home to see if the roof repair guy had come.
12:45 -2:15 PM Joined Luke's class for his party.
2:30 PM I left the building.

Here I am in my car before the day started. Yes, it was dark when I arrived at the school. That can't be good.

Gettin lunchy in the cafeteria.

Gettin her drinky on during her class party. Merry Drinkmas!

Ella and 2 of her friends.

Luke and I hanging in his classroom.

Would I do this again?? Hmmm....

Round and round she goes...where she stops, no one knows!

As part of our tour of Mansfield, we stopped at the Richland Carrousel Park.

The non-riders...

The riders sprinting to their rides...(Ella's in purple and Luke's running after her in red)...

Ella's on the left in purple doing an exaggerating acting job like she's trying to catch up to Luke...I don't know where she gets the pretend-drama acting job that she does...yup...don't know where at all... (zip it, Jeanne. I said I don't know where she gets it and that's that.)

Again with the pretending, this time I think they were supposedly acting like they were falling off...

Coney Island is in Ohio?!?!

They're pretty excited about the prospect of Coney Island being in Ohio....can you tell?

That's right! The Coney Island Diner of sunny Maaaaaaansfield! Aron had been there before but the rest of us had not. It's super cute and in the middle of downtown Mansfield. A fun little side fact is that my Grandma grew up in downtown Mansfield. My Mom's family lived there until she was in early grade school (second grade maybe?? I'm sure she'll correct me if I'm wrong.) Also, sorry Jack and Connie but my roots don't go very far back on this side of my family tree.

A fun little side fact: I did not enjoy coleslaw until I was pregnant with Luke and my hormones made me want it really bad. I also enjoy cream cheese now thanks to Luke.

My cod sammy with tons of pickles (me likey) and some fries.

Aron's meatloaf sandwich with fries.

Notice the complete lack of teeth for one of these individuals.

Ella said he was hogging the shake because he had two straws and she only had one.

Someone else got in on the action, too.

*Sigh*

Sometimes this guy right here comes up with some doozys. Like when I took this picture of him drinking a milkshake. He said "This is so hard to suck that it makes my eye do this." See also freaky, turned in eye.

Or when I bought a can of Chef Boyardee and he had some of it over the weekend. He said "Is this Chef Boyardee?" I said "Yup." He blissfully said "He's my favorite chef."

Or like a couple weeks ago when he asked me "So when do I get to see this naughty list?" I said "Why? Do you think there's going to be an issue come Christmas?" He said "I'm pretty sure I'm ok but I'd like to know for sure." I said "Why don't you just pretend like you're on the naughty list and are trying really hard to get on the nice list by being extra well behaved." He paused and said "I'd rather just see the list."

Pics of my finished living rooms for my Mom

As much as my Mom has recovered, she still has unfortunately not been able to come into my new house. (Timeline: Sometime in late Feb/early March 2011, we decided we wanted to buy our new house. Mom drove by it a few times and Dad came in it once before she went into the hospital.) She's not able to get into my house since her release because there are too many stairs to navigate. She likes to be updated on Aron's progress but I thought I would post some pictures, too. We have plans to build a ramp or something in the spring so keep your calendars open...we might need a little help.

As a side note, the yellow color in the pics is not quite right (sorry, you'll just have to picture a different yellow, Ma)

**Footnote: Aron bought the trio of paintings for me for our anniversary from a woman on Etsy. They are perfect!

She's sugar and spice and he's, well, I think you know what he is at this point...

Ella was going to bed last night and was trying to force KiKi to sleep with her. KiKi was resistant and decided to be with Luke instead. She looked at me with woeful eyes and said "Seriously?? Why does she want to sleep with him? Mommy, he farts! He burps sometimes, too!"

We were driving in the car the other day and there was discussion about how Grammie had watched the kids for the first time since she got sick. Luke said he had a great time being there with her. He told me "Mommy, Grammie makes me happy in my heart."

Buck-nuts

We had a family date day yesterday. So we did a little shopping, little hanging out, and a little Buckeye basketball action. For the first half, we didn't have 4 seats together, so we had to sit 2 and 2...
The ladies sat together...
And the gentlemen sat together... Then Luke found a new friend to sit with...(Aaron Craft)...

After the first half, we conned Aaron Craft's Dad into letting us use his seats (super nice guy, btw) so we were able to sit together right behind the bench... (the guy pointing behind Luke is some relative of Aaron's--I'm guessing an uncle because he looked very similar to his Dad, the girl in pink is his sister, and the blond woman beside his sister is his Mom)

Yup, this is how close we were (so fun)...

Cuties...

I have to admit, we don't really follow OSU Women's basketball very much. However, I'm such an OSU nerd that I knew exact who she was without knowing her name. I recongized her face because she looks just like her father (click me to see him). I was pretty little when he played at OSU but I still remember watching him and Troy Taylor hoop it up.

I guess she's an XBox...and I'm more Atari...

I don't always play the Mommy role well (aka I'm not setting the world on fire with my parenting skills) but on a rare occasion, I manage to get something right. This time, I knocked one out of the park.

This little girl turned 8 over the weekend. To celebrate, I took her to Sweet and Sassy to get her girly on. She got her hair done and ears pierced by a lovely girl named Maggie....

Mid hair do-ing
Consultation with Maggie about her options (options being glitter color and hair spray scents)

Prepping her face for glittery stars on the side of her face

Hair done. On to piercing.

Getting ready for the main event complete with Birthday Girl sash and everything.

Marking her ears.

Double checking and then checking again.

Maggie and her piercing buddy came at her with both guns blazing.

Success!

She did so well with the ear piercing. She's wanted to get it done for a while now but I told her she would have to wait until she was 8. Because she's older, I think piercing her ears means more to her, and she can take care of them herself. Ella's very proud of herself because she didn't cry or even flinch a tiny bit. She just sat down and did what she had to do. Reminded me quite a bit of this event (click on the link for an entertaining back story on my little cutie).