Party Pics

A few pics from the last birthday party that Ella attended. Belle was the guest of honor. All of the girls are from Ella's ballet class.

Ella Graduation Pictures

A few shots of Ella's preschool graduation.

Ella is smack dab in the center. Her cap had fallen off of her already. Good thing that one of her teacher's saved the day by putting it back on after the first few songs.


Ella looking pretty cute with the cap on.


Ella with one of her teachers, Ms. Zuly.


Ella and her "diploma."


Ella and her second teacher, Ms. A.J. Ella cried before bed that night because it was also Ms. A.J.'s last day at the school.


A family shot.

Ella's Preschool Graduation

We have a few short videos from Ella's recent graduation ceremony. It was cute of course, but also a little bit comedic. The kids were off-tune, their caps were falling off, and Ella decided to try and fix her neighbor's cap whenever it fell off.

The youtube link is below:
Graduation Video #1

The quality may not be very great. We're in need of a new video camera soon.

Party Madness

I've been planning for Ella's 5th birthday party for more than two weeks now even though it's not until the end of June. I think that it began when Ella started to get party invitations for every weekend in May. I just freaked out. I started to feel competitive and really began to research the birthday options in our area. I thought about tea parties. It just didn't seem right. I looked into the Aquarium and the museums in our area. I just wasn't sure how that would be either. So, we decided on a princess party at our house. Princess parties need a character. Ella wanted Rapunzel. So, I researched and booked a Rapunzel.

I didn't want to get so wrapped up in it all, but it seems to be happening.




I think that parties for kids can definitely be over the top. This age seems to be the worst. When kids are little they don't really know the difference between birthday parties. And older kids seems happy just hanging out with friends for their birthday. But this age is tough. Now that Ella's almost in Kinder, she's more aware of differences. She wants what her friend's have. It's hard for me because I want her to fit in with her friends. So, I want her to have a party that the girls will think is awesome.

Ella's Preschool Graduation is tomorrow and I can't believe it. Sometimes it seems like it was only yesterday that she was a baby, but a lot of the time it seems like a long time ago. I would like it to slow down a little bit though. I'll post pictures from the graduation. It should be pretty cute.

No Umbrellas?

We just had two days of rain here in Colorado. It reminded me of winter in California. The temps were about the same and it was just similar. I have about a five minute walk from my car to my work, so I made sure to bring my umbrella. The strange thing was...no one out here uses an umbrella. I work in an area with plenty of walkers and NO ONE had an umbrella. Everyone either used a hood or just got wet. Even when Ella and I ran errands during the afternoon, there were no umbrellas. I saw maybe two umbrellas for the entire two days that it rained.

I used my umbrella because I didn't want to get wet. Some people driving by me were looking at me like I was a weirdo. Maybe it wasn't the umbrella that they were looking at. I guess that rain culture varies from state to state.

On a side note, we have another busy weekend. Ella has another birthday party to go to. This is her third weekend in a row. It's great for her, but not so great for Whit and I because we have to foot the bill for the gift and go to the parties with her. Whit is also running his first Colorado 5K tomorrow. It's the Highline Canal Run. The Highline Canal is a 66 mile trail that runs through most of the Denver area. His sister will be running with him (I don't run). Finally, we have Ella's swim team tryouts on Sunday. I'm definitely more nervous than she is.

Mother's Day

A typical night being the mother of a four-year-old:

1. In bed at about 10:30. We fall right to sleep - totally exhausted from the birthday party in 85 degree heat at the park that we had to go to.

2. 12:30 am - woken up by Ella just to tell us that she "has to go potty." Although she is totally capable of going on her own, she feels the need to wake us up to tell us that. Also, Whit goes into Leigh's bedroom to tell him to keep the noise level down.

3. 1:00 am - Ella is crying. Whit and I wake up and rush into Ella's room expecting to find her severely injured or, at the very least, on the verge of violently vomiting. She wants to tell us that she's too hot. I reprimand her a little and tell her to stop crying and remove all blankets except for her sheet.

4. 2:30 am - Whit wakes up to tell Leigh to "GO TO BED...NOW."

5. 3:00 am - Whit gets up again to make sure that Leigh actually went to bed.

6. 5:30 am - Ella wants to know if she can get up because "the birds are already awake." In her defense, the birds are pretty noisy this morning.

7. 6:30 am - We wake up because Ella is lying in her bed singing. We can hear her over the monitor. Whit gets up with her (allowing me to "sleep in" until 7:30) and starts making breakfast. This morning I had breakfast in bed while Ella sat next to me watching TV. She also delivered hand made pictures and cards to me while Whit was cooking. She wrote "mom ilvu fo Ella" (translated as Mom, I love you. From, Ella) on one of them.

Would I trade my sleepless nights? Not for anything else in the world.

We also created a new tradition today. A Mother's Day hike. The scenery may not look like much. The winter season was so incredibly dry that the brush is pretty brown. It was still a pretty hike.

Ella at the trail head.


Ella really, really wanted to bring a backpack on this hike. Less than 5 minutes into it, Whit had the privilege of carrying it.


Peeking through the hills to Denver.

Easter Egg Hunt

I haven't had any time to update the blog, but here are some pics of our lovely, indoor egg hunt. We went to church services with Whit's sister and family in the morning and then had his sister and the cousins over for brunch and an egg hunt. Yes, I made the brunch. It actually turned out quite well. I'm learning that everything doesn't have to be homemade and that it's okay to cut corners. Also, people don't even notice. I'm proud of my last minute planning. We had pastries from Whole Foods and also pre-cut fruit from there. I made biscuits (the Pillsbury kind), a cheddar and bacon frittata, and hash browns. The saving grace were the Bloody Marys that Whit served. We had to have the egg hunt indoors because it was only 40 degrees at about 11 am and it was also damp outside. It actually worked pretty well because there are so many hiding places inside.