The gingerbread girl

For years now, Aunt Katie has helped an old family friend with a nice, holiday-themed fundraiser. Don't ask me why, because I don't have a good answer, but we never participated until this year. The event: Gingerbread house decorating. The place: Mrs. Pumpkin's Bakery. The cause: The Special Children's School and Family Support Network of Greater Forsyth.

We were greeted by the ever cheerful, Aunt Katie. She led us to our station, complete with gingerbread house with tons of candy on the side. Ellie knew exactly what to do. No, she didn't start eating the candy (EM and I did that). She started putting candy on the house. It was only following the brilliant example of her parents that she started eating the candy.

We were there only a short time. But it was fun. It was for a good cause. And now we have a customized decoration for the home to help us kick start the holidays. Good deal. Thanks, Aunt Katie.

-ED

P.S. - Santa was there, but Ellie wanted nothing to do with him. Surprise.

Lines

Ellie has a quirk. She has a thing for lining her toys up.

We call ourselves neat and organized. Others call ED and myself anal.

Anyone to guess where Ellie got this affinity for lines?

-EM

*all lines where created exclusively by Ellie

It was a beautiful fall day!

I got off work a little early today. Ellie and I did a little shopping. We spent most of our time at Borders reading. Then we went home to enjoy the evening outside.

-EM

PS- The picture taking has been lacking in the past few months. Mostly due to the move. We are getting more settled. There should be more pics in the near future.

"Can we go to one more house?"

Our fairly, little princess did a great job with halloween, and had a great time in the process. But, as was mentioned in the prior post, we'd been working with her in preparation of the festivities and I think that's where the credit lies. Also, props to Nans for the costume - I think if we had let her, Ellie would have slept in her wings and tutu.

Things kicked off Friday at the church with a halloween party. There was food and games and trunk-or-treating. Ellie enjoyed the food; the cupcakes, in particular. She didn't give two cents about the games. Then we wrapped things up with trunk-or-treating. Ellie didn't shy away (as is her tendency around people she isn't overly familiar with) and, in fact, went up to many trunks and said "trick-or-treat" and "thank you" with little to no prompting from us.

As for halloween night, Nans and Pa came over to "help." So after dinner and taking care of a few premature visitors, the five of us headed out around our new neighborhood. Ellie's timing was a bit off in that she said "trick-or-treat" many times before the door opened, but she did a great job nonetheless. And there were several times when we were ready to end it, only to have her ask "can we go to one more house?" All in all, a huge improvement from last year.

-ED

Practice

We have been practicing our trick-or-treating. Each night this week we have taken Ellie outside, let her knock on the door, one of us opens it from the inside, she then holds out her bag and utters the magic words. The best part is when her and I split the candy afterwards - surprise, surprise. Anyhow, this is all done in the hope that we will avoid any similar problems to those experienced last year.

-ED

Quote of the year?

"Daddy, I love you. You make my heart feel super happy."

Oink

Tonight at dinner, Ellie was telling each of us which character - from the show Super Why - we are. The characters consist of Super Why ("with the power to read"), Princess Presto ("with spelling power"), Wonder Red ("with word power"), and Alpha Pig ("with alphabet power"). So when she got to Nanny, she said "Nanny, you're the pig!" Needless to say, Pa, EM and I had a good laugh at poor Nanny's expense. Nothing new. Right, Nans?

-ED