First Piano Lesson

Ella has been wanting to take piano lessons for quite some time now.  Just before Christmas we were blessed to be able to purchase a piano at a very reasonable price.  It was such a blessing.  A lady that my mom works with...her mother...had a piano she wanted to get rid of just because she didn't play it and it was taking up space in her house.
Then, it was a matter of finding a teacher.  I asked around but everyone I talked to was already full and had extensive waiting lists.  Then, Shelia called me one morning to say that she sat next to a lady at a basketball game that would come to your house and teach lessons.  Not only that, she is a great Christian lady.  So, I talked with her and she has been teaching Ella ever since.
Leah wants to take lessons as well and has already picked up on some things just by listening.  Interesting that my Mamaw used to play by ear and Leah seems to be doing the same :)  However, she can't take lessons until she is officially in the first grade, so not much longer. 
Here is a picture of Ella just after her first lesson.

Ella is 8 !!!!!!!!

I cannot believe that my first born is 8!  It feels like just yesterday that we brought her home from the hospital.  The years have certainly gone quickly.  I tell her all the time that I want to freeze her so she will stop growing so fast! 

Anyway, she chose to go to Snow Mountain this year instead of having a traditional birthday party.  So we got up early to go to Atlanta, played all day, then stopped back by Uncle Bobby and Aunt Tina's for the night.  I had ordered a cookie cake and Aunt Tina picked it up for us and so it was a total surprise to Ella!  She had a great time and told me it "was the best birthday ever!" 

All bundled up

Building a snow castle

Leah making a snow angel

Ella making a snow angel

A view of the slopes

Another view, just a little closer

The cookie cake

My totally silly girls

A Milestone

This past Sunday, Ella hit a milestone in life.  She went to camp.  Our church had Kids Camp at Camp Chandler for one night.  This was the first time she has ever done anything like this without me!  She was soooo excited.  I had always thought that the first time she went, I would be able to go with her.  It just didn't work out that way this time and I was crushed.  But, I knew not letting her go would be selfish of me.  Yep, I cried as the bus pulled away.  I knew, though, that she was in good hands (Shelia was there).  I'm so glad I let her go.  She had the best time.  She got to go swimming, do archery, ride a banana float pulled behind a boat, paddleboat, sailboat, canoeing, and sleep on a top bunk!  She said she can't wait to go back next time.

Ella with her friends Lindsey and Shelby before they left.

Gathering in foyer to have last minute instructions and prayer.

The bus

On the bus.....look at that grin....ear to ear.....so excited!!!

Finally...coming home...felt like forever for me :)

Thank You, Lord, for keeping my baby safe, letting her have a great time, and helping us to be a part of a church that invests in their young people!

Ella's Art Camp

Today Ella went to an art camp at P'zazz Art Studio in downtown Prattville ( http://www.pzazzart.com ). She has always been very artistic and loves to draw, color, and paint.  Last year for school, she had to keep up with a notebook where she drew pictures of the lesson she learned about that day and I was quite impressed by her perspective and the detail of some of the drawings. She has been interested in art class but also still interested in dance and gymnastics.  Since she can't do both, I let her take this summer art day camp to get her feet wet and see what she thought.  She got to work with several different mediums to include watercolor, acrylic, chalk, and charcoal.  When I picked her up today, she was already begging to go back :)  I was also very impressed by her work today.  I even asked her several times, "You did this all by yourself....with no help?"  I think she did a GREAT job and am more than happy to let her pursue this creative side of her (not to mention, they learn about art history by studying a famous artist each month)!

A seahorse.  Her teacher only helped with the eye...That's it!!!

In honor of the upcoming 4th of July

Done with chalk....she called it 'Crazy Mountains'

She had a harder time explaining this one, but said they were learning about shadowing.

Leaf done with charcoal

A Few Pix of the Pumpkins

These are just some pictures I wanted to share of my little pumpkins.  We have been so busy lately and I just wanted to share....

The Park

My cousin, Cantina, and her family were supposed to come back by our house for a visit on their way home from the beach.  Well, Cantina ended up sick with a fever, sore throat, etc so they had to cancel their reservation at the Hotel Roughton.  My girls LOVE their cousins so needless to say, they were devastated!  So, I tried to have a fun day to make up for it.  We went to the park and played and fed the ducks, went to the library, back to the park for a picnic, and ended with an ice cream from Dairy Queen.  

Last Day of Dance Class

The girls have so enjoyed taking dance this past year.  They take tap, ballet, baton, and gymnastics.  These are a few pictures of their last day of classes...

Look at Leah's perfect backbend :)

See Leah next to the pink pole?

A group pix with their teachers

Ella is in the corner between the windows

See Ella?  She is close to the pink pole.

Dance Recital

We were not allowed to take pictures in the dance recital and I videoed the rehearsal so I don't have pictures of it, but here are a few pictures of them in the parking lot before we went in.

Such Monkeys

These two are such climbing monkeys.  They will even climb the light pole out front!  This is a picture of them after they climbed as high as they could on their playset in order to talk to our neighbors.  I tried to catch a picture of them without them knowing, but Leah saw me and told Ella.  They will often climb up here if our neighbors are in their backyard and just have conversations with them.  They are so funny.  They are such social little bugs and thankfully, we have very sweet neighbors who adore our girls!  What a blessing!  I just pray they don't fall!!!

More Cricut Fun

The girls have a dance recital coming up on Saturday.  Ella's tap number is to the song "ABC, 123."  She is a 123 so I had to make her poster that she would hold up during the dance number.  I wanted consistency....either all pink or all polka dotted numbers.  Ella insisted, however, that she wanted both so this is what we came up with.  Of course, we used the Cricut to cut out the numbers and the polka dots and then hot glued them to the poster board.  Then I took sequin trim material to make a border around the numbers.  She loves it!!

Wild Kratts Party !!!

The party
Saturday was Ella's 7th birthday party.  I cannot believe she is so big!  I wish I could freeze her.  There are so many precious moments each day that she amazes me and I am so proud every second of every day that she is mine.  I really don't deserve the abundant blessings that both of my children are, but I am thankful. 

Ella chose to have a Wild Kratts birthday party.  She is crazy about Wild Kratts.  If you don't know what that is, it is a show on PBS where two brothers teach you about animals.  She loves animals of all sorts!  Then these brothers turn into cartoons and go on a creature adventure.  She blows me away every day with some new animal fact that I know I have never heard of before.  She really has learned so much.

On with the party...there are NO Wild Kratt party supplies out there.  None.  So Momma had to get creative.  I did eventually find a place on Ebay that I could order invitations from.  They sent a digital file and I had to get the invites developed like pix.  So I joined one of those online pix places that give you 50 free prints so I got them for free (except for what I had to pay ebay).  Gotta love that!

The invitation

The front door decoration

 The decorations
I found animal plates for the kids as well as animal print plates for the adults at Wal-Mart.  They also had animal print napkins and cups.  I found these zebra print tins at Hobby Lobby and put the silverware in them.

The decorations

 I found these precious candles online.  Had to have them :)

Cute candles, huh?

 Also found these animal print slap bracelts in Oriental Trading magazine.  They have cute party stuff, usually sold by the dozen, and usually for cheap prices.  It's a good resource if you've never used it.

Slap Bracelets

The games
Ella wanted to play a couple of games.  She made this one up herself.  The kids loved it and I was so excited that they had so much fun and it came straight from her imaginative brain.  She wanted me to make them all different types of animal tails.  Right.  Instead, I found these animal print bandanas in the Oriental Trading catalog and we tucked them inside the back waistband of their pants....a tail.  Then they spread out over the yard and on "Go!" they chased each other around trying to steal as many animal tails as possible.  Once everyones tail was gone, whoever had the most won.  They played that a couple of times because they loved it so much.  I don't have any pix because I was the referee but Charles videoed it and it was hilarious!  The other game, they pulled out an animal pix that I had printed out on the computer out of a bag and had to act out the animal....like animal charades.

The winners won these "trophies" I found at the Dollar Tree.  I thought they were perfect for this themed party and I found gold star stickers to put on them to make them feel like more of an award.

Bandanas...um, I mean tails

Trophies...a giraffe and a rhino

 The cake
Ella wanted cupcakes.  But we needed a cake too...I don't know why, I guess I just had to.  So I made a six inch chocolate cake with the Wild Kratts logo on it. 

The logo cake

Of course, I used animal print cupcake papers for the cupcakes.   For the cupcake toppers, I cut and pasted some pix of the Wild Kratts from Google Images onto a word document.  Then I took them to Office Depot and had them laminated.  I then taped them to a lollipop stick to put down in the cupcake.  A little time consuming but super easy and cheap!  One of the designs was just Chris and Martin, one was of the support staff (Aviva, Koki, and Jimmy), and the other was Chris, Martin, Aviva, and some creatures.  The other design I used (which didn't photograph to well) was of some stickers that Ella had gotten for Christmas that had animal designs on them that changed when you changed direction of the sticker.

 We had neopolitian ice cream (strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate) so that is the icing I used for the cupcakes.  The strawberry cupcakes had half with strawberry icing and half with cream cheese icing.  The chocolate cupcakes had chocolate icing.  I am just now really getting interested in cupcakes so this was a chance to experiment with the icing design.  They didn't photograph as cute as they really were.

Ribbon Swirl

Ice Cream Swirl

Classic Cupcake Swirl

The cupcake tower

The total cake package :)

Snack table....grapes, cheese, chips, dip, sodas, and cake...and note the animal print balloons :)

 And finally....

The fake blowing out of candles...I missed the first shot so we did a re-do!

Needless to say, if you didn't leave feeling like you had been on a creature adventure....it was your own fault!  Ella had a blast as did her friends, and that made me happy :)