And it's Christmas time!

We are finally caught up! We are all decorated and ready for the holidays. Let the baking begin! :)

  We wrote our letters to Santa! They have yet to be mailed, but we will get to that. :)

I am looking forward to Christmas this year. The kids are both old enough to really enjoy everything. Now that I am finally caught up I will post as we go about our month!

Thanksgiving

We had a very mellow, relaxing Thanksgiving this year. It was kind of weird but nice at the same time. Ella of course made out centerpiece.

 Ella's teacher talked the "feast" up a lot at school. So much that our mounds of food did not qualify as a feast in her mind. :)

The kids put on a play for us! I would put the video up but since I am already stealing Brady's identity to post I figure I better not waste the storage. :) It was pretty cute though I will tell you that!

This is just a random shot from last month. Brady has been traveling quite a bit and always brings something back for the kids. This time he brough them a geode. They were thrilled!

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It's a birthday wrap.

Last  month we had our last birthday of the year. Brady turned 31! Kids had a blast this year planning his "party". They helped decorate, make his cake, and Ella even made a game for it! Below is my favorite picture. We would sing and Carter would blow the candles out right before we would finish the song. He did it three times. We had to re-light and according to Ella, re-sing. It was hilarious (although Ella was a little more than irritated!). :) 

 Pin the tail on the pig was her game! 

Birthday's were so much fun this year. The kids were so into celebrating. Until next year...

Halloween...

It happened. Sort of. We were once again moving. We like to move that time of year for some reason. We did the trunk or treat and trick or treating. We never actually made it to the carving of pumpkins. Oh well. There's always next year. Look at my cute little kids all dressed up though. :)

Super Sleuth Ella!

This year Ella has been very into detective books. One of her favorites was Nancy Clancy (it's the new Fancy Nancy chapter book series). We decided to throw her a fancy mystery party! Here were her invites!

She had to have her very own fancy magnifying glass!

We had fun disguises for all of them as they arrived. 

Her Fancy cake!

This is where they met to talk about the clues!

The detectives!

They had to decode a message in the beginning. This told them the mystery they needed to solve. They were to solve the case of the missing marble (just like in the book!). Then they found their first clue!

Each clue had to be decoded in a different way!

And they solved the case!

She was SO happy one of her best friends that moved could come back for the party! They got silly with the mustaches. :)

And I love this picture of her friend Jagger. :)

Time for presents for the birthday girl!

And of course some cake!

The party was sure fun! :)

Ella's five!

Back in the end of September Ella finally turned five! It seemed like she waited all year. It is hard having an end of the year birthday! Here's my cute girl on her birthday!

Started the morning out with, you guessed it, presents!

She got her American Girl doll! She named it Julie. Who knows why. She got various other things from people as well which were not pictured for some reason. All except this from her Great Grandparents....

Who wouldn't want a nice place to read?

Auntie Cass, you always send the best gifts! Ladybugs and all. She adores it as you can tell!

Happy birthday my big girl!