music time

cranberry bogging, take 2

thanksgiving, part 2

our family thanksgiving:

here are my 2 most favorite people in the whole entire world:

and here's cutie gracie, who "graced" me with these huge smiles all afternoon:

Happy Thanksgiving, part 1

this thanksgiving i am so thankful for my precious family.  j. and ella brighten my life and help to make me a better person.  i love them more than anything in the world.

this thanksgiving morning, we hosted breakfast for momby and r. since our main family celebration will be tomorrow. pumpkin pancakes, local bacon, and fruit salad were on the menu.

r. and ella enjoyed watching the thanksgiving day parade.

ella showed mamaw how she's coming along with the violin.

playdough time.

here is a thanksgiving card elenora made at school:

give a little whistle

elenora has definitely learned to whistle!

thanksgiving, part 2

in the afternoon, we joined s. and aurora for their thanksgiving dinner.  s. was so gracious to invite us, knowing that we wouldn't be getting any turkey otherwise today.  while we waited for the turkey to finish roasting, the little girls played with bubbles and also got outdoors to jump in some huge piles of leaves.

after dessert we dropped ella off at momby's to be put to bed.  then i went to the gym before heading back over to help with the cooking preparations for our family meal.

pictures

elenora is thoroughly happy as long as i have a pen and paper.  i hear that this is just like j. when he was a boy.  i often can occupy ella by just handing her a paper and pen.

here's a picture of little bear that she drew while i made breakfast.  this is me (to the right with a heart on my shirt) looking at little bear, and we don't realize that the dark rain clouds are moving in, but the moon (to the upper left) does.  but don't worry, because it's only raining balls of yarn.

and ella's all-time favorite character to draw... little bear:

2 cranberries

needy.

we've been filling a christmas box to send to a child in need--a program that the church i've been attending is participating in.  yesterday ella and i stopped at the toy store to get a few fun things to go along with the more practical toothbrush-type things.  it was a little difficult for elenora to understand that we weren't picking out these things for her.  she kept trying to put forth an argument about how she also doesn't have a grey dog with blue eyes.  i reminded her about the berenstain bears helping those who are in need, and talked about little girls who don't get lots of presents for christmas.  even she could see that she did not fall into that category.

when we got home, she finally got into the spirit of things--taking it upon herself to pull together her own christmas box for little bear, who, she said, is in need.  as she filled up one box ("little bear doesn't have any shoes!" she'd say, as she found a pair of shoes to put into the box), she got so excited that she started filling 2 more boxes.

this morning i overheard her presenting the boxes to little bear.  she said, "these are for you, little bear, because you are a Needy."

newburyport with the girls

autumn walk with l.