Just a tad early

This year the executive decision was made that we would celebrate Christmas day yesterday.  We don't do the Santa thing in our house and really have tried to gear it towards the birth of our Savior so it worked out nicely to be able to have Christmas yesterday morning so we could go to church right after we did a little gift exchanging and had a delicious breakfast.

We've been talking about Christmas for weeks now and Miss A has gotten excited about it because of both Jesus and "my advent" (as she calls it).  We got one of those calendars with chocolates in them and she gets a chocolate at the end of every day to help count the days down.  Since she's just a little more than two and a half, she's still learning about it all and trying to figure it out but we're excited to report that she's gotten the most important part of it down - which is realizing the importance of the birth of Jesus.  Miss A gets all excited when you mention His name and even knows exactly who He is in the nativity...

Every year Miss A has gotten stocking gifts and then three gifts under the tree to symbolize what the wise men brought to Jesus.  This year one of her gifts was her own Craftsman tool bench that I actually picked up months ago for a mere $12 from my favorite local thrift store.

We thought it was brand new because it looked sealed and the box just looked a little beat up but as it turned out, it was missing the battery-operated power tools and had only the manual ones.  *shrug* Honestly?  Miss A isn't missing them too much and has plenty of imagination power to make everything else that came work just fine. Oh... but DON'T call it her tool bench because in her mind it's a new kitchen.

Miss A's second gift was a very special doll.  I am forever in search of Asian baby dolls that actually look Asian and are pretty (many end up looking like aliens or far from Asian) and I've thought that I would have to pony up and buy one of those super expensive American Girl dolls that are close to $100.  (*sigh* I don't like that idea but I would budget and save for it if I had to.)  Thankfully I will have to do no such thing!!  One of my favorite doll companies in the world (I used to work at FAO Schwarz in college) teamed up with Walmart and created their own version of the 18-inch dolls that are very much like American Girl dolls AND they have one that is of Asian descent that is so much prettier than the American Girl ones.  YAY!!!!!!  I saw it at Walmart last week and it was a real steal at not even $30!!!  And it was a big hit with Miss A...

 

And seeing as how well it went over, I'm already scheming about how to get her some matching outfits with her doll for upcoming birthdays and other occasions.

And for the third present this year, well... we're waiting on that one until Christmas day with family.  We've got only half of it here and we decided to hold off on opening that until it can all be opened together.  It was a very blessed early Christmas for us this year though and we loved being able to go to our home church together.  Miss A was especially excited about getting all dressed up in her sparkly shoes AND koala hat...

God bless us everyone indeed.

Our little bear

As it's happened, I'm not crocheting so much these days. Sad but it's hard to sit down and do such a thing with everything else going on.  Still, somehow I managed to eek out some time to devote to what has seemingly become an annual tradition for Miss A: the Winter hat.

This year I decided to go with a Koala bear design for no other reason than it seemed like it would make an adorable hat.  I saw a few pictures of other peoples versions on etsy and ravelry but I didn't go by a pattern and just kind of winged it.  Total time it took me was maybe a little under ten hours but it was stretched out over weeks because I ended up running out of yarn and blahblahblah... I couldn't finish it quickly.

Anyway, here it is...

Not sure what next year's will be but I ended up making this one so large that she might not even need one next year!  (Of course, I will probably end up doing one anyway because of the unofficial tradition of it all.)

Just for fun

This one might be from summertime and I found it on the video camera. It's very entertaining and I dare you to try not to laugh out loud at certain points of it.

Our resident songbird

It's official. I'm the mom who embarrasses her child because I try to sing along too - as evidenced by Miss A telling me outright "NO" when I tried to sing with her. *sigh* This day was just waiting to happen.

Tiny dancer

Apparently, Miss A's new favorite thing is "busting a move." She's always been a fan of dancing but she's definitely opened up her repertoire to forms other than just old school 80s and 90s favorites.

She's the girl with the twirl and a heart that makes her just want to dance like nobody is watching! LoveLOVELOOOOVE her!!!!

A perfect Fall day

Took these pictures two weekends ago but only have a chance to post them now because I've been swamped in every way that I can be.

With December only days away now and Christmas shopping officially kicked off last evening for us, we're longing for the days when it was just warm enough outside to just knock around.  We've got the heat on in the house now and we've already used the fireplace on a number of evenings.  Long gone are those days of Fall that once were when it wasn't too cold to stand out and throw the frisbee to the dog...

Or push Miss A in her beloved swing...

Or rake up big piles of leaves for jumping in...

Or convince the neighbor's lawn guy to let you have all of her leaves from her yard for our mulch pile...

Or jump in an even bigger pile of leaves...

Or just plain stand around in the sunshine looking cute.

Long gone are those warm Fall days.  But certainly they're far from forgotten.  Until next year, Fall.  We'll be thinking warm thoughts of you!

Meeting our new neighbor

It's been a year a half since we were apartment dwellers.  And now that we're home owners, it's hard to believe that we were even stuffed into the little apartment where we lived in the first place!  But all the while when we lived in our little apartment, we dreamed about what it would be like to have our own "suburban paradise."  And despite the fact that this our second Thanksgiving of being saddled with a mortgage, we can't help but see beyond the obligations of that and instead be incredibly grateful for having a place to call home.

One of the great perks about our neighborhood is we've been surrounded by some really nice people and, just today, I was surprised when D came rushing into the house anxious to introduce me to a new friend who recently moved in...

D was out doing yard work and he discovered this little guy just hanging out in the yard!  And what a sweet guy he was.


Miss A was supposed to be taking  nap but was (instead) wailing away in her room so we went and got her up so she could meet our new friend as well...

She was very hesitant to make friends with him or even shake his hand despite D's best efforts to show her that he was a very cool guy!

She kept called it a "spider-bug" (her name for spiders) and had no issue with telling us "NO" every time we asked her if she wanted to touch it.

In time she warmed up to him and it was really fun watching her curious nature take flight as she discovered how cool nature really was. (We're such teachers the way we're always trying to make things learning experiences.)

"Miss A and the praying mantis"

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She wanted to touch the praying mantis SO BADLY but could not get over her reluctance enough to do so. She was very brave though and ended up doing but only with D (literally) holding her hand...

I'm betting that she's conquered enough fears today that the next time we introduce her to something like this, she will ask us if she can keep it and take it with her when it's time for bed.

Matthew 19:14

Matthew 19:14 NIV 

Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."

These days in the Ellwood house, we live in "prayer mode."  We are devout followers of Christ and His teachings and we work diligently to walk closer to Him and know what He wants us to do with our live and we work very hard to raise Miss A to do the same thing.

We've done bedtime and meal time prayers for as long as I can remember (with Miss A) but recently I've employed prayer time at other times during the day as well.  We've prayed in the car, we've stopping and prayed in the middle of playing, and once we even paused for a minute during bath time!  Perhaps it seems like we've taken prayer to the extremes and we're using it as if there are no bounds with it?  Well... that's kind of the point.

Prayer is the only way I know to actively and directly seek Christ for direction, forgiveness, hope, love, mercy, and grace.  It's the one thing that we the people have been given to use as a tool to speak directly to the Lord.  And so, we pray so much so that Miss A will seek Christ whenever she needs to - even if that means she has to interrupt her own plans to do so.  Because it's not our plans that we need to be carrying out but rather His.

It's a beautiful thing when I come home after a long day of pursuing the Lord through the work that I'm doing (that's come from tremendous prayer but more on this later) to a home and a family that actively serves, worships, and praises the Lord.  Because as for me and my house?  Well... we WILL serve the Lord.  (Joshua 24:15)

Some things never get old

Some of my fondest memories of my childhood are of bedtime when my mother would read to me. There were the ol' favorites that most every child remembers but then there were also the longer books without pictures that I remember fondly: The Little House on the Prairie series, Charlotte's Web, Alice and Wonderland, and an anthology of short stories about dolls. And the memories of hours of bedtime stories aren't mine alone! My two older brothers have also recounted the similar happy memories of their childhood as well! And because I can be such a traditionalist sometimes, I'm doing my best to make story time an absolute staple of bedtime for Miss A as well.

Miss CAN. NOT. go to bed without the same two stories every night. One is a book that my mom got for her from a yard sale or thrift store called "When Mama Comes Home Tonight" and the other one is "Hop on Pop" by Dr. Seuss. I can't recall when we read these books to Miss A for the first time but they are her absolute favorites and she even insists on reading them before her naps as well. Talk about a creature of habit!

As it turns out, we've read both of these stories SO MANY TIMES, Miss A has actually memorized them! Tonight I took some video of her chiming in on different parts of "Hop on Pop." I think it's just about the cutest thing because she has a hard time saying "Hop on Pop" and it always comes out as "Hop on Hop." *sigh* I will ALWAYS remember these times with her. ALWAYS.

P.S. In case you were counting, this is our 200th post so far on the blog!! Pretty nifty, eh? Thanks for keeping up with us. We've still got plenty more adventures to share just yet.

License to drive... already?!!

To say that it's hard keeping up with Miss A these days would the biggest understatement of the year...

• She's talking in full sentences enough to have a legitimate conversation
• Her vocabulary is likely around 200 words but probably more than that
• She has memorized and spontaneously sings entire songs
• She remembers many favorite story books and can fill-in the narration of certain pages
• She can follow two and three step directions
• Reminds us of things we promise her and makes sure we follow through with them
• Actively contributes to prayer time by verbalizing appropriate gratitude for things she's thankful for/enjoys
• She is climbing all over the place and will scale just about anything if you let her
• She knows what she wants and she's not afraid to vocalize it even if it means giving you a very specific directive (but, to her credit, she does say please and thank you)

And the list above is far from exhaustive! This is just all that D and I have been able to brainstorm because, as stated above, it is VERY hard to keep up with her learning something new and astounding us with her amazing toddler talents!

Tonight she really surprised us and put on a whole "show" of using her imagination and pretending that she was driving her baby around in her car. Wanna see?

Are you seeing this? She's underneath of her table! And she's got her little play driving console and she's shifting the gear shift!!!!! And let it be known that she was actually under the table WITHOUT her driving console pretending just fine. I was the one who actually slid the console in under the table with her because I thought it might be a little more fun for her! (I'm so unimaginative now that I'm adult the way I think you can't just pretend, eh?)

Here's a couple of better pictures of her "driving."

Just to clarify, that's her phone and it's called her "STRAWberry" phone and NOT a blackberry. (It's my old BB and she calls it every other type of berry but never a blackberry. *shrug*)

The above is actually how it all started. She was just climbing under the table and putting her keys in the various holes that were drilled in it to build it.

*sigh* She's growing up so fast!! D and I actually just went to pre-register her for preschool today. *GULP!* She's slated to start right after Christmas/Winter break ends for us at the start of the New Year. They've even said that of the two classrooms that she could be placed in, she will likely go into the more advanced class. Before we know it she WILL be asking for the keys to our cars and driving. We better watch out because would you be able to say "no" to a face like this...

... I'm thinking we won't. (We're such suckers!)

She could be on the next Dancing with the Stars

Miss A was in rare form last night. I got a number of good videos of her but this one is by far and away my most favorite so far!

She has this toy that she's discovered that's actually a baby toy - the very first one we actually ever bought for her when we found out I was pregnant. Well, it looks like a bouquet of flowers and when you press the blossoms, they play different songs music box style. Tonight she was dancing to the songs and having a grand ol' time. The best part is about halfway through when the song switches up on her and she actually changes her style of dancing to match the change in the style of music. I was just about holding my breath while I was filming it because I was going to laugh like crazy and I didn't want to make her embarrassed and stop doing it.

Feast your eyes on this... it's a good one...

The post you've all been waiting for

I know.

Why have we not posted pictures of our roof before?

I mean, it's WAY more interesting than pictures and/or videos of Miss A.

So.... without further adieu...

Our roof, ladies and gentlemen!!

Not nearly as exciting as you thought it would be? Yeah, well allow me to just state the obvious: It's really not all that great. (But perhaps that's because of the sad state of disrepair that it's in.

Allow me to make up for all of the silly roof nonsense with a picture of Miss A.

To answer your questions:

Yes. Miss A is wearing a shirt meant for a boy.

Yes. The shirt says "I do my own stunts."

Yes. Though Miss A might sometimes wear clothes meant for a boy, she will always be such a little girly-girl that picking sweet little bouquets of flowers will always rank high up there on her to-do list.

A peek behind the lens

It's a rare thing for me to be in front of the camera. But just so I can formally introduce you to the amazing piece of technological equipment that I'm now going to be using, thought I'd share the updated artist self-portrait that I'm going to be using to represent myself. The last one I took is from over five years ago and I thought I'd change things up a bit since I'm definitely not the gal I used to be. Care to see how far I've come? Here you go...

THEN: A rare moment of pause at a Jewish Orthodox Wedding I was shooting with my camera and dedicated flash on a bracket that flipped.

NOW: Less the long hair but PLUS so many more years of both life and professional photography experience and in full-frame sans a bracket!

Stay tuned for updates on all of my adventures. New camera, will travel...

All of us Ellwoods... now in FULL-FRAME

Here in the Ellwood house, we are big believers in divine intervention. We owe it all to the Lord for the things He's blessed us with us and we do it all for the Lord because it's only right to pay forward when you've received tremendous blessings.

Currently we're in a state of flux with regard to God's blessings...

• D is in his last year of graduate school and working his way towards a doctorate
• I'm in the process of applying to a grad school program that I looked two years for and was convinced didn't exist until it (essentially) found me.
• Miss A is just more of a delight and joy every day with the things she says (yesterday she wished D a "Happy Birthday" - mind you, it's months from it) and does (this morning she made us breakfast in "My kitchen" as she calls it)

And our most recent great blessing is that I was finally able to upgrade most all of my photography gear. This is something that I have been dreaming and thinking about for YEARS and praying about with all of my heart. But the fact of the matter is, these types of things take time and more specifically God's time. This was something that was all just a matter of God providing it in His good time.

So, without any further adieu, I present you All of Us Ellwoods the way God sees it... in Full-Frame (aka from my new pro-grade camera body) ...


His provisions, mercy, and grace are new everyday. And it's only because of Him that we have what we have and we're doing what we're doing. Thanks be to God.

Half bookworm, half night owl

Oh Miss A... what are we going to do with her?

Check this out:



Yes. That is Miss A. And YES, she is reading books in her bed with a FLASHLIGHT when she's supposed to be winding down and going to sleep!!!

Honestly though? It's hard for me to be mad about this because 1) she gets her hybrid ways of being a bookworm/night owl from D himself and 2) SHE'S JUST SO DARN CUTE!!!!

I mean, REALLY, people! Have you ever seen anything so sweet? She's so into books that she'll go to whatever means necessary to be able to read them in the dark!!! For parents like us (who are teachers), this is something that we couldn't be more proud of. And all I gotta say to Miss A about that is this: Go on with ya bad self, lady baby! GO ON!

---

P.S. Miss A's latest chuckle worthy moment: This morning D was changing her and getting her dressed and she said the following - "That poop was Ah-MAY-zing!!!" *We have no idea where she got this from since she certainly hadn't done any such thing in her pants. *

P.P.S. Lack of regular posting here is due largely because my camera died on me about two weeks ago and then mysteriously started working again - this also happened a couple of months ago. I completely expect it to go kaput for good any day now so I'm in the process of getting a new one/upgrading and you better believe I will announce it here when that blessed day arrives.

Throwback day: Let's go, Stillers!!!

This is a bit of a throwback that I stumbled upon just this week as I was cleaning out and reorganizing our hard drive. Miss A was about eight months old in this picture and I had gone out for the day only to come back and find them dressed out for a Steelers game on TV.


The other day when Miss A woke up she said two things:

1. "I wake up."
2. "I wanna watch football!"

What can I say? A love for football and Steelers is just in her blood.

The big girl bed

It's finally happened, world. Miss A has gone and grown up so much that she's no longer sleeping in her crib.


As you can see, she's quite pleased with the whole situation.



I got this bed for F-R-E-E but we just used the crib bedding we have because the bed was the same size as the crib. Doesn't make any difference to Miss A though. She's all about spending as much time as possible in it, on it, or climbing in or out of it. If I'd have known how much of a kick she was going to get out of it, I would have gotten her one a lot sooner!!



And this bed is SO amazing (to her, at least) that it inspires her to be super silly and do all kinds of "weird toddler things" as detailed in the next photo. *shrug*



Miss A is just growing up so fast! It's both exciting and sad.



They just grow up so fast and try and shut you out of their rooms so soon...

What we BEAN up to

These days Miss A is quite the busy little lady. She's here, there, and everywhere all at the same time and she would try to do everything all it once if we let her.

Last week I googled for activity ideas geared specifically for toddlers. I came up with some really cool things for her to occupy herself with but the clear winner of them all was one: Bean play.

I was a little concerned that Miss A would spend more time trying to either eat the beans or stick them in her nose or ears but after a little "how-to" lesson about what to do and what not to do...

She was off and running with the whole idea!

And she was occupied for nearly 20 whole minutes with this!!!

And the play segued itself into her trying to figure out other things as well.

Eventually she did start making such a mess with them that D and I had to make the executive decision to clean them up and Miss A was NOT happy with that but we will surely bring them out for another day - rainy or not - for her to play with them again.

Guess who wants a pony for Christmas

Right now everybody around these parts is all a-buzz about the regional Renaissance Festival, or the RenFest as "those in the know" know it as. Does everybody have these? I have no idea. However, what I do know is that it's a big deal around here!

Today's weather was every bit inclement but that didn't keep us from going as we've been planning on it all weekend. That and also? I printed off a coupon to save us a fair amount and it was only good for this weekend. *wink* (Penny saved is a penny earned in the Ellwood household!)

As it turned out, the weather didn't keep near as many away as might have seemed and it was actually a little nice because, so we were told, there was about 2/3 less people there than normal. Woo-hoo for just as much fun but less crowds!!!

We all decked ourselves out in rainy weather gear complete with galoshes and we didn't just have a ball eating our share of roasted turkey legs, Scottish meat pies, crab pretzels, frozen chocolate dipped graham cracker bananas, and funnel cake fries, we also had more than our share of splashing in all of the puddles and hanging out with all of the equine in attendance...

Miss A was in all kinds of heaven with the free pony rides that they had there. Granted, the ride was just around in a little circle and she wasn't off doing jousting competitions or anything but still? It was pretty awesome if you asked her.

And if the pony ride wasn't enough, there was this weird mime looking character floating about pretending like he was riding a horse that Miss A was more than happy to believe was a real horse.

The horse was pretty much a life-size puppet and the guy made the eyes blink, did some pretty realistic neighing of the horse, and dipped its head up and down just like a real horse would! It was impressive and Miss A was quickly head over heels for it...

*sigh* It was such a cute sight that OTHER PEOPLE were actually stopping, looking, AND taking pictures of her and all of her sweetness. Such a joy and a blessing she is to us and all those around her.

Perhaps next year we'll get her a cute little Renaissance costume and she can blend in with the "locals" a little better.