Life with Ben and Ella

Monday, November 03, 2008

Tell the truth...

If you found your 2-year-old like this, singing her ABCs, would you think she was weird?

And when I went to turn off her light last night, I found her like this:

I didn't know she'd need a backpack for her trip to never-never-land.

She wasn't overly tired when she went to bed last night, so I guess she played a little in her room, and she does like to wear backpacks around the house. So I guess this shouldn't surprise me. I was able to unwind it from her arms without disturbing her too much and she went right back to sleep.

Kids.

Sunday, November 02, 2008

Odds 'n ends

I had Ben call Mom on her birthday, but she was out. Of course, their answering machine picked up, and the message said "...leave your name and number..." So Ben waited until he heard the beep (like I told him to), and then he said, "Hi Grandma. It's Ben and our house number is 15. Happy Birthday. Goodbye!"
___________________________________________________________________

Leading up to Halloween last week, the place where the kids take gymnastics encouraged the kids to wear their costumes to class for a little extra fun and some pictures. And then at the end of class, every kid got a ghost - a sucker with a kleenex tied on top of it. On the way home from Ella's class, I unwrap the sucker for her, and her eyes widen and she said to me, "Dank oo so mush Mommy! I so sited!" ("Thank you so much Mommy! I'm so excited!") And then, "Mmmm, tasty!" "I so sited!" (lick) "Mmmm, tasty!" over and over and over again. And we live only 2 blocks away from gymnastics, but she said this about 6 or 8 or 20 times. It was very, very cute. ___________________________________________________________________

Later that evening, I was taking Ben to his swimming class when we had the following conversation: "Mommy, guess what?" "What is it Ben?" "I think I'm growing my first beard!" (trying not to laugh) "Really? You don't think you're a little young for that?" "No, I can feel a couple of hairs here on my chin!"
__________________________________________________________________

Ella is (finally) talking up a storm and loves to sing her ABCs. Typically, the ABCs are like the song that never ends - she just starts all over again, again and again, and again. She came up with something different though - the end verse, instead of "Now I know my ABCs, next time won't you sing with me?", according to her, is "I know, I know EFGs, H I J K Ewwa Bee!"

Saturday, November 01, 2008

The Halloween Rundown!

I can't really think of a good intro to this post...sorry. Hey, did you know it was Halloween yesterday? :)

It was Ella's turn to be the lion this year - even though Ben initially wanted to be the lion, he ended up wanting to be the dragon again (he was the dragon last year).

Here is Ferocious Ella:

When Ben saw that Ella was getting a nose and whiskers drawn on her face (with Mommy's eyeliner!), he wanted them too:

So there you have it - a dragon with whiskers. Betcha never seen that before!

We set out around 6pm, heading down our street. As per usual, there are only a couple of houses that are giving out candy (what IS up with that????), but the kids got so much darn candy! Seriously, we went to about a dozen houses and they got all this candy:

And that was after we all had eaten some!

I know that we buy a lot of candy, JUST IN CASE this is the year that we get a whack of kids. And it was so nice out yesterday, maybe there'd be more traffic than in prior years. But no, we only had about 11 kids. Where are the good ol' days where all you saw was families walking around the neighborhood, lineups at the houses? Is it the big city? Gord says no, he remembers the same as me. Sigh.

Anyways, at every house, Ben would knock on the door, say "Trick or Treat" and then say the following (verbatim):

"My name is Ben. This is my little sister Ella. I'm dressed up as a dragon and my little sister is dressed up as a lion." And then, if they were lucky, he'd take a couple steps into their house and comment on something - "That's a nice guitar you have there." "Aw, look at the cute kitty!" He was kind of impatient between houses, 'cause the little lion was a little pokey, but she was having fun. After about an hour, Ben was asking to go home, so we gave up and went to see if we could trick Grandma, who was manning our house to give out candy to...no one, really.

Oh, Charlie was "Franken-dog":

Actually, the stitches came out earlier this week. But still...YIKES!

After arriving home from the marathon Trick or Treating:

Ella: "Cheezies? I like Cheese! I hope I don't have to share with Daddy!"
Ben: "Daddy, Ella's having Cheezies!"

And now, a little stroll down memory lane:

My gosh, they are growing up too fast.

Monday, October 13, 2008

A mish-mash of pics

It is getting close to bedtime, so I'm just going to post some pictures from the last couple of weeks...sorry if that's not exciting, but I know some of our readers really look forward to seeing them.

Ella getting Ben's tickles:

And now, a kiss!

And a hug:

"Now, we will play!"

At the playground at Harbour View Golf Course:

There were ducks and a heron (maybe?) to watch on the little lake:

What Ben does...

Ella does:

Still watchin', hanging out on the railing:

That evening, we went bowling:

Psychedelic, dude!

The kids had so much fun bowling! Ben bowled every one of his frames, and 3 of Ella's (she was too interested in eating her supper to bowl). Mommy won, with a solid 139. Gord came in second at 110. Ben was right behind Gord at 102 - isn't that awesome! He's only 8 points off his daddy! And Ella scored in the high 80s or low 90s...it's the only score I don't seem to remember. But she knocked down at least 3 pins every frame - what a trooper!

And now, this is what we did today:

We'll keep posting pictures of the progress, over the next year probably! It's going to be a step-by-step process, that's for sure!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We are so thankful for the fabulous family and friends we have - we love you all!

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

A couple of short stories

Last night, as we were eating supper, Ben asked us if we knew what he wanted to be when he grows up. After we said no, we didn’t, he told us that he wants to be a firefighter. Then he added that he wants to be a doctor too. I told him that they were both very good choices, because he would help people be safe and healthy. I think Gord raised the question of how he would find the time to be both, as they are demanding careers. Ben then described how he would “cut the firefighter half in half and then take the doctor half and cut it in half, and then put them together”. And then he said that he would be a firefighter doctor so that he could fix the firetruck. So I guess he wants to be a firetruck mechanic?!?

We were all watching Dancing with the Stars last night (and yes, the kids were interested!) and Ben and Ella decided that they wanted to dance too. So I got up and boogied with Ella a bit, and then Ben cut in (thankfully – do you know how hard it is to dance with a 2 year old?) and they danced together for a few minutes. Once the music stopped, Ella bent over, very low, with one arm up in the air, and says, “Thank you! Thank you!” At first I thought she was doing some funky yoga pose (like warrier pose), but no, she was bowing and thanking her audience. Methinks we have a performer on our hands!

I know we haven’t been blogging much, but now that we’re out of the habit, it’s hard to get back into it! We’ll keep on trying though…I promise!

Thursday, August 21, 2008

A quickie...a placeholder...whatever you want to call it...

Summer is whizzing by, isn't it? One week (give or take) before school is back in for Gord and the kids go back to daycare. Sheesh, time flies. Betcha never heard that one before, eh?

I know that Gord has downloaded our pictures from the camera, and he has mentioned trying to do a blog post, but they've been too busy swimming and zooing and the like that it hasn't been done. So this is kinda like a placeholder post...a promise of a real post to come!

It is Corn & Apple in Morden this weekend (if anyone is looking for something to do, come on down - it's only an hour from Winnipeg! The more the merrier!) so hopefully we have more pictures and some great stories to share.

Later gators...