Cute Ella Pics

Ella got herself all ready for preschool (April 29). She wanted to leave her Hello Kitty socks on with her preshool dress and she put her little tiara on as we were ready to head out the door.

Ella getting ready for her performance with the 2's class. Miss Paula, her teacher, is getting Ella into position. The kiddos sang,"Stop, Talk and Walk with God."

This was the set for Ella's preschool program

Is there anything cuter than little girls with pigtails?

One pigtail picture just isn't enough!!

Trader's Point Creamery Tour

Nicholas and Caleb Hicks at Trader's Point Farm

Free range cattle

Nicholas and the chickens

On April 29, Nicholas, Mae and I went on a field trip to Trader's Point Creamery and Farm with our homeschooling group. This farm is all organic with free-range cattle and chickens. They make yogurt, cheese, ice cream and there is a restaurant on the property where they serve organic meals made from some of the vegetables and dairy products from the farm. One of the more memorable moments of the tour was meeting Dennis, the bull. He has 40 ladies that are gestating and he is quite protective right now. In fact, while our tour guide, Patrick, was showing us the cattle on the farm, Dennis put on quite a show by moaning and snorting and pawing the grass with his hoof. The only thing separating a testosterone-charged Dennis and my precious children was a thin electric fence line. Thankfully, he stayed put. The other high point of our tour was getting to sample the ice cream made there at the creamery. Yum.

Ella the Baker

Ella and I made cookies in our new kitchen yesterday. We both put on our aprons and got to work. She was so cute and was such a good helper. She's a professional taste-tester!!

Worst dog

We had our friends Sarah, Joshua and Ben over last night for dinner and playtime. Joshua happens to be afraid of most animals so we needed to put Nala in the garage while Joshua was here. We had not "dog-proofed" the garage yet since moving in but we put Nala out anyway and hoped for the best. Well, poor planning on our part led to one blue-faced Nala who had torn into the paint-laden trash in the garage. Thanks, Nala.

7650 Mayapple Court

Well, we have successfully moved in. Last week was absolutely crazy. We had so much help and we are so thankful to everyone who worked to make our move happen. Things went really well overall and the kids are adjusting amazingly well. We're so happy in our new home. There's still lots of work to do but we're settling in and enjoying learning our new routines. We've had visitors everyday and we're loving the chance to open our home to our friends.

My little artists

Nicholas and Ella got to be artists during the week of our move. They made really sweet paintings to put on the wall in their new room. I turned them loose with paints and canvases and watched them go. They had so much fun.

Mae is 7 months old!!

I'm a few days late in posting this but things have been crazy here with us moving last week. Little Mae decided to start crawling on Thursday, April 15. The little skunk. Moving week was bound to be hectic enough without adding a crawling baby to the mix!! She's also starting to pull up on things. She's in such a big hurry to be a big girl and mommy is not in a hurry for her to be growing up. She weighed 19 lb 9 oz on Monday, April 26. She actually weighs more now than Ella did when she was 12 months old. Wow!!