Ella has mastered getting herself up and down the stairs as she pleases and her and Sycely have been enjoying the extra, open space with games of tag and chase as well as building forts and castles with all the boxes. Sycely been REALLY into performing "shows" as she calls them and spends hours everyday creating elaborate sets and costumes for reenacting whatever story is her latest fascination. Ella's a pretty good sport dancing along and doing her best to follow her sister's offstage cues. It's making for some really great family memories, that's for sure! Sycely's class did a study on pets for a few weeks and many of the kids and teachers brought in their pets from home (including one girl who brought in her giant goldfish in a ziploc bag!). So, Sycely got to bring in our turtle, Mabel for her first pet show and tell. Mabel was a huge hit with all the kids (odd because they have a huge tortoise in their classroom) and they drew a bunch of pictures to decorate her pen while she was visiting-it was super adorable. Ella and I used Sycely's school time to do some Thanksgiving prep and got a head start on the Christmas shopping. It's so fun to get time just the two of us while Sycely is at school. Though we mostly just do errands, it's enjoyable to get to talk and play just with Ella while we're out and about. She's got such a joyful, sweet personality and it's fun to get to have it all to myself once in a while :)
November also brought the start of the high school hockey season so we've been going to games usually once or twice a week. Between our family, Lem's parents and his bro we're getting a big enough crowd that we almost need a whole bench to ourselves nowadays! The cheerleaders are definitely rubbing off on Sycely. I was upstairs the other night and heard her (on the downstairs potty, no less!) yell out: "EeeechOoo...EeeechOoo...Lynx in the front stand up and grunt, 1 2 3..." I have a feeling our girls are going to grow up with Dimond hockey being as much a staple in their childhood as it was in mine!
I got to go on a date with my friend Renee (Mrs Alaska) to a lovely dinner and dessert followed by attending the Miss Alaska/ Miss Teen Alaska United States pageant. Lem and I had worked closely several years ago with this year's Miss Alaska titleholder, Jessica Nolin. In 2006 she ran for National FFA office and Lem and I worked with her for several months and accompanied her to national convention it's first year in Indianapolis when Sycely was 15 months old. It's been great getting reconnected with her and seeing what a beautiful, accomplished woman she's grown into over the last 9 years or so. It was really special to get to see Jessica give away her crown as she wrapped up a very amazing year as Miss Alaska.
We hosted our first Thanksgiving this year. We had a traditional meal at our new house with Lem's parents and his brother, Ian. It sure was nice to have enough space for everyone and to be able to allow Ella to keep to her nap schedule, etc. Sycely spent Thanksgiving week making place cards and table decorations for Turkey Day and she even made the chocolate pie, pretty much all by herself. I have to admit that our table (featuring my new, fancy, snowflake dishes) was a perfect combination of elegant Holiday and homey family.
Thanksgiving weekend we had a House Blessing party and invited friends and family and our pastors to join us in blessing our new home. We've really felt that God called us into the Dimond community that we love so much and that He definitely made a way for us to have this amazing new home. We really want to be obedient to do the things in our new home that God has intended us to use it for. So far, I think we're doing pretty good. Anyway, we wanted to gather everyone together to check out the new house and join with us in prayer, blessing every aspect of life in our new home. It was a great evening and we got to give lots of tours as well as enjoy the support of our church family as we begin our life in this new location.
Also on Thanksgiving weekend, Sycely and I went on a Mommy Date to see the Nutcracker ballet at the Performing Arts Center. Sycely enjoyed it immensely and it took no time (as in, she didn't even wait to finish the drive home to start) for it to become her reenactment focus for several weeks. We'd had lunch before the show and did some shopping at the mall after Nutcracker. It was such a special afternoon for me and my little Boo Bug.
Ella's turning into quite the little cracker-upper. Her antics continually have us giggling and definitely help keep us entertained. Her vocabulary continues to skyrocket and she's adding words without us even realizing it these days. She's added "patty cake", "peek a boo", "Tinkerbell", "princess" and "apple juice" to her vocabulary in the last month or so. Her bubbling giggle is absolutely infectious and she's recently taken to agreeing with a "mmmm hmmmm" instead of her usual "yes". She's learned all her body parts and insists on applying her own soap and lotion now and I often find her wiggling herself into her sister's clothes. It's such a delight to see the relationship between our girls developing. They are both so quick to include each other and always want to be around each other. We're so very blessed to have happy, healthy children bringing such joy to our lives every single day. What a great reason to be thankful!
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