Archive for the 'Ella' Category

10
Jun
15

School awards!

End of the school year is always a fun time because you get to celebrate your children’s accomplishments.  My three worked so hard this past school year, and we are super proud of them!!

Asher got “A Honor Roll” for the whole year!

He also won a 4th place medal for Accelerated Reader points in all of first grade!

Ella won a 1st place medal for Accelerated Reader points in all of 3rd grade!

Ella also won the math and reading award in her class for getting a perfect score on STAAR reading and she missed one on STAAR math!!

Ella also got A Honor Roll all year and won the Presidents Award for Educational Excellence in her class

Ella’s teacher, Mrs. Griffin-Hamlin won best teacher in the district last year and this year won best teacher in Austin! Ella has a special bond with her and we love her too!

Rilyn won a 6th place medal for Accelerated Reader points in all of 5th grade, all A Honor Roll all year, the Presidents Award for Educational Excellence in her class, the reading and science award for her class for having commended scores in STAAR on math, reading, and science!

Rilyn also was presented a gavel for serving at Student Council president this past year! Praying big things for this girl! She is a true leader!

So proud of this girl! She was at Manor Elementary since preschool! Here she is on graduation day-7 years later!

A few days later, Rilyn was in the school talent show! She sang a duet with Eveany-A Thousand Years by Christina Perri and sang Style by Taylor Swift with a group of girls. 🙂

01
Jun
15

Ella’s ballet recital!

This is Ella’s last ballet recital.  She has decided she wants to pursue theater!  She looked beautiful!

Ella and Anna -BFFS!

Grandpa and Grandma came to watch!

Ella’s guys!

After the recital we celebrated my mom’s birthday with a dinner at Cheesecake Factory! The WHOLE family came! Yay!

08
Jan
15

Ella’s “Annie” Birthday!

James made a sweet video of Ella’s party day! Check it out!

Since Ella was Annie in the musical this December, she wanted to have an Annie themed 9th birthday party! Makes sense to me!  🙂  Let’s start with the decorations!

I found the original Annie movie poster on Ebay!

I drew this on our kitchen chalkboard.

Rilyn made this out of Wikki Stix! Cute!

I made “mops and buckets” to hold candy at each of their seats!

I made an Annie sign by buying letters and wrapping them with lights! I also printed off famous lines in the movie to make a banner.

The amazing cookie cakes that my friend Jen decorated!

The game prizes: Daddy Warbucks “money”, “coins” (chocolate) and music note journals!

The birthday girl!

Grandma and Ella

me and my baby girl

Ready for this party to start!

The first activity was painting the word “Smile” because well, “You’re never fully dressed without a smile!”

The next activity was called the Hard Knock Life game! Girls got in pairs and were timed to do 3 different “chores”! First chore was “mopping across the floor” like so.

Next the pair had to squeeze all the water from one bucket into another bucket using only sponges! (All the while I’m yelling at them like Miss Hannigan to hurry up!) 🙂

Then their last chore was to each sweep a pile of sand across the floor to the other side. Fastest time for all 3 chores done together wins!

The next game was a scavenger hunt when the girls divided into two teams and had to find Annie’s missing locket! We hid pictures of the characters in Annie around the house and then they used clues to go from picture to picture trying to find the locket! Who has it?!

Here are the girls reading clue #1!

Run Ella to the next clue!

We found the locket!!

Next is was time for cold mush…okay, okay, not cold mush, but ICE CREAM and cookie cake! 😉

Happy Birthday dear Ella, happy birthday to you!

My sweet NINE year old!

The picture captures Ella well- always. a. mess.

Daddy and his baby girl

Time for presents! Ella loves reading her cards!

After eating and presents, we did Karaoke and they sang their favorite Annie songs!

James found an app to put up a “music video” of themselves while singing! 🙂

Ella’s classmates in 3rd grade singing their hearts out!

When the party was over, Ella got to have a few of her best friends stay for a sleepover!

20
Nov
14

Ella’s Aggie game!

Bless James’ heart!  He went to the Aggie game last Saturday with Ella and Asher, and it was cold, rainy, late night, AND a heart-breaking loss at the end of the game!  He was a trooper, bringing all their ski gear so they would stay warm and dry!  They still had a good time with grandpa, despite the circumstances!

16
Oct
14

Annie!

My girls love to sing, and they love Annie the movie, so I thought, why not give them this chance to try out for being in Annie Jr. at the Jewish Community Center in December?  The girls were excited about the idea, and so they auditioned in late August.  After three 2 hour auditions (closed door, no parents allowed), they got their roles in September!  The roles were e-mailed to me at 11:30 at night, so when I read them, I couldn’t sleep that night, because I couldn’t wait to tell them who they were going to be the next morning!  Keep in mind, they’ve never acted/sang on stage before, so we prepared them to be orphans or a smaller role like that.  Ella, in fact, prayed that she would get a small role.  Well, here is Rilyn’s reaction to hear that she got the role of Grace, Daddy Warbuck’s assistant!

What? YES!!!

Now, Ella…well, she got the role of ANNIE!!! We couldn’t believe it (in a good way), and it was even more fun to tell her! I wasn’t sure if she was going to cry when I told her, but she was just in happy shock.

What? Who me? Annie?!

We are so proud of our girls! Now, for the next few months, it’s all Annie all the time, memorizing songs and lines! Ella will be Annie December 18th at 7 p.m. at the Jewish Community Center! Rilyn will be Grace in both shows!

09
Jul
14

sparkles and feathers!

I took my girls and Anna on a photo shoot with their dance recital costumes, much like I did years ago, here, here, and here!

best friends!

Rilyn, the Swan Lake princess!

30
May
14

Jazz and Ballet!

The girls were in the same jazz and ballet classes this year at Westlake’s Alisa’s Dance Academy.  They enjoyed it, but next year Rilyn wants to take hip hop, and Ella just wants to take ballet.  🙂  Rilyn loves performing on stage anytime, anywhere.  Ella gets nervous on stage, so slower movements in ballet suit her well.


Ella and Anna doing their thing!

The girls did their ballet to a song from Swan Lake!

Rilyn in the middle

Ella in the middle

Rilyn flapping her wings so elegantly!


After the recital, Asher got to give them flowers! It was so sweet to watch!


These girls love their daddy!

my beauties!

proud auntie

After the recital, we celebrated my mom’s birthday at Cheesecake Factory!

me, my sister, mom, and brother!

13
Jan
14

Rockwall climbing!

We went to Main Event that night to have Ella’s birthday dinner celebration!

(cell phone pic) I forgot my camera! ugh.


The highlight of the evening was rock climbing!

Ella!

Go Ella go!

Can you see Ella in the middle dressed in pink! She is so high!

Asher almost made it to the top!

Rilyn made us so proud through with her rockwall climbing skills! She made it past an overhang with great skill! James even made a video because it was so impressive to watch her!

Get it girl!

Rilyn made it to the top several times! She was on fire!

Ella had a great birthday week which ended with a school celebration!

cell phone pic-Rilyn got to come in the class to join!

Her best friend completed her elephant family collection for her birthday! Thanks Anna!

12
Jan
14

Ella is eight!

Ella, you have been the best little sister, (and big sister)-bringing extra joy and compassion to Rilyn, and being extra silly with Asher (which he loves)! I promise to slow down, and snuggle when you ask me (everyday!) Love you!

Party night Ella had a sleepover with three of her best friends!

slumber party!

We started her birthday morning with our traditional “wake up to a birthday donut!” Since they had a sleepover the night before, she got to have all her friends watch her!

Not so sure of this sparkler…

Traditional run through the crepe paper birthday morning!

She got to open her presents from Asher and Rilyn!

Birthday girl all ready for church with her American Girl!

After church, her big birthday surprise was a new bike from mommy and daddy!

She was pretty excited, can you tell?

10
Jan
14

American Girl birthday party!

Ella had her 8th birthday party last Saturday and the theme was American Girl tea party!  We had 14 girls here, and they all were asked to bring their doll!  So fun!

I made this “photo booth” for the girls each to pose in as dolls!

Big sister, Rilyn!

I also used old American Girl boxes and Ella’s picture in one, as decorations along with the magazine pages to decorate our cupboards! To seat all 14 dolls, I duct taped bandanas to the counter, and they worked great as “seats”!

me and the birthday girl before the party

Ella and “Sophie”. I bought doll party goods at Michaels!

Grandma and Ella (with a photo bomb by James!)

Look at that cute cake my friend made her! Designed to look like an American Girl box!

It’s a tea party! I wrapped tulle around the chairs to make it more “fancy!”

All of the special guests waiting to eat! Their owners were busy making the party food for them!

I bought Sculpey clay, and the first thing the girls did at the party was make party food for their dolls! AFter they made donuts, cupcakes, cake, etc. we put them in the oven to bake during the party! 🙂

baking the doll desserts!

Next, the girls got their own doll dress to fabric paint! My sister in law sewed all of these for Ella’s party!

The girls then played American Girl Bingo using candy as place markers!  Click the picture for the link to the free printables!

The doll desserts came out of the oven and were ready for the dolls to eat!

That means it was time for the big girls tea party!

Happy Birthday to Ella, happy birthday to you!  Notice the pink flames on the candles!

Make a wish!

Yummy pink tea (punch)!

Party pic!

present time! Ella got Olaf, from Frozen. Can you tell she’s excited?!

Ella hugged each friend after she opened their present! So sweet!

Love this girl so much! My cuddlebug!

We ran out of time (our party was 2 hours), but I also had bought lots of duct tape so the girls could make their own dresses. See the easy instructions here.

Ella had a few girls stay and sleep over, so they got to make the duct tape dresses!




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May 2023
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