Happy 3rd Miss Elle Bell

My middle, my very sweet and very spunky little girl is 3!  I am so happy to see 2 go as they held many little battles between us, but with them came many great accomplishments!  Now at the age of 3, Elle is potty trained, sleeping in a big girl bed with no paci (we have arrived!!)

 

Since Elle's birthday was on a Monday, we celebrated as a family on Sunday.

 

And Elle got a big girl bike.  She knows how to petal on her trike, but is realizing the big girl bike takes a little more effort!  It's so tiny and cute, I love seeing her on it!

 

And I tried my hand at baking my first birthday cake from scratch with homemade frosting and it came out pretty yummy!! 

I didn't tell any of the kids, but we had planned a PJ birthday party for Elle and her friends for Monday morning while Clare was at school and Cole was napping.  I thought it would be a great way for her to feel extra special and be the center of attention with her friends.

 

And I have to say, it was really cute and a big success!! 

 

The girls played SO well together, we made fruit loop necklaces and had donuts as our "cake."  I am learning quickly how to have a party with lots of fun, little mess and little expense. :)

 

Elle is blessed to have a sweet group of blondies she can call her friends.  Little girls to learn with, grow with, play dress up and babies, and most importantly the art of friendship and how beautiful it is.

 

 

 

 

I feel like this picture is so priceless!  Sweet little girls in all their innocence and beauty!

 

Thank you Elle for letting me be your mommy!  Happy 3rd birthday!

Fall festivities

We decided to pack all fall activities into one short week and make sure we could check it all off our list.  LD and Clare were both at home for Columbus Day so we thought it would be a great day to drive to the mountains to the apple orchard.

 

It's about a 2 hour drive and the weather didn't look promising, but LD is always much more open to these big adventures than I am.  I kept saying it was raining and he kept telling me we were in a cloud.  Either way...it was misty, but not too cold and ended up turning into a nice day.

 

The girls love Sky Top Orchards because there are 3 or 4 swing sets and a few playhouses.

 

I love it because they have apple cider donuts and it is beautiful being in the mountains!

 

But these little girl's legs (especially Elle's) were tired from all the walking.  And of course LD was determined to find the apples that we had sampled and liked, so we walked A LOT!

 

But it was a perfect fall day, with fall weather and we came home with a lot of apples!  I even made some yummy apple butter!

 

The next day Clare's school had a field trip to Aw Shucks! and since they are so little you just drive and stay for the preschool day.  

 

It was set up so cute with 7 little stations all having to do with corn or farm work.  So at this station they talked about silos and pretended to be a piece of corn sliding down.

 

And then they planted their own corn and watered it, picked a pumpkin, went on a hay ride, walked through a corn maze, milked a cow and collected eggs.

Such a fun day with my little girlies!!