Ellie's Birthday Party

Yesterday, we hosted a birthday party for Ellie and 14 of her friends. It was loosely themed on Alice in Wonderland. There was a bouncy house, perfect weather, a pinata, and a lot of fun. Grandma Pam and Grandpa Mike came down for the party and it was the first in our new house.

Nick was in charge of the decorations and he hit a grand slam! We were able to put all the food in the guest house (to keep it out of the sun) and we used the refrigerator in the guest house for all the drinks. We even decorated the front yard tree. Ellie wore my Alice in Wonderland dress (a Halloween costume from when I was five) that my mom had saved. It was a little big on her, but she was adorable!

 

The bouncy house was a blast. It was delivered hours before the party and Ellie learned that bouncy houses are a lot more fun when you get to bounce in them with your friends!

 

We also had a pinata. Ellie learned that the concept of a pinata is great...however, the fact that in the end it gets broken...well she was NOT happy about that and she started to cry. And because she was upset about the broken pinata, she missed out on the candy dash. However, she has some great friends who shared their candy with her and gave her hugs to make her feel better.

After the pinata it was time for cake! It was a little too windy to have all the candles lit at once, but her friends sang a great Happy Birthday to her and everyone enjoyed cupcakes and decorated sugar cookies (as always, all from scratch).

Ellie shared her toys with her friends who all played nicely with each other. There was definitely good times, good company, and good food. Everyone, especially Ellie, had a great time. After all her friends left it was time for some present opening.

The party was a great end to Ellie's birthday week. She had a blast and was so excited about her new presents (especially the Playmobil bathroom set from Great Grandma and Great Grandpa Van). Happy 4th Birthday Ellie!!

Happy 4th Birthday Ellie!!!

 

What a birthday for Ellie! She took some cookies to school to share with her friends and was so excited that they sang Happy Birthday and they liked the cookies she brought. She said it made her happy to share on her birthday. I picked her up a little early for a little party at home with Aunt Susie (before she had to leave to hop on a plane back to Boston). When she came home, she found the dining room full of balloons, presents, and a special cake decorated by Susie (Ellie requested a rainbow cake).

 

Ellie had lots of presents and didn't want to wait to start opening them! She got so many fun presents that she couldn't want to play with. She loved her new zoo with baby animals she received from Grandma and Grandpa Harrer and couldn't wait to open it and play with it. Nick and I got her the rest of the collection to go with Sleeping Beauty including a change of clothes, a set of fairies, and even Malificient! We also got her a big girl nightgown and a new princess water bottle. Aunt Susie got her a new Rapunzel princess dress which immediately got put on over her clothes.

After we went out for a quick dinner where Ellie decided she didn't want her kids ravioli dish and asked to switch meals with me so she could have my gnoochi. Such a grown-up little girl! When we came home it was time for cake! We lighted the candles and sang Happy Birthday and ate cake. Well, Ellie ate the frosting and not the cake. She did insist on having a piece that had an 'E'...of course.

Once cake was eaten the big birthday present we got her was revealed. She has been asking for a bike since she turned 3 and got a scooter. When Santa didn't bring a bike she started asking when her birthday was to get a bike. So, she was pretty happy to finally see that she had a bike of her own. And its pink!!

She climbed on the bike in her princess dress. When she got it, it was dark and a little rainy outside, so we will have to wait for better weather to take it out. We aren't sure how much she knows about riding a bike and pushing pedals, but with a little practice, we bet she will be riding her bike to the playground without any trouble.

Its definitely been quite a year and she has grown up quite a bit. Yes, we moved cross country and she changed schools but she really is becoming a big girl. She no longer has tubes in her ears and can write her own name. She is growing to be independent from brushing teeth to putting on her own shoes to taking showers! She is starting to learn to read and sound out words and can count to over 30. She is drawing people with hair, faces, feet, arms and fingers in settings and in different sizes to represent ages. She even will customize hair (short, long, or curly!). Like most girls her age is completely in love with princesses but will spend quality time with little Playmobil people and a dollhouse. She has learned that she can be stubborn and what to do to get her own way; mommy and daddy will no longer decide her Halloween costume for her. She is headstrong and very observant. Her teachers have told us that as long as she is in charge, she is happy. She was confident enough to go to zoo camp all by herself where she didn't know anyone and thrived. We think we have finally figured out bed time and she will sleep in her own new big girl bed through the night. She loves swimming and has gone from needing to be held in the pool to learning actual swimming strokes and diving to the bottom of the pool to pick up rings. She is hilarious and has a great sense of humor. Her creativity is starting to really shine. She sings constantly and listening to music makes her very happy. She is developing her own taste from clothing (she does not like having to wear pants) to food (favorite food...pizza with black olives...yep she's her mother's daughte). She went to the dentist and got her first haircut this year. She has matured from a little girl who wants to go on Its a Small World to see the babies to a kid who loves a good roller coaster or thrill ride and keeps asking if she is tall enough to go on Space Mountain. She went to bed tonight in her big girl nightgown with Baby Sister and her red blanket in a crib next to her bed. Red Blanket now sleeps with Baby Sister in a crib...not in her bed. As I write this she still is 3, but as her mom, maybe I'm the only one who wants to wait a couple more hours until 11:31pm to celebrate her birthday when she will become a 4 year old.

Happy Birthday Ellen!!

Daddy-Daughter Weekend

This weekend, as Ann was with her family in Illinois saying their final goodbyes to Grandma Dolly (Ellie and I will miss her very much, too).. the little lady and I had a fun time whizzing around the Los Angeles area, making a lot of new stops for Ellie.

It all began post-swimming lessons Saturday morning.

SATURDAY:

We headed down to Hollywood to have brunch with Mulan herself at the Disney Soda Fountain on Hollywood Boulevard! That movie has become Ellie's favorite Disney movie dujour, so she was thrilled to meet the princess herself. The meal was typical Disney greatness. Fresh fruit, yogurt, bagels, and a Mickey Mouse-shaped waffle.

After our brunch.. we watched Mulan at the Disney-owned El Capitan Theatre, which is right next door. But it wasn't just a movie.. before the show an award-winning organist played some Disney tunes on a classic Wurlitzer Organ. It reminded me of being at a Blackhawks game (and hearing "Here come the 'Hawks!" played on the organ).. but with Disney songs instead.  Pretty cool.

 Then Mulan herself came back out to do a couple dance numbers to two of the songs from her movie. Ellie was thrilled to see Mulan dance.. and we had a good time watching the movie, too.

SUNDAY:

Ellie was all about Saturday.. even though I had a lot of fun, too. And I was all about Sunday.. even though Ellie had a lot of fun, too.

Sunday afternoon we did something I've been wanting to do for months.. head down to the California ScienCenter to visit the Space Shuttle Endeavour! It was totally awesome. Right now the shuttle is in a temporary exhibit space.. a hangar they built just for Endeavour.. before it's moved to a more permanent locale on the museum's campus. Anyway.. it was still awesome. Ellie remembered seeing the shuttle fly over her school last September, as I did, and was excited to see it again. Neither of us were disappointed.

 (Above is a close-up shot of the heat tiles from underneath the shuttle.)

Endeavour is not the only space-related item on display at the ScienCenter, either. They also have several capsules.. including the Mercury capsule Ham, the first chimpanzee ever sent into space, went up in.

Ellie also managed to get a pretty good shot of me in front of the Gemeni 11 capsule.. the vessel that carried Pete Conrad and Richard Gordon into orbit. It's a significant mission because it was the first time one craft ever docked with another in space. That process, as you know, was vital to the success of the subsequent Apollo Program.. as well as pretty much every space mission thereafter.

The museum also had a lot of other cool things, including a tidal pool and touch tank exhibit (Ellie is still apparently a little to skeeved out to touch the starfish), as well as a section on light.. where we got to see ourselves in infrared. Ellie was especially amused that my glasses turned out blue. I explained to her that they're blue because they aren't generating heat like our bodies are.. but I'm not quite sure she understood. Oh well.. there's time.

MONDAY:

An added bonus day to our whirlwind weekend.. and we took advantage of the warmest day of the weekend by heading over to Santa Monica to spend some time on the famed pier and the beach.

Ellie and I started our day by making Ellie's first sand castle. She was very excited to bring her bucket, shovel, and rake with us to the beach.. and even though the sand castle isn't anything to really write home about, she was pretty pumped up that the sand could stand up by itself once you pack it into a bucket and flip it over quickly.
 

After we made sand castles, Ellie decided she wanted to put her toes int he ocean. We did.. several times.. but Ellie was often scared away by some of the bigger waves rolling in. I promised I'd hold her hand tight, but she bolted a few times.

When she asked if she could get a surf board, I told her she had to keep doing a great job at her swimming lessons, which she is, then practice surfing a lot before she could get a board of her own. When I explained about boogie boarding, however, and that you can do that without knowing how to surf, she seemed well into that idea.

After that, we headed up toward the pier, but stopped on the way to swing on some swings and do some monkey bars. Ellie found a set that was just her height, and she actually made it to the third rung out before losing part of her grip, dangling for a bit, then dropping to the padded, rubberized surface beneath.. which she thought was pretty fun.

Once we made the short climb up some steps we headed over to Pacific Park, a small amusement park built on the pier itself -- it's the one that houses the famous seaside Ferris wheel you'll often see when viewing montage clips of Los Angeles. There were only a few rides Ellie wasn't tall enough for, including the roller coaster, which bummed her out since she's become a pretty big roller coaster fan thanks to her many ridings of the Gadget Go-Coaster inside Toon Town at Disneyland.. but we found a lot of other things to keep ourselves entertained.

 Ellie was brave enough to ride on that ride above, The Pacific Dragon. It's one of those rides that swings you back and forth with pretty good velocity, and gets some good height. Before we stepped on, as we watched the riders before us, Ellie got a little nervous. But once on the ride, she was all about it. "It's not scary, Daddy. It's just like a big swing. WEEEEEEE!!!" So, yeah.. she loved it. We have a bonafide daredevil on our hands.

Above is Ellie aboard the Pacific Wheel.. the big Ferris wheel I mentioned earlier.

After getting our fill of the rides, we had a nice Mexican lunch at a restaurant at the end of the pier...

 

(She beat me at Tic-Tac-Toe.)

...and then we headed down to the sand on the other side of the pier to do some people-watching (Ellie was amazing people were swimming in our brisk California weather -- low 60's and windy..  know, I know.. warm for winter) and have some ice cream before heading home.

Back to school tomorrow! Ellie is excited to share her stories from the weekend with her friends.