Festivities & Fun to Finish 2010

We began our festivities by attending the Christmas eve service at our church.  Ella sang with the children's choir and Biniyam enjoyed multiple cookies in an attempt to keep him from shouting "Jingle Bells" too loudly. ( at a recent library story time Bini jumped and danced around the room yelling "jingle bells" over and over again.  It was hilarious but a bit disruptive and we will not be attending story time again anytime soon!)  

 as per Christmas tradition both kids opened a present on Christmas eve.

 and left cookies for Santa (Ella does know, but likes the traditions)

 Christmas morning arrived with a mellow Ella, she just wanted to cuddle and listen to the story of Christ's birth, we finally convinced her to open her stocking.  It's so fun to see her excitement about little things- like the pink stapler which she has been talking about since she saw it last summer.

 Finally at 8:45 Ella and I woke Bini.  Ella later told us her favorite part of the day was seeing Bini's reaction to his train table.  And Bini did love his train table, to change his diaper I had to pry him away from it as he yelled "trains, trains"

 "Books are toys"-Ella

 Auntie Deb and Uncle Cecil joined us for dinner

 Greg and My greatest surprise of the day was that Ella can hula hoop! She asked for one, but we had no idea she could actually do it. Apparently she learned in ballet.

 One week after Christmas came another very important day, most people just know it as New Years Eve, but to us it's Ella's Birthday.  Happy 6th Birthday to our sweet princess!

 Ella really wanted to have her birthday party on her birthday so after a morning at Chuck-E-Cheese we had her friend Clara over, they had a treasure hunt, pinata, dinner (steak and mac-n-cheese) decorated cupcakes and then had a "half over" - where they got in pj's and all ready for bed and then got to  watch a movie as if it were a sleep over, but then Clara went home to sleep.

 On New Years day we headed south to Greg's cousins, It was great spending time with family!

 We went to North West trek- kind of a Safari of north west animals.  That's a beaver behind Ella above, and wolves below, we also went on a bus to see moose, elk, long horned sheep, bison, and more.

 Greg's cousin has horses!

 Ella loves horses!

 Ella, Elise and Biniyam

"Squeak!"

Our little ballerina made her Nutcracker debut this year as an adorable mouse.  It seems like just yesterday that she was attending the nutcracker, full of questions and awe (see the post from 2008
The Nutcracker ) This past weekend she squeaked and danced in two performances at the Mt Baker Theater.

 Celebrating @ Pure Bliss

In other December activities; Ella's kindergarten class went on a field trip to the local ice skating rink.  I had to wake Bini early from his nap, but I couldn't miss seeing Ella on skates for the very first time.  Love this girls gusto for trying new activities.

 Lots of baking for this princess, and lots of asking for chocolate and cookies from the little man. (And he asks so sweetly! "'cuse me mama, please chocolate" and  "tank you mama, tank you, welcome")

 And December 23rd consisted of waking @ 8:30, (LOVE my kids!) making hats out of napkins before breakfast.

 Long bath and then cuddling in warm blankets

 coloring together then more cookie baking while Bini napped.

  again, why do we bother with toys? Here's some good, classic, box fun.

 reading together (then a playdate)

  more box fun.

 and delivering cookies to the neighbors

Kenya

Greg spent the first 3 weeks of November in Kenya serving at Tenwek Hospital. Although he did take pictures @ the hospital, they are mostly medical and just not pretty. Above are a few of the photos he took durning his last two days in the country when he was able to go on Safari.

Why?

Sometime I wonder why we bother with toys, all the kids want are blankets and couch cushions!

Rockin' the good health

Ella ready for a daddy-daughter date

9 months since chemo ended and this girl is a superstar of health! This week we went to Children's for them to check her out and gratefully we were told that there is no evidence of disease, she looks great.  Of course they didn't tell us that until 2 hours after they'd taken 3 extra x-rays and left us wondering what they'd seen.  The other scare we had related to her health happened in September I brought her to her regular dr's to catch up on immunizations and mentioned that she'd been complaining of right leg pain.  After the dr checked Ella's leg she spoke to me in that too calm voice and told me it wasn't Ella's leg, it was her hip and that they would get an x-ray and I should probably also talk to her oncologist.  I spent about 2 hrs with my stomach in knots thinking we could be right back in this again but this time in her bone? We waited for the x-ray results and thankfully it showed nothing abnormal.  Two days later Ella couldn't put any pressure on her right leg so I talked with the oncologist.  I was to keep an eye on her and if it didn't go away or got worse in a week they'd do an MRI.  Praise God it completely resolved in a few days.  Tis' our life for the next 4yrs 3 months,  going along just fine and then some odd symptom makes us wonder if we're back "in a ding" (Ella's phrase for going through something unpleasant-like chemo)
Otherwise Ella has been doing great.  She's only had one runny nose this fall, which is amazing testament to her strong immune system!