As PJ says "Merry Missmas"

Ella is Eleven ... Whoa

Party at the house, pizza by dad, cake by nana, ice skating after (thank you groupon) ... My little girl is growing up. PS look how long her hair has gotten

Its a hard knock life...

During the summer I saw an email come across that they were opening up auditions for the high school rendition of Annie to the lower grade levels to fill the orphan parts. I told Ella and thus started over a month of hearing this over and over.

Auditions brought over a hundred kids up to the high school, I carried my TEN months pregnant self and Ella up there. Ella was even brave enough to stick around to audition for a speaking part, which meant a solo performance. She knocked it out of the park, but sadly didn't get a speaking part. But she did get a part as an orphan in the play.

The play had an interesting aspect - it was a play done in monochrome black & white. Everybody and everything on set was in only black and white like this:

Until Annie adopts her traditional red hair and clothes in the last few happy scenes.

We had to keep this feature under wraps from the community so I was no allowed to take pictures of her and not allowed to share them anywhere if I did until after the performances were all done...

so without further ado here is Little Orphan Ella:

And post show:

This was such a great opportunity for her and she loved every second of it - I hope that they do this again in the future.

Daddy gets the smiles

Nola Anne at 7 weeks old, smiling away... This is going so fast.

Benjamin turns 12...

hey I'm blogging it before the year is over :)

last year before "teenage"

Night out at the mall and went to see Avengers with friends

Where did my baby go?

Meggie's Bridal Shower

I have been assigned to organize pictures on the 'puter. And as I go through them keep thinking one thing:

damn you facebook, damn you.

I want my blog to chronicle my life yet I've succumbed to the ease of facebook.

So I'll be trying to correct the situation by blogging events that were inadvertedly unblogged along the way.

In no particular order:

My beautiful baby sister's wedding shower at Dave & Busters

It was a blast.

I had morning sickness.

But I managed to eat some good food and play trivia (my fave game there)

And my sister got some amazing gifts - including a Kitchen Aid (jealous.)

And shortly after the shower she did this.