November Catch-up

Trick-or-Treating!

Ellie Mae was very excited to be a princess for Hume's trick-or-treating day this year, and even more excited to find out that two of her little friends were princesses, too! Hannah (left) was Cinderella and Ellie Ferreira (right) was a fairy princess. The girls had so much fun together as we drove around to different neighborhoods and walked door to door. The candy collecting was great, but riding on the back bench seat together was definitely the most exciting part for these little 2 year olds...they were absolutely delighted to be together! Our favorite part as moms was watching them climb into the car at each stop!

Rainy Day Snuggling!
I love it when Ellie wants to curl up on the couch together! She'll often bring her crayons and coloring book with her so that we can color together. We usually start each morning snuggling this way. :)

"Baking" with Mommy
Ellie loves to help Mommy bake...sometimes she is interested in helping to pour ingredients in the bowl, but mainly she wants a taste of every ingredient. I recently let her taste unsweetened baking cocoa thinking that she would never want it again, but as it turns out, there is little that Ellie doesn't like in the food category, especially when it comes from Mommy, and she actually asked for more! In these pictures, we made a birthday cake for one of our Joshua pause family kids and Ellie's contribution was licking the beater. The amazing thing was how much chocolate cake batter landed on her face, hands and clothes compared with how much she actually ate -- not much at all made it as far as her tongue, but she was thoroughly pleased! There's nothing quite like cake batter and whole wheat toast for breakfast! :)

Tea Party
Ellie was invited to a two-year-old tea party last week at the home of Michelle West, a mom on the hill of older kids with a heart to get to know the little ones (she is also hosting a three-year-old tea, a four-year-old tea and a boys tea!). Hannah Gerber and Ellie Ferreira were at the party, and the three girls had a terrific time! They started the morning on the giant trampoline outside, and had fun bouncing with each other and lots of little rubber balls. Ellie is still talking about going "bouncy bouncy" every day! After jumping up an appetite, they went inside for apple juice "tea," cheese, fruit and little cookies that they were able to decorate with frosting and lots of fun colored sprinkles all set out with beautiful dishes (Michelle really set a lovely table, complete with place settings for each mommy and bracelets for the girls!). Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of the actual tea. The girls also played with fun toys and playdough. They ended the party with another round of jumping on the trampoline. Peter Carey joined in the fun on his way home from a walk --he is just 16 months old, but had a blast being bounced by the girls while sitting down! What a fun party!

Friends!
We've had two fantastic weekends in a row with lots of former Hume visitors! We had so much fun that we forgot to get the camera out! We did manage to snap a few pictures of Ellie and Kiefer Watson as they enjoyed a late morning snack...Kiefer is four now. Ellie had a wonderful time playing with Kiefer and Cooper, Kiefer's 15 month old brother, last weekend while the Watsons were here at Hume! The Watsons were here from Arizona for a three day weekend, along with the Sees, now in Fresno. Beth Mlakar also stayed with us for the weekend while they were up (Beth is teaching in San Jose now)...Ellie Mae loves her Cool Aunt Beth, or "Cool Beth" as Ellie calls her! The weekend before we had the Downs family at our house, and had such a terrific time catching up with them and spending quality time! Ellie really enjoyed playing with everyone, kids and adults alike, and particularly warmed up to Yvonne (we knew she had taken to Yvonne when she was willing to cuddle with her right after her nap on the last day -- this time is usually reserved strictly for Mommy until she wakes up fully!). We love our friends! :)

Pumpkin Patch!

We went to a fantastic pumpkin patch down in Reedley two weekends ago with a bunch of Hume friends. The kids had a great time walking along the paths through the old oaks on the farm, watching miniature trains, riding a real "choo choo train," playing on tractors, taking a hay ride, and of course, picking out pumpkins! It was such a fun fall Sunday activity! We followed the pumpkin patch with a trip to Bear Mountain Pizza for lunch on the way up the hill. We're looking forward to returning during the Christmas season when it becomes a Christmas tree farm -- they promised hot cocoa or cider along with the train ride for that season!
Above: top - Ryan and Jessie Minnasian, Jaron and Becky Ferreira; bottom -- Jen and Ellie Mae, Jen and Jade Tilley, Ellie Ferreira, Bunnie and Hannah Gerber, April and Peter Carey. The only person missing from the picture is Joel -- he bravely went with the group as the only dad (the others were all working), but still had a lot of fun with Ellie Mae! He'll probably do some heavy recruiting for the next trip!

The main path up to the trains from the entrance featured a fun suspension bridge. This was Ellie's first experience trying to walk on shaky ground. She and Ellie Ferreira did a great job of falling down together every few feet while smiling and laughing before they finally asked for help!

Friends! Ellie, Hannah and Ellie Mae on a journey together.

Ellie and Jade on the train together.

Ellie found a box of pumpkins her size and immediately took to the task of relocating them to a new pile. She is serious about her "jobs"!

Hay ride with Hannah! The hay wagons were pulled by a John Deere tractor.

Ellie decided to drive Ellie Mae and her baby brother Jaron "to Target"!

Ellie, Ellie Mae and Hannah

Ellie Mae's Great Auntie Pam would be proud -- a true farm girl driving tractors! (Aunt Pam has her own grape ranch and has given Ellie overalls and toy tractors to influence her farming side!)

Ellie was delighted to get a turn in the driver's seat!

Checking on her passengers!

Singing Trees and Big Sister Prep

Ellie has a singing Halloween tree that she loves to hear, but up until a week ago was still too afraid to push the on button herself and would watch from a safe distance of 5-10 feet away. In the course of the last week, she has not only become comfortable enough with the tree to turn it on by herself, but she has taken to caring for the tree. She tries to feed it and give it "tea" from her kitchen set. Yesterday, she came in to tell us that the tree had "poopies"..."yucky poopies!" We thought that was pretty funny. Then, a few minutes later, we found Ellie on the floor in her room surrounded by her wipes warmer that she had taken down from the shelf for the occasion and several discarded wipes that she had clearly pulled out, and using another wipe to clean the tree's "poopies"! The tree is dark brown, so we can only imagine her need to use so many wipes to try to clean it. :) You can see her holding the tree down in this picture.

















After she finished cleaning the tree's "poopies," Ellie brought two diapers out of her room and wanted Papa to help her put one on the tree. She's taking care of the tree in these pictures! Grammy Gayle thinks that Ellie is getting ready to be a big sister to the new baby brother due in February! I had been waiting to give Ellie her first baby doll until the baby arrives so that it would be a special gift to mark the transition, but after seeing that our poor daughter had to resort to being a "mommy" of a singing tree, I promptly jumped online and a real dolly should be arriving by the end of the week! Hopefully she'll be this caring with the real baby when he arrives!

Ellie's 2nd Birthday Part 2

We had a second party for Ellie Mae with family on the 23rd, the day after her 2nd birthday. All of Joel's family was here for the party and my Mom, Rupert, Dad and Grandma all came up, too, along with old family friends (Donna was my first babysitter) and some of our Hume "family," the Davies. Joel made delicious barbequed pulled pork sandwiches with homemade BBQ sauce -- authentic southern food! It took him about 17 hours to smoke the pork...well worth the time! Uncle Allan (Joel's brother) grabbed the camera for us during the party, so these are his pictures -- Allan just became the full-time photographer for Hume a month ago and has an incredible eye for capturing moments. We sure had a great time celebrating our sweet Ellie Mae!

































Ellie, Connor Davies (2.5) and Olivia Davies (4) blowing bubbles and playing with party blowers.














Ellie greeting Grandpa Dan, who came up for the day to be at her party












Hug time! Ellie and Olivia





















From left: Richard and Donna VanSlyke, longtime family friends, Grandpa Dan and GG (Great-Grandma Schuler).










Ellie running to Great-Grandpa Schuler and Donna to say, "Thank you!"











Sweet Connor!









Ellie's cute little cousin Ezekiel (7 months) -- Ezekiel is Joel's brother Brent's first child.










Ellie Mae loves corn on the cob!












Present time! Ellie was really into opening gifts this year! Grammy Gayle let her open presents the day before (her actual birthday), so Ellie took every gift to Grammy to help her open during her party!





Opening another gift with Grammy Gayle. From left: Julie, Olivia, Damon and Connor Davies, Great-Grandma Carmen, Grandpa Rupert, Grammy Gayle and Ellie Mae.








One of Ellie's favorite gifts was a new pink laptop just like Daddy's (Joel's computer isn't actually pink!). She was absolutely delighted!








Grandma Debbie made Ellie a beautiful outfit as part of her present. Joel is holding up the jacket as every one looks on amazed! Counter clockwise from toy box: Uncle Brent, Auntie Crisha and Ezekiel, Uncle Collin, Grandpa Mark, Auntie J (Jennalee), Grandma Debbie, Grammy Gayle, the Davies.







Two great-grandmas! Ellie saying, "Thank you!" to Great-Grandma Carmen (who also came up for the day to be at the party). GG is watching from the side.







Ellie's cakes! Our theme for the party was butterflies.











Ellie looking at her cakes.









Oops! Too soon! Ellie was so excited to blow out her two candles that she blew them out in the middle of "Happy Birthday!"









So...we relit the candles and had a second round of candle blowing for the pictures!











Caught in the act! Ellie couldn't resist taking a swipe from her cake when she saw it just sitting alone on the table!










Yum!





















Our little birthday girl loves cake!