Cinderella......

Mimi Rupp asked earlier this week if JD and Ella would be available to go see Cinderella at the "Round Barn Theater." This was the kids first musical, here they are getting ready and Ella wore her princess dress under her coat here and JD is dressed up as a handsome prince.

pictures with Daisy Mae...

Ella says, "Santa's sleigh"

Mimi and princess Ella-Bean

The Mimi, Queen, King, Prince, JD, Cinderella, Ella & me

Thank you Mimi for a wonderful afternoon of magical fun! Love, JD, Ella & Jen

Merry Christmas, cookie baking!

So, here we are doing our annual cookie baking, mom and I each baked some goodies ahead of time and then got together to bake a bit more and then put trays and boxes together, lots of fun!

This year the kids were at the age to be eager little helpers. Here is JD helping Mimi roll out the peppermint shortbread cookies.....

and here is Ella dipping her cup in sugar and smooshing her cookies down, oh they loved helping..... don't worry those of you eating some of these cookies, they washed their hands very well...... mimi was more concerned that they get all of the soap off so we didn't have any funny tasting cookies:)

here they are decorating some extra sugar cookies, check out the end result at the bottom... yum, yum!

sprinkles anyone?

Here is a random picture taken a few days ago, they were eating some strawberries that I had frozen and I here JD say, "mom look at all the blood all over my face?," they quickly had my attention, I turned to hear Ella repeating what her brother had said and JD giggling because there were strawberry remnants all over his face:)

Happy 40th Honey!!

Happy 40th birthday Rick, I hope you had a great birthday, thanks Jamie, Russ and Liz for sharing his special day with us. We soo enjoyed ourselves!! Thanks LouAnn for making the trip down and hanging out with us, and Mom and Dan thanks for watching the chillins:)

Happy Halloween!

We had lots of fun with cousins and friends this year for Halloween! We went to the Zoo Boo, at Binder Park zoo with the Holtz family, Andrea was a cowgirl, Claire was a giraffe and Berkley was a moo cow, JD was Spidy-Man and Ella was a lady bug. They still had some animal exhibits to see, we saw a snow leopard and a cheetah.

Here we are on a train ride that is truely kid size, Uncle Andy had trouble getting his knees in:)


These 2 are in seperable:)
The night before we joined the Miller's at their church for a fall party, the kids we able to play games and then would get a treat. Here is Ella a Clay.
Finally, at the end of the night Ella was brave enough to go down the big slide. (By that time she had already rid herself of her ladybug garmet)
checkin out the treats
My little bug:)

Another funny......

JD: Excuse me mom & dad

Us: Yes JD,

JD: When i use my manors and say, "excuse me" when you are talking to other people, will you please answer me quicker??

Us: JD, don't we answer you rather quick??

JD: Well,........ When you don't answer me quick enough....... i forget what I want to ask you.

A JD funny..........

So, JD says to me the other day, "mom come outside, I have to show you something" he takes me outside to show me a dead bird in the yard, I then asked him if he thought Kitty had ten the bird, he said, "no, I think Uncle Phillip's cat, Snowball killed it." I then asked him if he thought that Uncle Phillip's cat came all the way from Goshen to kill a bird? he says, "yes, ....... he must have had GPS!"

Awards at school!

JD had his first awards at school this week, all the kids were given different awards. JD was awarded with the "Friend" award. The teacher said, he is always willing to give a class mate a push on the swing or to help someone out. They all made a grand entrance walking down the church aisle with star glasses on and their hands on their hips, (the parents were the poparrazi taking lots of pix's). I wasn't able to be there, so dad and Mimi and Papa were there cheering on for JD. Thanks Rick for taking pix's and a great video.

Jess did Ella's hair for her to go watch JD get his big award, thanks Jessi, she looked so cute!

So, this is a random pix that i took, its not very often that you can se both ends of the rainbow. Rick had come home from Monday night golf and pointed this out, you can't see in this pix but it was a double rainbow:)
Ella, putting on her leggings Mimi made her, she was soo excited!

this just made me laugh, a bonfire with funnies
and BIG mellows.....

New Beginings

JD already for his first day of Preschool, he was so excited to get out of the van to start his life as a big preschooler:) As we were waiting for the teacher to come out to the car he says to me, "Mom, when Miss Racheal comes out to get me you roll down your window and say, JD have a great first day at preschool!"..........and so i did and then with my eyes full of tears i pulled my van away and left him in the hands of someone new.

JD told us he wanted to play soccer this spring so we signed him up and here are a few pixs of him. Here is is warming up.....

JD and Coach Jeff in the background

With his whole body, he makes the goal:)
he's # 4 out there........... he wanted that number because that is how old he is, too cute
Miss Ella didn't want me to forget about her as she says, "go JD, go"