Cookies for Santa Clause

This year Elle is really exciting about Christmas, and the presents Santa is bringing. We tracked Santa all night online and the girls really worked hard on making him these scrumptious cookies. Mmmmmm, Santa is going to love them!

Singing Bug

Elle loves to sing and she does it all the time. Everything from Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to the Clean Up song. In fact the only other person I have known to sing as much as she does, is my nephew Christopher. Must be genetic. Personally, we like to think its because we always sing to her.

It's one of the greatest things in the world!

Adding to our adoration, our little Elle already knows her entire alphabet, and she isn't afraid to show off on camera. I filmed this tonight and just had to share. My favorite part is when she gets confused and sings the whole thing again.

This is really a great and fun age!

http://picasaweb.google.com/KrisDugan/December2008?authkey=IukSlVhsIBQ#5278234439736447330

Happy Halloween

Julia as a Hollywood Starlet and Elle Bug as a Bug Fairy

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This year trick or treating was a real treat. Elle was so excited for it and had practiced knocking and saying "Trick or Treat" with Jules for the past few weeks. She was defintaely trained and ready! Of course, she has also realized there is a lot to be said for a good piece of candy.. mmmmm.

We had a lot of fun and Julia even won a costume contest over the weekend in her stunning outfit. Woohoo!!

Elle at her School Halloween Party.

Julia looking way too big and pretty in her costume.

Half Way There

Friday was the “Big” ultrasound, the 20 weeks along and a peek at the person making me moody, tired and ravaging for pickles and pink salad ultrasound!

All of us Mom’s know the excitement and anxiousness leading up to this part of the pregnancy, we just want to know everything seems ok and for most, if it’s a boy or a girl.

Well with this being my 4th child and knowing that Jay needs a boy, I didn’t want to know the sex. I had decided that going another 20 weeks, knowing it was a girl would be hard. But should I find out when handed my perfect new little girl, it would be absolute excitement and love!

So as we watched the rather squirmy little person in me suck its thumb and hic-up… complete delight filled the little room. We even took Julia out of school early to experience the whole thing. It was so sweet, but Jay asked again…. Are you sure you don’t want to know what it is?? I said No, and explained my reasoning once again.

The technician giggled and told us… “I already know what it is.”

With that Jay was certain he knew too. Seems there is some logic that if it’s a boy, you know if it’s a girl you guess… probably more wishful thinking on his part.

Either way the Technician sealed our fate in an envelope and gave it to me along with our DVD filled with footage of our little one. I hid it and told Jules and Jay we would open it, if they can find it in an attempt to add some fun to it.

Finally, Saturday I decided to watch the DVD, loaded it to my laptop and watched the movie footage, with Jules. We then proceeded to look at the images added to the disk. I clicked on the first image…. And ….

Gasp!!! I had no idea she put the answer on the disk!! I was in shock.
Jules screams “Jay!!! Jay!"
Jay opened the image too and with a big smile declared ,“I knew it!”

With our fate revealed we looked at the other images.
I laughed at this one the hardest!

A new Son!! On his way!
We are sooo very blessed and extremely excited!

Happy 2nd Birthday Elle

Today, our little Elle is 2 years old!!

Her vocabulary consists of at least 100 words she chooses to say on her own. She can mock any word you through at her. In fact we find it to be great fun getting her to repeat words like Massachusetts and Mississippi. Her imagination needs no improvement, her shyness is truly, sweetly authentic, and her comprehension is amazing! If you cannot tell we are incredibly proud of our little Elle.

For the first time Elle brought cupcakes to daycare to celebrate the big day. She reminded me that she had cakes to take to school and wore a special sticker I made her for the big day. I think after going through a few classmates 2nd birthday's she knew what to expect and was extremely excited. The daycare was nice enough to send me these great pictures! Thanks!

We celebrated her big day at our house with family and close friends. It was great fun and Elle really liked it. She opened each gift, loving them, having to be reminded there were others she needed to open before playing with them.

One of her favorite and a huge hit at the party has be Taro Gomi's “Everybody Poops”. It's a great book with pictures of and text explaining how everything that eats, poops. Her expressions were priceless! Still at bed time she was listing off the things that poop and asking about new ones not mentioned in the book.

Imagine if you will, a serious 2 year old asking her Daddy "ducks poop?" and that adoring Daddy, answering seriously, because it is serious, "Yes dear, Ducks do poop too!" I am sure this will speed up the potty training. I made sure to mention the book to daycare, just in case she started to ask the teachers about pooping animals.

At the end of the day, I would have to say Elle enjoyed her cake the most! Perhaps it was the fact it was chocolate or that Mimi made it. Either way, she really loved it and ate it up!

All of her presents were great! Thank you to everyone that helped to make Elle's 2nd birthday so great! What a wonderful 2 years its been, each day more wonderful then the last. We really enjoy our little Elle bug and we are so lucky to have such a great daughter!