Happy Birthday Ella

 Ella turned 5 on November 30.  She wanted everything pink and she is head over heels in love with anything that has to do with dogs.  She knows every dog on the street by name and pets all of them through the house gates.  She has made up an imaginary pink dog named "Sparkle" that sometimes takes shape in stuffed dogs and others in Ella herself.

Halloween

Halloween was quite an event here.  I don't particularly care for Halloween.  It is sort of the kick off, or the holiday to wade through to the better ones to follow, namely Thanksgiving and Christmas.  And it always seems to come down to the last minute.  I was up late getting the details of costumes together and handling last minute changes (Magdalene was going to be a flower then change to a bat) and meltdowns (Ella's mermaid costume was too small and I had to do some serious begging and bribing to get her to wear the witch costume, which was ADORABLE.)

Xander was Sensei Wu from Lego Ninjango.  I made a beard, but he was not quite brave enough to wear it.

 Went to school parties from 12:30-3:00 straight.  Juliet got to make a cookie with Ella at her Pre-K school party.

Magdalene was a bat posing here in front of the house before leaving to trick-or-treat.

 Juliet was a princess.

There I am, a fifties housewife, getting ready to hand out candy.  I had several thousand pieces of candy and it lasted almost an hour.  The streets are crowded with people in all shapes and sizes and decked out in all manner of costumes--something similar to carnival I would think.  Abigail was a flower and sold water bottles with her cousin Breann.  They each made about $150 profit for a couple hours of work.  Not bad.