Happy Halloween 2013

Me: morning sweetie time to get up..

Ellie: why do I have to get up and go to school when it's still nighttime?

Me: because you're BatGirl!

Ellie: I don't wanna be BatGirl, I wanna sleep (she then rolled over and pulled the covers over her head).

It was an early morning as I had an early meeting. But we eventually made it out the door with some compromises. She didn't wear leggings, but did wear underwear (apparently the first time she dressed up with Susu she didn't wear undies with her leotard). Once at school her teacher asked her to help set up the classroom for the parade and party today, so she seemed happy.







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Carves Pumpkins

Last night we carves pumpkins we had gotten a few weeks ago. We carved a total of 4 pumpkins: daddy's pumpkin, mommy's pumpkin, Ellie's pumpkin, and a special pumpkin for the baby.

Ellie helped design the carvings, clean out the pumpkins, and take photos of the process. We still thought she was a little young to wield a knife and carve herself. As usual, Nicks pumpkins are awesome. He did the biggest and the smallest ones.









Ellie also is taking a music class every Monday afternoon. This past Monday she brought home a recorder. So it's been a bit loud around the house at night. But, Ellie also wrote out something special:


If you can't read 4 year old cursive it says, "the musical alphabet Ellen ABCDEFG (and letters repeated in cursive below). She said that they will learn how to play Twinkle Twinkle on their recorders and read the music for the song. If she starts writing out the circle of fifths, then I'll start to get worried.

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I LOVE those boots!

All Ellie heard while on our weekend trip to Boston was how awesome her new pink Ugg boots are. Strangers, friends, relatives...everyone loved her boots.

And Ellie does too.


I especially like them because it helps quicken and streamline the morning a little. She can put them on herself, no socks are required, it's great! And now that we have cooler weather, it is officially Ugg season.


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I miss SuSu!

She cried most of the way to the airport yesterday. She had a could sad crying spells on the plane. And this morning she was sad. Why?

"I miss Aunt SuSu!"

She was so sad to leave her yesterday. But we told her Susie will be in Cali soon for Thanksgiving, and the for Christmas not too long after that! She was still upset, but was able to calm down.

It was a rough morning. There was groggy and sad Ellie who was VERY slow moving and had some epic airplane hair tangles. There was also spilling of milk, a couple clothing changes, and breakfast in the car (like I said, slow moving). But we made it to school and immediately she was happy, outgoing, and happy to see her friends.







She put her sweatshirt on the hanger by herself, even zipping up the zipper.Although she doesn't look it in the photo below, she is excited to be at school.


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"Missing school again?!?"

If you can imagine it, imagine Ellie and how she says, "Again?" When she is stressing and emphasizing the word. It's cute.
But yes, two additional days of missing school this week (at least she made it to picture day!). This time she is missing school because we are in Boston. We flew in yesterday (6 hour flights are long...) and arrived at around 8:30pm Boston time. We rented a car and drive down to Plymouth. Nick promptly left me and Ellie to our room service pizza and headed to a bar to watch the Sox-Cards World Series game.




That photo represents how Ellie and I both felt after the flight. Nick got in a decent nap. Not to self, JetBlue doesn't have Disney Channel so Ellie watched some weird cartoons, including SpongeBob. She quickly tired of them and wanted to draw and play with some Legos we brought.
Today, after sleeping in per Boston time (it was 5:30am LA time) we found the nearest Dunkin Donuts and loaded up on sugar, carbs, and decaf pumpkin lattes. Nick drove me and Ellie to the last stop on the red line, near where he had to pick up his tux, and Ellie and I boarded a train for Boston.




We got off at South Station to visit my friends from the Boston office. Ellie got bored and faked having potty emergencies to get me to pay attention to her. Then we left my old office and headed to Cambridge.








When we got to Cambridge I found the nearest lobster roll and we had lunch. Then we headed over to Aunt Susu's school to meet her. We cut through Harvard Yard.












We met up with Susie, who had one more class to teach for the day. But, I needed to catch a train back down to Plymouth to meet Nick for the rehearsal dinner for the wedding tonight. So, Ellie gets to hang out in a HS classroom, with Susie's good friend, with periodic checking from Susie (who is showing a movie for her last class today). Ellie was so happy to see SuSu. She wanted to show off her cursive and drawing abilities and was on her best behavior. Lets hope that continues through the weekend!











And yes, that's the same winter coat she had when we lived in Boston. It's a 2T, but it still fits. Not as long as it used to be, but hey, she's not as short as she used to be. But it fits her torso and her arms. And yes, we need winter coats even when it's in the 50s apparently now. Even if Aunt Susu wasn't wearing one when she met us.

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Picture Day!

Ellie requested her hair be brushed, put on her new dress, and let me wash her face...it must be Picture Day at school!

We also practiced "nice smiles" for her picture.









Then she got silly...




Lets hope there isn't a finger up her nose in the pictures I pre purchased...


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But I'm too tired!

That's how Ellie greeted me this morning when it was time to get up. I agreed with her as I too am exhausted from my weekend and driving back to Pasadena from SB last night...

But alas, work calls and I had an early meeting, which meant Ellie went to school early. She was NOT happy!










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Little Ms. Pizza Maker

Today is a big day in Ellies world. It's sharing day which always is a big deal. Mommy is going to pick her up from school because Daddy had some group trivia tournament thing tonight. And last but not least, it's Make Your Own Pizza Day!

The kids get a make you own pizza party today because they had 100% participation in school shirt day last month. This is her first pizza day and she's not quite sure what to expect but I bet it'll be awesome.

What did she take for sharing day? A picture of an airplane that she drew while on the airplane!



And wrote her name in cursive on.

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Little Ms. Earthquake Drill

Today Ellie's school is participating in the Great California Shake Out. Apparently schools, businesses, and other entities all have an earthquake drill at the same time today (10:17am).

Ellie seemed excited. Apparently the kids have been practicing at school. The first thing she said to me upon waking up in a very groggy tone was, "today we practice the earthquake". I asked her what you do. She said you duck under the table and cover your neck and stay there until the teacher says it is clear. Yep, that's how I remember it.

At school she settled into doing art with her buddies.



We also talked about how she had to eat a majority of her lunch today. We arrived at school at the same time as her teacher. Ellie immediately hopped out of the car and said: "Ms. Wildhaber do you know what majority means? It means more than half. I am going to eat the majority of my lunch today!"

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Little Ms. Reader

Last night Ellie wanted to show us she could identify words and "read" to daddy at bedtime.

This morning at school she showed me the books she is reading at school. I talked to her teacher, and yep, Ellie has moved up from phonics cards to books with short sentences. She was so proud to show me the books and show me her reading.










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Little Ms. Chatty

So apparently little Ms. Popular is also little Ms. Chatty...so chatty in fact she has kinda stopped eating her lunch.

She has some new rules:
1) no longer allowed to eat with her best friend.
2) she eats at the same table as the teacher with one friend.
3) if she doesn't eat, she has to eat by herself at her own table.
4) she eats her yogurt first (main food), then her carrots, then fruit. She is to eat at least 3 carrots.

Yeah, her teacher and I had a little chat this morning and worked out some new rules about lunch with her. Although, apparently she wasn't allowed to eat with her BFF before. Hopefully less chatty and more eating.

I had a few minutes so we were able to play and build together. First we made a house, then she built a table and a bed.









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Little Ms. Popular

Yesterday we had a long awaited play date at a playground with one of Ellies friends from school. Ellie was excited, but apparently her friend had been begging for a play date for a while.

At school as soon as Ellie walked into the room the other kids stopped what they were doing, came to say hi to her and asked if she would play with them. Much to their disappointment Ellie just wanted to hang by me and wanted me to stay and play.

And then, apparently Ellie made such an impression on her teachers twin sons, that she asked if we would like to meet up at the playground because her boys kept asking to see Ellie. I said we would love to, but the next couple weekends were out. So come November, we will have to start scheduling play dates with everyone. Ellie will need her own calendar!

So yes, my daughter is little ms. Popular.

But she was happy to show me she know knew how to use hangers to hang up her own sweaters.









She also asked if today was Friday. Thinking she was asking about sharing day I told her, no it wasn't sharing day. She looked a bit quizzical then said, well I guess I don't get to dust today. I asked for an explanation and her response was, "I'm only allowed to dust in Fridays..." I need to learn more. Maybe she can practice dusting all the other days at home! But the real question, why is she only limited to dusting one day a week...is there more Grandma Dolly in her than originally suspected??

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Normal Week - Day 5

FRIDAY!

Well new concrete was places at school and so we had to enter this morning through a round-about way going through the playground. Ellie had been told we had to use a different path because they didn't want our shoes to get dirty. I did not take the time to explain curing and the hydration process of concrete to her. I'll wait till she's 5.

So my company, once a month, provides sack lunches to homeless kids at a shelter. (Remember back in June when Ellie came to my office and helped pack lunches?) Well this month was my turn to pack and deliver the lunches. It was definitely a team effort:
1) Nick went shopping
2) Nick made the sandwiches
3) Ellie and her friends at school decorated the bags with stickers (I talked to her teacher who thought it would be a great project for the kids).
4) Ellie and I packed up the bags last night
5) I'll deliver them today to the shelter

Ellie was a big help. We packed 48 lunches with a juice box, sandwich, granola bar, raisins, crackers, fruit snacks, and a napkin in about 45 minutes. Ellie quite didn't get why I laid the bags in rows and the definition of methodical. So a lot of my time was spent finding the one bag that didn't have a granola bar or whatever. Ellie really enjoyed the process until she said, "mommy, I'm tired of bending over". Oh yeah kid...how do you think I feel? But we were successful and both earned 2 Oreos for our hard work.
























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Normal week - day 4

Slab lift was a success. We got it within 1/4" of where we wanted it without any cracking or issues and it only took 22kips (22000 pounds). That's how you define success in my line of work.

The missing concrete at school, well apparently they are installing new drains to prevent ponding water (from all the rain we get here apparently). As I was dropping Ellie off the "working men" were pulling in with a barrel mixer and Ellie and I talked about how they were going to put the bags of cement in the mixer with some water and then fill up the hole that they made.



At school Ellie was pretty happy and giddy. She had a hard time waking up, because it was a brisk morning, but once she was up...she was giddy! This was the best photo from this morning. It doesn't look like she running around and over excited...but she is.



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Normal week - Day 3

So today isn't quite normal.

Somebody tore up the sidewalk in front of school...I'm not sure why, it's not long enough for plumbing, not side enough to repair cracks, settlement, or replace...we shall see what they do. As tempted as I was to show and explain to Ellie the reinforcement and the concrete I held my tongue because today was an early day (and it was drizzling).












Also, today is my slab lift day. Months of planning, analysis, design, and coordination have come down to today as we lift a slab 2-3". As a company we actually jack or lift a lot of slabs and bridges, but this is my first. I've done a lot of load testing, which is basically a lift upside down (load the slab to a certain level and measure deflection). So it should be fun.

Ellie wanted to take her favorite Halloween book to school for the teacher to read.



And she showed me her collage work where she made a candy corn. Hers was the only one on the wall with a nose...



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