The Bouncy Place

We went with the Karren's to The Bouncy Place this week. It was mine and Ellie's first time to one of these facilities. Wow.. it was FUN! I think I had just as much fun as Ellie did:) It was fun to see Ellie's progress in just an hours time. In the beginning she needed help climbing up a few of the obstacles to get to the slides and what not. She would also want to hold my hand and go down the slide with me as they are pretty fast slides. By the end of the hour she was climbing up the obstacles faster than I was and wouldn't dare wait for me at the top to go down the slide together! It was so much fun and we will defintely be visiting The Bouncy Place again soon!

The Belnap's Visit

I love it when company comes to visit because it is a great excuse to do all the "touristy" type attractions in the area. We had a great time showing my sister and her family all around Seattle.

We started off the day after Thanksgiving at the Holiday Parade in Seattle.

Ellie enjoyed seeing all the balloon displays and dancing snowmen, trees and clowns.
Ellie was SO excited to see Santa! This is going to be a fun holiday season!
We took the Belnap's to one of our favorite places in Seattle... Pike's Place Market.
Watching the fisherman throw the fish around. Notice the doughnut in Ellie's hand... the highlight of the day was the little doughnut shop at Pike's Place where you get HOT doughnuts that they make right in front of you.. yummy!
Saturday night we went to the Bellevue Botanical Gardens light display.
The kids loved see the light displays. The highlights were the pond display with a swan, the spider and its web, and the butterflies.

We also went to Snowflake Lane in downtown Bellevue on Saturday night. Drummers march down the lane and dance to Christmas music. Ellie's favorite part was the candy canes that they passed out. My favorite was the cold "bubble" snow that they shoot off of the top of the mall. It was fun to watch the drummers march down the lane and listen to Christmas music.The cousins left at 6 am on Sunday morning. We were sad to see them go. Ellie keeps asking "Where cousins go mommy? I sorry." It is so sad! It is like she thinks that she did something wrong and that is why the left! The poor thing! At least we get to see them in a month!

Thanks for coming to visit! We miss you guys already!

The Cousins are Coming!

My sister, Jeanette, and brother in-law Shane, and their five kiddos drove all the way from Idaho to have Thanksgiving at our house! It was our first time as host/hostess for Thanksgiving... but it all turned out great (a couple of hours earlier than expected but great nonetheless) We had such a fun time! Ellie loved every minute of the 5 to 1 attention from her cousins!

The Gang

Evie getting a ride in the shopping cart!
We had a FULL house!
Off to the annual turkey bowl!
My First Turkey!
The kids on the starting line of the turkey trot!Getting some exercise after the big meal!

Halloween

We had a Halloween Party at music class this morning.... probably not the best idea to start the kids off on Halloween morning with a sugar high... oh well. Ellie had a great time and some of the moms were smart and brought mini PB and J sandwichs for the party which Ellie ate so that made me feel a little bit better about the whole thing. All the kids were so cute dressed up in all their costumes. Halloween evening we went to our ward Halloween Carnival.
Ellie got her face painted, won some cookies at the cake walk and "caught" a prize at the fishing pond.

Jack-o-Lanterns

So I have to admit.... it has been a few years since I have carved a pumpkin. We never really got around to it in previous years... but this year we did it! Last Monday for Family Night we carved out our Jack-o-Lanterns... it was SO much fun! Ellie was so excited and anxious to help by sticking her hands in to get out all the seeds. Upon completing the pumpkins Ellie kept on asking where the ears were so we had to add a couple "ears" to the pumpkin. The best part was going out on the front porch to put a light the pumpkins....Ellie just sat out there completely mesmorized by the jack-o-lanterns.

The Pumpkin Patch

On Friday we went to the Pumpkin Patch with some friends. It was a sunny but rather chilly day. These girls were on the quest for the perfect pumpkin and went up and down the field before each finding "the keeper." On the lookout...
King of the haystack
Say cheese :)
Taking a break from the quest

Caramel Apples

Last Monday we went over to our friends house for a special family night of making caramel apples. It was a fun adventure that was simply delicious. Who knew that the tangy combination of a granny smith apple topped with caramel sauce and lots of goodies could turn into such a tasty creation! I think this activity has to go on the list of traditions for the month!All the kiddos being creative with their apples... there were so many choices for toppings!
Ellie making her apple
YUMMY!

Traditions....

I love traditions... what they stand for, the great memories that they help recall and continue to create. One of my favorite Clarke family traditions is making pumpkin shaped sugar cookies in October. Since my birthday is in October when the tradition stood that you brought cupcakes to class on your birthday.... we always made my moms amazing melt in your mouth sugar cookies.. and they were always a hit. Now we continue the tradition and make the sugar cookies every October and then again in February as heart shapes for Valentine's day. It is a good thing this tradition is just twice a year... because I have already eatten 8 LARGE pumpkin cookies today so I am glad we don't do this more often.

Our friends Hazel and Dewi came over to help us make our pumpkin cookies which made it a great fall activity. Ellie's favorite part was snitching the candy corns off the cookies!

Hard at work
The fun part!
Resting after a long morning of cooking!

Only in Park City Utah....

We took our semi-annual trip to Utah a couple of weeks ago to see my parents while they were home for conference. We enjoyed the sun and some eighty degree weather and then over the weekend... it snowed! It was unbelievable.... that only happens in Utah. We loved it though... I got my sun fix and my sister from Arizona got her snow fix. It was great.

We had a nice week with my parents. After the month in July it seems that this trip was so short... we didn't get enough time... but we will be able to see them in a few months.

Some of the things we did while we were there:

Trip to Antelope Island

Lots of crazy cousin time!
Ellie SO excited when Brandon flew in for the weekend
More cousin time...
Hot air balloons in Park City
All the cousins at temple square
Ellie at the conference center

Play School

A friend from Ellie's music class started a little "play school." It is a co-op of 5 of us with a total of 8 kids. We meet once a week... and we alternate teaching each week plus an additional "helper." It was the second week of class and my first day teaching. We focused on the letter B today. It was so much fun:) We had story time, singing time, craft time, snack time and then play time! Ellie had such a fun time having her little friends over. The Kid Crew

Her Shadow......

So Ellie discovered her shadow this past summer while we were at Cannon Beach. It is a pretty funny story..... too long of a story to write about. But it continues to be a bit of a problem for our family. The problem is... she doesn't like her shadow. She gets pretty upset when she sees it. She starts yelling at it and saying, "No Ellie." This means she doesn't want to see the shadow (which she calls Ellie) and doesn't want the shadow following her.

Fortunately, we live in Seattle. It isn't sunny all that often which means we don't see an overwhelming number of our own shadows... but when it is a sunny day... as it was today at the zoo... we have a bit of a problem. Today Ellie decided to sit down on the path at the zoo and have a bit of a fit at her own shadow. It is a bit of comedy for me and the rest of us... but Ellie has such a problem with it. Poor thing.

An afternoon at the Zoo

We took a trip to the Zoo this afternoon. Ellie was so excited when she saw that the petting zoo was open. We normally go to the zoo in the morning and the petting zoo is only available in the afternoon... Ellie was SO excited to pet the goats... she kept on calling them sheep.. oh well close enough. She was very concerned when the goat would stop eating and she would move the goats bowl of food closer to him so that he would eat more. Then she would tell the goat to drink from its' bucket of water and wasn't satisfied until it actually did! Sebree, Ellie and James
Ellie ooooing about the sheep
Trying to convince the sheep to "come ere"
On her tippy toes in order to get the best view of the sheep