It's a wonderful life

It was just that kind of a weekend.

Ellie slept in until 7 am on Sat and 7:30 am on Sun, with 1.5 hr naps both days.  Amazing. (too bad I received texts both mornings before 7 am to wake me up, but I will still take it!)

It was in the 60's both days here in Nashville.  It's hard to actually feel the Christmas spirit in weather like this.  I have to keep reminding myself that Christmas is in 3 weeks.  Yikes.  Hopefully the decorations (and I use that term very loosely) and our first tree will be up (and still standing after Maestro attacks it) before the 25th actually arrives.

Ellie was super going pee on the potty.  We worked hard on it this weekend which included a lot of 'good jobs!' from Mike and I.  She sometimes likes for one of us to go first, and Mike and I both received our own "good job!" from Ellie after we went pee on the potty.  It knocked my socks off the first time she said it.

There were also a lot of "special" things this weekend since she was being so well behaved and if I must say it, so darn cute.  For example, Daddy made her a "special omelet" for breakfast.  Really this is because she never wants her own eggs but always eats a third of Mike's which he doesn't really like.  This was his attempt at getting her to lay off his plate.  We also went on a "special trip" to go see the ICE! exhibit at Opryland, I am sorry, Gaylord Opryland.  Thankfully the tickets were free from Vanderbilt, because while it was kind of neat and I am glad we went for the Nashville Christmas tradition type thing, I would have been pretty pissed spending $50 for the two of us to go (Ellie was free).  But it was a fun adventure and the special part was that we met her friend Emmy there and they had fun.  We also went and walked around the hotel/resort which is decorated very nicely every year for the holidays.  It is actually a really neat place, and I do hope someday to actually stay there!  For dessert tonight Ellie got a "special treat", special mostly because we don't do dessert on a regular basis.  But she had raspberries stuffed with Grammie's hot fudge sauce. 

All in all, a great weekend.  The house got a good scrubbing, I got to swim a bit at the Y and knocked many other things off the to do list!

This isn't from this weekend, but one of Ellie's teachers at school likes fixing her hair.  Which is great by me!  It usually isn't this elaborate, but it kind of cracked me up to see her in braids like this.  I don't know how she does it, with Ellie's hair being so fine and straight!

Emmy and Ellie happy as clams once they saw each other.

Grant and Emmy and the Drzewieckis.  It is really cold inside so you have to put on these jackets.  I mean, 9 degrees cold inside.  I must say, the environmentalist in me has to wonder how much energy goes into keeping this giant exhibition room that cold for about 2 months, but I might vomit if I actually found out.

All donned up

The theme was Merry Madagascar.  It was clearly a publicity stunt for the made for TV/marketing movie, but the sculptures were quite well done and very elaborate.

About halfway through there was a big human ice luge.  The jackets were made such that you could slide down fast.  Ellie, for the first time, was scared to go down.  She generally loves slides.  Emmy's jacket didn't quite cover her but enough and the poor thing went down inch by inch. 

Red noses!

I got a lot of slack for this picture being off center.  I think he is just standing on the wrong side of the zebra.