Our "Real" Rock Band

I mentioned last week how much fun Ellie and I's first experience playing Rock Band on PS3 was so now I want to share video of the girls playing the real drums! Eric just recently moved the entire music studio from the unfinished side of the basement to the finished side- resulting in a much safer place for the girls to be down there and try all the instruments out. Ellie has always loved the studio but Josie just now has been able to experience it. We now find her often just standing at the basement door waiting for one of us to take her down! Here are our little drummers...

Ellie, standing so she can play the bass drum too.


Josie's turn...notice how she is trying to figure out how to play the bass, also, at the end if the video.


Here they both are apparently playing the "Cymbal Only" song!


Ellie also just got her very own microphone and was so excited when it arrived! Here she is practicing with it...



Stay tuned...I'm sure there will be a lot more videos of our "Rock Band" to come!

Happy Birthday Ellie!

Ellie turned four on December 28th. It is really hard to believe! She is very happy to have reached this milestone. She is still singing several times a day "I am sooo happy that I'm four...!" The morning after her birthday, Eric found her asleep on the floor in the loft instead of her room. When he asked her what she was doing out there, she told him "Because four-year-olds can sleep where-ever they feel like it..." Being four is pretty big stuff to her!

Here Ellie is the morning of her birthday. She is so excited!


She made her own chocolate raspberry cake (with the help of Daddy and Nana).




We then did a little treasure hunt for her. She searched for several little princess figurines throughout the house which then led her to her new...


princess castle!


She was very, very happy which you can see in this adorable song.


Happy birthday Ellie! We love you so much!

Merry Christmas!

Getting Ready for Christmas

decorating the tree


Josie


new ice skate stockings


Santa visit!


Ellie with carolers at the mall. She loved them!



from Ellie

Catching Up

Here are a few more miscellaneous pictures and videos that I thought I would share.


Ellie pretending to "eat" Josie's fingers...always makes her laugh!



a really cool ship that Ellie built with Tinkertoys.



A couple pictures Ellie colored of her new love: Strawberry Shortcake


Ellie playing Mary Had a Little Lamb without the music.



A cute little tap dance by Ellie while dressed as Fancy Nancy.



The girls having fun in their boat.



Josie on Ellie's big wheel and calling for her to show her. She says Ellie like Eh-eeee.



Josie playing "peek-a-boo" after we saw a toy that said it.

Rain Fun

Ellie wanted to go out with me to brush Charlie yesterday while it was raining. I said no at first but then she came out of the mudroom with her rain boots on (over her pajamas...so cute) and I realized that a little rain couldn't hurt her! Of course I brought the camera...




brushing Charlie


looking for puddles out front


singing in the rain :)

Two New Songs by Ellie

The other night, Ellie announced that she wrote some new songs and wanted to sing them for us.
The first one is "Ring on the Bell and Find That Shoe." Isn't that the best song title?! I didn't catch all of it on camera but it mostly goes:

Ring on the bell and find that shoe...I know just what to do...we have to find that shoe!

Too funny!

Ring on the Bell and Find That Shoe



The second song is "Georgetown Market", which is a local health food store near us. In the song she sings about shopping for:

the last puffins (muffins)
corn and vegetables and green beans and carrots
and nooooooodles...nooooooodles....

Georgetown Market



I love the new songs!

Happy Birthday Josie!

Eric tried to get Josie a vegan piece of cake for her birthday, today, but they were all out. Instead she got to enjoy a birthday sweet potato pie! She loved it! I can't believe she is already ONE...

Dancing Dr. Ellie

I want this kind of energy! (Even having a cold doesn't stop her!)

Time with Daddy

Ellie got to do her two of her "favorite things to do with Daddy" this weekend.

1) Bake bread.
(No pictures since I wasn't there but here are some of her and Josie enjoying it...it was so good!)




2) Play music.

So sweet...

Big Pool

Now that both girls will go into the big pool, it has been much more fun for all of us! We try to go almost every afternoon after Josie's nap. Ellie wears a life jacket and/or floatie (sometimes both!) but she really wants to learn to swim. Since I have to stay so close to Josie, it makes it hard for me to work with her. Swim lessons start at the high school soon, though, so I'm sure we will be doing that!





Ellie- unaware that I was watching (and recording) her. She always has a song in her head so of course the water made think of this one this time...


Josie- just floating around and loving it!

Once Again: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star (with singing!)

And more composing...just look at that hand posture! :)

Playing at the Well

Ellie fell in love with this fountain when she first saw it at my uncle's house on the 4Th of July. She was mesmerized by the endless "bucket fills, bucket dumps, bucket fills, bucket dumps, bucket fills..." you get the picture. I didn't let her touch the fountain there but when I got ours and set it up, she had a BLAST playing with it. I was initially going to bury it in with the landscaping, but decided to just put it right on the back screened-in porch where she could enjoy it the most. I added the grass instead of the rocks that came with because Charlie Dog has been known to eat rocks. I also added the second bucket to catch some of the water for Charlie to get a quick drink while he waits at the door to be let in. I'm really happy with it!


The first thing Ellie thought of when she saw the fountain was "Jack and Jill". She repeated this several times!


I also caught her singing this.

Art Box

Ellie is always asking to do "projects" so we picked out this blank treasure chest for her to paint and use as an art box. She spent two whole hours working on this thing and it turned out gorgeous! She did every single bit of it herself, even the placement of the stickers. She is so proud of it and I am too!
(Watch the video below and try to guess whether painting makes her happy or not.)