Preparing for School and a Few Short Stories

We spent the weekend getting ready for Ella to start school. We started by taking her clothes shopping. Since I have spent a lot of time with Ella, I already knew I would not get any say in the clothes we would buy. I was feeling ready to let her pick out her own new clothes but I did have just one rule. It is the rule we have been working on a lot at our house. The rule is that "leggings aren't pants" or it's equivalent, "tights aren't pants".

Well, the shopping wasn't as much fun for the family as we were expecting. It never even dawned on me that it is Halloween so all the stores would be packed with costumes. Every store we went into Ella would find the costumes and beg and beg for one. We tried to explain to her that they were too much money and showed her how many other things she could get for the same price. She would just say, "I promise..I will wear it every day" (which is the problem). So in the end Ella got 2 pairs of tights, 1 pair of leggings, and 1 pair of pajama pants. It's going to be an interesting wardrobe.

So on with the story, Ella was so excited about her first day of school that she couldn't fall asleep last night. She was so cute telling us "I am just so besided (excited)." And imagine my surprise when she even wore real clothes to school (though she did accessorize with a noodle necklace).

And here is the little girl on her big day:

She had a rough start. She cried when I dropped her off telling me that, "I am just a little nervous." I thought that was a big word for such a little girl. She also cried when I picked her up, telling me that, "I don't want to go home!" She is an emotional roller-coaster.

And now in closing I just wanted to throw in some of the funny stories that happened yesterday.

First of all, Ella and I have been fighting about how you say the word "anyways". Ella loves to say, "I am going to do it evenways". I have tried to teach her that the word is anyways but she just informs me that, "I can say evenways. It's fine."

Second, Ella has been waiting and waiting to use the potty until she pees her pants. I am pretty tired of it so when I noticed she needed to go yesterday when we were playing a game...I told her I would put the game up if she peed her pants. She said, "I will go when I am ready." So, I said, "That's fine but if you pee your pants the game will go up and you won't be allowed to play games anymore." And then she said again, "I will go when I am ready." Well, I had had enough and told her, "You can go now or I will put the game up!" She then got up to go potty but I heard her say as she went up the stairs, "I will go when I am ready tomorrow!" I guess she figured I had won that one but she would get the next.

And last but not least, Ella loves to collect sticks. The bigger the stick the better the find. So yesterday we went on a walk to find sticks. Imagine her surprise when people had piled sticks at the end of their driveways just for her (or maybe for the trash man). She would run up and find the biggest stick and then look at the next driveway and say "Look Mommy there are more over there and there."

The conclusion to this long and kind of random post is that..part if me is happy that Ella is off to school. I mean I don't have to dodge long pointy sticks that can poke out my eye but then again...What am I going to laugh about during my day???

Will's Blessing

Well..after forgetting two months in a row...we finally blessed Will. Sadly, he didn't fit in the little white suit my sister had made but Will didn't care at all. I think he would have preferred to just come in his PJ's so he could have slept through the whole thing.

So here is the story:
A few nights before the blessing I had this awful feeling that Chris was going to change the baby's name. You see, the school that Chris goes to is called the William E. Simon Business School. So, I started thinking he was going to name the baby William Simon Sturgill. I told Chris about this the night before the blessing and he said, "I like that name. I think it sounds good together". Great, right? I was totally freaking out. And to make matters worse, the only white onsie I could find for him to wear under his dress shirt said "Simon School of Business, Early Leader".

When the time came for the blessing.......well, the bishopric member forgot about it. Chris was totally awkward and just started raising his hand right there in sacrament. But I am glad he did because they went ahead with the blessing.

Will did great. He apparently cooed and smiled the whole time. Chris said he was grateful because he blessed him that he would be a happy and always able to find the good in things. He was worried Will would start screaming right after he said the was supposed to be happy. He also blessed him to love the Lord and help bring people to Jesus because of that love. And most importantly he said his name would be William Clay Sturgill.

Here is the picture from after the blessing. I guess you can tell he is the second because we didn't even take him out of the car seat and thought the car would make a nice background....


That afternoon we had ice cream with a bunch of our friends to celebrate. Will made an appearance at the beginning but decided to sleep through most of it. Maybe he was just disappointed he couldn't have any ice cream.

Our place was totally packed:

We sure are lucky to have such great friends!!!