Halloween - i.e. church Fall Festival

Costume choice - for a few weeks before Halloween I would take Ella to some of the area re-sale shops to find whatever she wanted to dress up as this year. We looked through lions, butterflies, and even a Care Bear costume to each of these she said,"No mama". "Ok, then," I said,"what do you want to dress up as." . . . . . Drum roll please . . . . . ."YELLOW PRINCESS" and that's how the decision was made. So I ordered her a sparkly yellow (sort of Belle-esque) princess dress from a not too expensive place online and she was in heaven! She tried the dress on a couple of times before Halloween and was just a doll in it.

So - the night before Halloween we went to the Fall Festival at church to play with friends and have a nice dress up evening. We decided that once she was all dressed up, we would go to Walmart just before the festival to get some semi-professional, not too expensive pictures of her all dressed up (partially because it is really hard to get her to stand still for my pictures any more). MISTAKE!!! While we got several gorgeous pictures (post to come) she was a complete bear at the picture place. Crying over the pumpkin bucket, crying over sitting alone, not wanting to look at the pictures . . . . yatta, yatta, yatta. This is not the usual Ella and it really throws me for a loop when she acts like this so we were all out of sorts by the time we left. BUT 1 minute in the festival happenings and everything was right as rain again.

Her favorite thing was the mini-bouncy house. She would watch for another child around her age to go in and then she would RUN over to jump with them. One little boy kept climbing in and out and Ella would go to the door of the house and say,"Please come on and jump with me." It was precious. In fact, she jumped so much that I had to bunch her dress up in my pony tail holder to keep her from stepping on it AND she got her sparkly barrettes caught in the net of the bouncy house TWICE!! But she had fun and that is all that matters. Here are some pictures from the evening.

Waiting for friends in the bouncy house.

Games with Daddy and church friend James.


Finally some friends to jump with!!

Playing on the playground outside with church friend Madeline.

What a princess!!

On the Hay Ride. (she actually sat to have a butterfly painted on her face and LEFT IT ON all night without rubbing it off - I was impressed)

Eating a "lop" or yellow lollipop on the way home.


THE AFTERMATH -- too much fun = stepped on the princess dress and ripped it in 3 places. OH MY!!!