Christmas Preparations: Giving to Others

Rob and I have been trying to impress upon Ella the importance of giving to others during all times of the year, and there is no better time than during the Christmas season.

We let her help us pick a boy and girl angel from each age group from our church's Angel Tree and then select gifts for the children, some are who are in shelters or whose parents are imprisoned. We spent a Sunday afternoon wrapping the presents together.

starting to wrap the presents

Ella was pleased to use her own scissors to help cut the paper


stacking the gifts


proud of the presents

Tomorrow evening, the three of us are going to celebrate our Gould family Christmas with a meal and presents. After the meal is over, we are planning on packing up the leftovers for some homebound parishioners in our church as part of the Aid for Friends program. We are grateful to our parents for teaching us the value of giving to the less fortunate. We are hoping to find other projects that we can do together with Ella where she might be able to interact with some of the people she is helping.

Christmas Preparations: Family Fun in the City

A couple of weekends ago, we went into the city to enjoy the Christmas decorations there. We first stopped at the Christmas Village in front of City Hall. It was fun to walk around and check out the vendors, listen to music (Ella loved the 4 saxaphone players), and let Ella pick out a Christmas ornament as part of a tradition we started when she was born.

Then we walked to Macy's for the organ and Light Show, which boasts nearly 35, 000 LED lights on the Christmas tree section, alone (the rest of the show has about 65, 000 more)! Ella's favorite part of the show was dancing to the organ's Christmas music.

After the show was over, we couldn't leave the city without letting Ella visit Rob's office (she LOVES going there). We had a great day together as a family and were lucky to be able to enjoy something like this.

J and Ella (and George) watching the light show


a big 3 story light tree at the beginning of the show


Ella helping George climb after the light show
(According to her, he was looking for bananas)


Ella measuring a drawing in Rob's office


drinking "special soda" together


working on the computer


Ella's first time using the mouse by herself---She did great!

Christmas Preparations: Baking

Ella loves to help in the kitchen with baking and cooking, and she also loves using cookie cutters with play-doh, so I knew she would enjoy making cut-out sugar cookies this Christmas.

We used a sugar cookie recipe from Nigella Lawson, which was easy. Aside from using the cookie cutters, Ella's favorite part was decorating the cookies with icing and sprinkles (and, of course, eating them)!

modeling her "ELLA" apron that Baba made for her

silly girl


using the rolling pin

mommy and daughter hands


the cut-outs


just out of the oven


concentrating on the decorating


one of the first cookies done


yum!


finished cookies

This afternoon we are going to take some cookies to one of our elderly neighbors (it was one of the messages in Ella's advent envelopes).

Christmas Preparations: Decorating

The weekend after Thanksgiving we decorated our tree and home in preparation for Christmas. Ella especially loved helping this year as we listened to Christmas music together.

showing us how tall the tree is

concentrating on putting on the "cotton balls"
(That is what she calls the Christmas balls that go on the tree...not sure why)


finding the perfect spot


Ella's arrangement
(before we helped her to a little re-arranging to spread things out)


thoughtful
(I love this picture!)


hanging the stockings with Rob


playing with Rob's old train set


"bucket head" soldier


decorating the small hallway tree


proud of her work

Better Late than Never

I have been behind on posting pictures this month, including a few that I took at Thanksgiving---partially because I haven't been taking as many pictures and that I haven't been in a posting mood.

But, before Christmas comes in a few days, I thought I should add a few from Thanksgiving:

Ella playing with Granddad
(buying things at the store)

drawing pictures
(one of Ella's favorite things to do lately--coloring and drawing)


turkey shirt, apron, and Pinkie


coloring with Lesley


Rob trying to get the football from me during our annual
post-Thanksgiving football game


cutie