Kisses for Mommom

Today Ellie gave Mommom a kiss. Mommom was laying on the floor and Ellie came up and gave her a kiss and drooled right into her ear!! She's teething right now, so there's plenty of drool and some of it just happened to make its way smack into Mommom's inner ear. She squirmed uncomfortably. I laughed. She said it was like getting water into your ear while swimming, only instead of water, this was drool.

blech.

What's New?

So... what has Eliana learned in the past week with Mommom and Poppy? I'll give you three guesses. Has she learned to...

a) run
b) play harmonica
c) climb

If you picked d) all of the above, you're correct! We've been here less than half our stay and already Ellie has learned so many things. She can now RUN from place to place and Mommom taught her how to climb up and stand on things like stools and tupperware containers. She's working on climbing onto the couch, but hasn't mastered that one yet.

And yes, she can play the harmonica. I'm sort of ashamed to admit that my 13 month old figured out that you can blow into AND suck on the harmonica and it will make different sounds before I did. Yeah... feeling a little dumb about that one. I've got video of her playing the harmonica, but am going to wait until I'm at home (that is, not using dial-up) to upload it.

On the language front, Ellie was looking out the window today at my dad mowing the lawn and very clearly said "Poppy" as she watched him. Then tonight Robert came over for dinner and I said something about saying hi to Uncle Robert when Ellie looked at him, smiled, and said "Robert" as clear as could be. She called him Robert a couple other times during the evening, too. I was shocked and impressed! She's also been putting a couple words together and saying "read book" when she wants to be read to.

I'm sure there are other things to share, but it's late, I'm tired, and we need to get up and go to church in the morning, so I should get some sleep. Goodnight!

Attention Longview Scrapbookers....

Hey! If you read this blog, but not My Inner Martha and you'd like to join us for scrapbooking when I'm in Longview (I'm thinking of you, Christina!), then check my crafting blog for details. See you there!

Teething

Elizabeth noticed today that Eliana now has 2 molars, for a total of 8 teeth. Of these, the original 2 are on the bottom, and all the rest are on the top.

From the size the drool drop, it looks like she's working on more.

Self Feeding with a Full-size Spoon

The Tweaksters

I keep meaning to blog about Sweet Pea, so I'm finally going to do it. On Friday night of Sweet Pea, the big performance was by the Tweaksters. They're an acrobatic duo unlike anything I've ever seen before. We went thinking it would be entertaining and left amazed and almost speechless. It was awesome. If you ever have the opportunity to see this group, GO! They alone were worth the admission to Sweet Pea.

They did the typical acrobatic balancing stuff, mixed with some juggling and dancing. Some of it was stuff I'd seen other people do, and some just blew me away. They were very fun and family-friendly with their routines, using bright costumes and props that held kids' attention. Their feats of strength and balance held ours.


They had a whole routine worked out using those big exercise balls, from juggling and balancing them to rolling under and over them (sort of like the tracks of a tank move).

Their grand exit from the stage at the end of that routine was "surfing" down a line of exercise balls right off the stage. I have a hard enough time just sitting on one of those, let alone balancing on them and surfing them!


They also did a couple acts where the guy juggled and played songs on a marimba at the same time. In between juggling the batons, he'd strike the keys with them. It was crazy, and he was really good at it!


Through the whole performance, the couple demonstrated how strong they were, but their strength was most evident in their last act. A combination of twirling two balls on a rope (that had to keep spinning in order to avoid becoming slack) and lifting and balancing left us blown away. Here is their signature move. She is spinning the balls on a rope and both of them are balancing completely on her legs from the knees down. There are no hidden props, and they are not resting on anything. They got into that position from standing and then returned to standing after staying this this for a few moments. That is one strong woman!!


The whole performance was amazing. It even had Ellie mesmerized, when she wasn't clapping and dancing along, that is!

Eliana's First Hike to Lava Lake

On Saturday we hiked to Lava Lake, one of our favorite hikes around Bozeman. Ellie got tired, but wouldn't consider sleeping while there were so many new things to investigate.

'Dat?

So today Ellie is in my craft room with me (yes, she has been so good lately at obeying when I tell her not to touch something that she has been allowed in "my" room and not gotten in trouble for several days now! - of course, I probably just jinxed that by telling you about it...) and she is going around pointing at things saying, "dat?" and looking at me with an expectant face, waiting for me to tell her what it is. Sometimes she tries to repeat what I say, but so many of the things she points at are just too big for her to say.

"dat?"
"That's an envelope."
"'ope."
"dat?"
"That's a chair."

It's cute. She's also started to recognize when she's doing something that will make us happy. Like not touching something she's not supposed to. The other day we were in here and she walked over to my stamp shelves and held out her hand, getting ready to swipe a bunch of stamps onto the floor. Before she got there, I said, "No, ma'am. Don't touch the stamps." and she looked at me, hand frozen in the air. Then she walked away from the shelves. A few minutes later she approached the shelves again, hand outstretched. Before I could reprimand her, though, she stopped and said, "No, no." put her hand down and turned away. I praised her and clapped, telling her that she was a good girl. She got a big smile on her face and clapped along. Then she went right back to the shelf, held out her hand, said "No" turned, smiled and clapped for herself. It was funny! She does it over and over. We've been down here a few times since then and she's still doing that to the stamps, but she hasn't touched them once. It warms my heart to see her starting to learn how to do what is right.

No, really, Dad, I want to touch the ducks

Elizabeth took Eliana to the Montana State University duck pond for a picnic lunch. Leif rode his bike over from work and met them. After eating, Leif took Ellie for a walk around the pond.

She really liked the ducks.

I can understand why.

Bite of Bozeman

The Bite of Bozeman was Wednesday night, so we all headed downtown to feast on the glorious offerings of Bozeman's finest eateries. We shared a cheesesteak and a pork empanada. But the real reason we were there was the turkey leg. You see, this is the only time of year you can get one of these huge, glorious turkey legs. So every year we do. We stand in a big l-o-n-g line on a hot August day, and wait... and wait... and wait... until we can finally shell out $5 for a hunk of barbecued meat. Yes, it is that worth it. Last year was Ellie's first time to the bite, but this year we decided to make it a little more memorable and give her a taste of the glorious turkey leg.

At first she wasn't sure what to think. She held it for a minute (which was really more like hugging it, given the size difference between them), then took a little taste.


... and she's hooked, Ladies and Gentlemen! Look at that smile!

She gazed longingly at the turkey leg and licked her chops in anticipation.


She even spontaneously signed "more" in depseration! (I should add that this is the first time we have ever seen her sign "more" on her own.)

We finally conceded and gave her a few more bites. It is so hard to share sometimes!


Yep, give her a turkey leg and this girl is content as can be!

Playing with color

More from the Some Mornings Start Too Early series.