More Bathtime Fun

Ellie has bas a little toy fish that fills up with water and then squirts it back out when squeezed. The following pictures were shot in quick succession as she emptied the fish.








Notice that she's starting to smile in the third shot, but in the fourth manages to squirt herself in the face. However, no harm was done and she breaks out a big smile for the finale.

Looking at this series makes me really happy. Firstly because my kid is crazy cute and secondly because it wouldn't have been possible to capture if we hadn't ponied up for an SLR, a good lens, and an external flash. It got off 5 shots with flash in under 3 seconds. Try that with a compact camera.

Heeee-llooooo

Shapes

Ellie has been doing really well with her shapes lately. She is especially proficient with star, heart, circle, moon (crescent) and oval, and she can sometimes do square and triangle.

She is best at star and heart, though.

It's Pea Time!

Remember the peas incident?

Well, in the last few days Ellie has decided that now she LIKES peas. Ate a whole bowl of them for lunch today and had quite a few last night with dinner. She likes beans, too, so we tried to teach her the word 'legume', but it didn't stick.

Along with her peas she ate about a fourth of my vegetable soup, half a can of fruit, and a few animal crackers. She's a little piggy. The other day she ate 4 (yes, FOUR) hot dogs for dinner, plus string cheese and some craisins. Piggy, I say... Piggy.

As a side note, the night before last she said to Leif, "Bye bye, see-ya!" It was the cutest.

A glimpse into the last hour...

It's time for the Busy Girl Photo Hour!! Here's a little glimpse into Ellie's last hour:

Hanging things off the doorknob





Playing dress up and flirting with herself in the mirror





"Drinking" out of a little Tupperware container





Riding her horse (Every time she rides her horse she says "doodleloo doodleloo doodleloo". It's hilarious and took me a while to figure out that she was trying to sing the finale to the William Tell Overture since that's what I hummed the first time I showed her how to ride a stick horse!)





Playing in her fort



Trying to figure out why I'm taking so many pictures





Making a game of climbing out the window of her fort (over and over and over)





Playing with her ball



Playing the "fall down" game





Dragging the other stick horse around like a mop



Knocking down the fort and laying underneath it



Rolling around with the beach ball under the knocked over fort





Giving me the evil laugh because she's about to put things in my slippers





Putting my slippers on





Knocking on and trying to go out the front door



Trying to go out the garage door



Back to the knocked down fort



Climbing inside the knocked down fort



Wearing Daddy's noise-reducing headphones

Whew!! Just reading through this makes me tired! And yes, all of these pictures were taken in the span of an hour! Thankfully it tired her out, too, and she's happily napping right now and will be for the next few hours. Time to go get stuff done!

Ellie's Fort

We saw the coolest snow fort in a neighbor's yard the other day. It had several rooms and what looked like tunnels leading between them. Very cool!

Ellie doesn't have a snow fort. Neither she nor I have the patience to go out into the cold and build one! So she has the next best thing... a fort in the living room! It's just one room of the pop up train we got for her birthday, but she has filled it with pillows and stuffed animals and has been playing in it for about 4 days now. She loves it! It's how she entertains herself. And I'm glad she does, because boy does she have a lot of energy! She can play in this thing for an hour!

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New 'do

Okay... here's today's try on the braids.

And a few favorite pictures I got while I was trying to get pictures of the braids. =D This is her new sweatshirt, too.

(She gives me this look sometimes and I don't really know what it means. I love it, though, because it's so HER.)

(And this is her being silly because I asked her to take the sippy cup out of her mouth.)

And we leave you with a smile from Ellie! Have a great day!

Blizzards, Braids, and Baby duds

Well, I was planning on going into town today to meet someone for lunch and do a little shopping. But I'm looking out the window right now and it's blizzarding. I can't see the road in front of our house, and I can't see our back fence. So I don't think I'll be going into town at all. We'll just stay all snuggled up in our warm little house and enjoy walking around without frozen ice crystals pelting us at high speeds in subzero temperatures. Today might call for some hot chocolate.

The blustery weather also called for Ellie to wear her new sweatshirt today. Yesterday I went to Old Navy because I had too many people tell me I *had* to check out the amazing sale they were having. I'm glad I did! It was a pretty amazing sale (I think it's still going on, too, if you haven't been yet) and I got several things for Ellie and even something for myself! 50% off of the stuff already marked 50% off! I got an ADORABLE cream corduroy dress for Ellie (it has pink stitching details on it, but is in size 3T so I will have to wait to see her in it!) as well as a brown tank top and pink shirt for this summer and the aforementioned cream sweatshirt with little front pocket. She's been putting her hands in that little pocket this morning and running around - she thinks it's funny! I have to agree with her...

For myself I got a brown peacoat. I love it!! It was originally $78 and I got it for $18. Woohooo! I've been wanting a shorter winter coat. Living in Texas I never thought you'd need a variety of coats, but you really do! I have my ski coat, which I wear most of the winter since it is warm and keeps the wind out. Then I have my dress coat - a knee length black wool coat. I also have a light blue fleece to wear on days that I don't need a heavy coat or windbreaker. But I needed something to wear with jeans that looks nice, that isn't too dressy and isn't a full blown parka, but is warm enough to wear on cold days like today. That's my new brown peacoat!

And as for the braids... all of my years practicing braiding those tiny troll dolls' hair (do you remember those little troll dolls that used to be so popular?) has finally paid off. Last night Ellie was sitting in my lap drinking her milk before bed and I got the brilliant idea to try to braid her hair now that it's getting longer. Her hair is SO FINE, but I was able to braid it! Now, I probably won't braid it like this to go out in public... I'll have to wait until I find a suitable way to braid her hair, but we had to take pictures of her first braids!

Chattin' the night away...

Ellie loves to talk on the phone. Unfortunately, she also loves to push the buttons on the phone, so chances are that if you're talking to her, she'll hang up on you. It's sad, but true. If you're lucky, though, she'll push the right button and call you back. That's been known to happen, too.

These pictures were taken last night while Ellie was having a chat fest with the grandparents. Daddy is usually responsible for such calls, and is also responsible for the visual record of them.

Bath Time Routine

As of last week sometime, bath time has been added to Ellie's ever-changing bedtime routine. She loves baths, and thinks it's great to spend time splashing around with her "friends," which she can name pretty well. They're little foam sea creature shapes that stick to the bathtub wall. There's "turtle," "ray," (That's a manta- or stingray) "squid" (or 'quid as she calls it), "octopus," "'horse" (because she doesn't quite get the concept that a seahorse and a real horse are different. They both say "nay" after all!), "stars" (the good ol' starfish) and "crab." She loves them. She also loves her rubber ducky and gives him kisses! Lucky duck.

He gets a bath, too. As she is learning how to wash herself, she is washing him off, too!

(Notice the ear scrubbing going on in that last photo?)

It's wonderful that she loves baths so much. And it's something she looks forward to, so that makes the going to bed routine that much more fun.