one little, two little, three little indians....

Last week I made Eliana this little outfit and she spent a few days this week wearing it. I thought it was fitting for Thanksgiving week. =D

And now the saddest little indian....

And the silliest little indian....

Thanksgiving 2008

We spent Thanksgiving this year with Leif's family. We took some food over to Roundup and met up with Leif's parents and brother, and Gayle's daughter and family at Grandpa and Gayle's house. It was a great day with family, and Ellie had a blast playing with the family dog, Brownie, and Gayle's cat Angel. While we were in Roundup we got to see Tim and Nicole, who were visiting from Connecticut, and visit with Aunt Lillian, Leif's 103 year old great aunt. Here's a look at our day...

Happy Birthday, Grandpa!!

Today is Grandpa Albright's 82nd birthday. Happy birthday, Grandpa! Here are some pictures from yesterday of Grandpa with his great granddaughter!

Turkeys...

We're sitting at the table right now. I am doing things on the computer and Ellie is coloring a picture of a turkey. And so we have this little conversation:

Ellie: What's your name?
Me: Elizabeth. What's your name?
Ellie: I'm Ellie Turkey.
Me: You're Ellie Turkey?
Ellie: Yes. You're a turkey, too.
Me: I'm a turkey, too?
Ellie: No, I'M not a turkey, I'm Eliana Wickland! You're Elizabeth.
Me: I'm Elizabeth Wickland?
Ellie: No, not yet! Just Elizabeth.

Ha ha! Where does she get these things? Apparently, Wickland is only part of HER name, not part of ours. But it cracks me up that she tacked on the "not yet" to her correction! I also think it's funny that she told me first that her name was Ellie Turkey. Some days she IS a turkey.

The truth of it is....

I love it when comics are so true! This is how I feel a lot of the time, especially when I'm calling my mom up to share the latest cute thing Eliana has said. And sadly, once I've gotten it out of my system by telling someone (usually two people - my mom and Leif) then I never get around to blogging it. And it was perfectly good blogging material, let me tell you!

I'm sorry for all the stories the rest of you missed out on because I verbally communicated them, and, Eliana, I'm sorry for all the stories that got lost because I forgot to record them here. Really she says so many cute things in a day that it's hard to find the time to sit down and write them all out, but I should. Let's see... here are a couple recent ones:

Ellie and I went down to the park last weekend so she could play on the slides. I figured it would be a good time to catch up on reading my latest issue of Martha Stewart LIVING, so I took it to the park with me. We had a lovely walk over there and she started playing happily. But as soon as I cracked the cover on my magazine, Ellie came running over to me shouting, "Don't DO that!! Don't read that Bible!" Apparently, all books are Bibles right now. I informed her that it wasn't a Bible, it was a magazine. The next time I tried to read my magazine, she told me, "Mommy, don't read that mazgabible!" Ha ha! We spent over an hour at the park during which time I was supposed to follow her around and talk to her while she played. I was not allowed to set my magazine down on the playground equipment, carry it and read it, open the cover, or anything. About the only suitable treatment for my magazine according to Ellie was to leave it on the ground! So... don't ask me what's in the December issue of Martha, because I still haven't gotten a chance to read it!

The transition to no milk is still going well, though it's a process to find cheese alternatives that are truly milk free that Ellie is happy with. Because she loves cottage cheese so much I tried making a cottage cheese alternative out of tofu for her. Any time she asked for some cottage cheese, that is what I gave her. Finally one day at breakfast Eliana told me, "I don't want you to MAKE cottage cheese, I WANT cow cottage cheese!" WHO TOLD HER? Who told her that one was from cow and one was not? It wasn't me, Leif, or my mom... So, we just don't have cottage cheese any more. Problem solved! =D

There are a few other stories I have to share, too, but they have pictures that go with them. We finally got the computers synchronized again so I should be able to blog pictures a little easier again. Stay tuned....!

Ellie and Grammee

Earlier this fall, we took some pictures of Grammee and Eliana "down at the river," as I say.

Choking Hazard (part 2)...

A little conversation....

Mommom: What are you eating, Ellie?
Ellie: A choking hazard. (as she opens her mouth to show the metallic thread she is chewing on)

sigh.

Dairy Free

A week ago we took Eliana off milk and milk products (specifically those containing casein). In just a couple days we saw a pretty significant improvement in her behavior. It's been sad for us as parents, because we don't want to admit that Eliana is allergic to anything or has to have a "special" diet. She can't eat mac and cheese at friends' houses. She can't drink milk. We have to buy expensive soy cheese (because she can't live without cheese... we tried.) and make a point to give her calcium fortified drinks (like rice milk - which she really doesn't care for, and orange juice - which, thankfully, she loves!) and make sure she is getting all the nutrition her growing body needs. It's so much easier when she just drinks a lot of milk. But for the first time in a long time, she is not acting like a crazy spaz, she's just acting like a normal 2 year old. She sat and listened to a story at Kindermusik for the first time yesterday without getting up and down, interrupting, sitting on other kids, trying to turn pages while the teacher was still reading... What a difference from a week ago!

So, this is my official announcement... Ellie is allergic to milk and milk products.

I probably won't say too much more on the matter over here on this blog, but if you'd like to follow our dairy free adventures, they're going on at Train Up a Child.

Playing in the Rain!

Sunday afternoon Leif took Ellie down to the river even though it was a dreary, drizzly day. I'd say she had a great time despite the drizzle!

Little Buddy...

Yesterday Ellie walked into the room, looked at Mommom and said, "Whatcha doin' little buddy?" It was hilarious.

Our little imaginator

Ellie has been carrying around these binoculars and looking through them (backwards), telling us that she's "bird watching." Now, I am pretty sure that she has never been bird watching, so that makes it even funnier. But she gets into it and starts telling us everything she "sees" while she's watching birds. She looks up at the ceiling through the binoculars and says things like, "I see baby birds coming out of their eggs!" and "I see birds flying!" It's pretty funny just how imaginative she is.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Tonight we had a Halloween party at our house. It was mass chaos, really, but it was a lot of fun. 4 families, 8 kids. We had dinner together and then the dads took the kiddos trick-or-treating while us moms stayed back and passed out candy to the kids who stopped by our house. We had a lot of trick-or-treaters this year! I made up 50 goodie bags for the kids and they were all gone in like 45 minutes! Good thing Stephanie brought an extra Costco bag of candy to the party! A glimpse of the mass chaos...

Ellie wore a princess costume made by her Uncle Robert. Isn't she just the cutest little princess ever??

I tried putting some fake hair on her head so she would have some little braids and curls sticking out of the bottom of her princess hat, but she wasn't too keen on the fake hair idea. She was, however, excited about wearing the sparkly white eyeshadow I let her wear for the first time.

She was also excited about dressing up and playing outside with Mommom and Daddy.

Eventually Ellie let Mommy do her hair and put her princess hat on.

After we ate dinner at the party it was time for trick-or-treating! Ellie was ready to go!

Off to go trick-or-treating with Daddy!!

Amazingly, she kept her hat on the entire time they were trick-or-treating. I don't know how many houses they stopped at, but the kids came back with plenty of candy! Here they are heading back to the house...

"Look, Mommom! They gave me CANDY!!"

I hope you all had a wonderful Halloween!