Mamoo!

My mother is here for a week and a half. I'm so excited! There are lots of Mommom, Mommy, Daughter plans and hopefully there will be pictures of them to share. It starts tomorrow, with Halloween sugar cookies. Hooray!

Fall again...

... after that little snow storm we were afraid fall had been completely skipped over after only a week! But we're back to fall weather again and, though the freezing temperatures put the kabosh on most of our fall colors, there are still some little spectacles of fall beauty to behold...

Thank you, Leif, for capturing Montana's beauty so well!

My parents babysat Ellie last night....

... only they weren't here.

Apparently, while I was out last night Leif called my parents and let Ellie talk to them. He put the phone somewhere in her room and then left the room. And she jabbered on, "showing" them one thing after another for half an hour. She was very content to have them there, even if they weren't actually present in the room.

I hadn't heard about all this, so when I talked to mom today she told me to ask Ellie who she talked to last night. So I did. "Ellie," I said, "who did you talk to last night?" And here's what she told me:

"I talked to Mommom and Poppy on Daddy's phone."

Just as clear as that she is able to communicate what she's thinking and what she has done, even the day before. It amazes me!

Busy

Busy.

Ellie is very busy.

And so are we as a family, in case you haven't noticed the lack of bloggage lately.

We've been busy.

It will get better after the holidays, but until then I think we're going to stay pretty busy. I took on a pile of activities this Fall, which have been good. But they've also kept me from doing other things that I love, like keeping all of you saturated with pictures of Ellie! So while I can't go back and undo the dearth of photos, and I can't promise a return to the daily updates right away, I CAN share these today....

Leif takes Ellie down to the river when he wants to spend time with her. It's great. She gets to run around like a crazy girl, exploring everything around her without being told not to touch things. He gets to be outside, enjoying the quiet, without having to tell her not to touch things. Win. Win. Oh, and I get to stay home and get things done in peace and quiet. Can you have a win-win-win situation? Best of all, after a few hours at the river they both come home happy and relaxed, having spent good, quality, daddy-daughter time. And, well, I get to experience it through pictures.

Delicious!

This is Ellie's newest word.

Tonight at Zoe's birthday party Ellie took a drink of juice and then said, "Ah! Delicious!" and the whole room cracked up. Of course, that made her do it about 20 more times and it wasn't funny any more. But it's still great to hear her use words like "delicious" when talking about food. I love it!

She also told me tonight, "I love cupcakes!" and it was the first time I'd heard her use the word "love" for anything other than "I love you".

One week of Fall!

Really, can it be that we only had ONE WEEK of fall this year??? A week ago we were at the pumpkin patch and it was in the upper 80's. Thursday night it started to snow and has been cold, windy, and snowy since. I'm not ready for winter yet! So because I refuse to believe that winter is officially here, let's just celebrate fall a little longer with some fall pictures of Ellie and Grandad down at the river recently....

Game Time!!

So I'm about a month late on getting these pictures posted, but I just found them tonight and figured I'd post them anyway. =D

I love playing Rummikub. I grew up playing Rummikub. Great game. Really. But Leif won't play with me. He says I'm obnoxious when I win. I don't think I am, but that's what he says and he won't play with me. So imagine my complete and utter joy when Robert said HE would play with me while he was here last month! We sat outside and enjoyed the warm sunshine while we played. It was great.

We played 3 games. I won all 3. I wasn't cheating, but it wouldn't have been too hard to cheat, if I'd wanted to.

Sunglasses are a good idea for sitting out in the sunshine, but not if you're playing a game like this. Too bad we weren't playing poker....

The glasses were almost as bad an idea as letting Ellie run around while we played. Unfortunately for Robert she decided that this was a good time to stand next to him and ask him questions. Questions like... "That's a 5! You have a 5, Robert?"

I suppose I had an unfair advantage on two accounts that day.

Rocky Creek Farm

Today we went to Rocky Creek Farm for a hayride and pumpkin patch!! We go every year (or have since Ellie was born...) and no one was organizing it this year, so I took it upon myself to make the arrangements. There were several rounds of phone tag with the farm owner before we finally were able to speak to eachother to make arrangements for the activities, and I ended up only giving people a couple days notice because of it! Nevertheless, we had a great group and even with the short notice we ended up with 12 moms and 19 kids who came, so I'm calling it a rousing success! It was 80 degrees out, so it didn't feel very fall-like, but it was fun and we got some fun pictures. Maybe we'll go back when it's a little cooler and take some more!

We started the day by letting the kids play in the hay fort while we waited for everyone to arrive. Hay forts are a great way to entertain toddlers!

After playing in the hay fort we headed over to the barn to wait for the last couple people to arrive and the kids got to watch the lady cleaning out the apple press! It wasn't as exciting as actually watching her press apples, but it was pretty enthralling to them nonetheless!




Once everyone arrived we took a hayride around the farm! This is the highlight of the trip every year and the kids love it!

The hayride takes us back to the pumpkin patch where the kids get to look for pumpkins! Because we've already had the first frost the pumpkins have been harvested already, but the farm is kind enough to put kid sized pumpkins out for the kids to "find" and take home!

Searching for pumpkins...

She found one!! This one is a lot like the one she chose last year!





After the kids picked out their pumpkins we all headed back to the trailer for the tractor ride to the barn!




Back at the barn the moms shopped for pumpkins, squash, and other harvest produce while the kids played on the tire swings hanging from a big tree. Ellie's favorite swing was the hammock swing, but she liked the yellow tire swing, too.



She also liked playing in the tree...



If you live in the Gallatin Valley and you've never visited Rocky Creek Farm, you should. It's a great place to go, especially in the fall. They're available for reservation for private parties in the mornings and open to the public in the afternoons and on Saturdays. Go check it out. It's wonderful!

First Prayer...

Tuesday night Eliana said her first spontaneous prayer! I am so excited to see this side of her developing as she learns about God and a relationship with Him. I wasn't home when she said her first prayer, but Leif tells it like this:

During Ellie's bedtime routine Leif took her to the potty and she sat on it and peed. Then, when she was done, she started to get up, then stopped and sat back down. She closed her eyes really tight and said, "Thank you for food, and thank you for pee-pee in the potty!"

How sweet is that? I love to see her expressing thankfulness, especially thankfulness to God, in the little things. I love to see her making those connections. I love to see her growing up in both stature and wisdom, and I love stories like these!