The princess with the tattoo

FlickrDroid Upload, originally uploaded by elizabethwickland.

Eliana got a stick on tattoo from a friend and was very excited to wear it. That sucker lasted for over a week! She was very proud of it, and it cracked me up to see her wearing very girly, princess-y dresses (and a crown, in this picture!) with a tattoo peeking out her sleeve. Crazy girl.

Home Sweet Home

We'll see how everything works out, but it would be amazing if this becomes our new home sweet home...

We May Have a Winner

Elizabeth recounted the following to me. Ellie asked her why there wasn't snow on the ground any more. Eliz explained something about the seasons. Eliana responded that she missed the snow. She said she likes sunny days and snow, but she doesn't like rain. Considering that she lives in Bozeman, which had snow every month beside July last year (seriously, we had snow in August) and supposedly has 320 sunny days per year (more than Houston, TX, for example), that's a pretty happy state of affairs.

Ellie Skiing - Take Three

I actually got to go skiing with Eliana and Leif the last time they went, so I took it upon myself to be the photographer / videographer. =D Here are a few videos from the day...

In this first one, Eliana is the little pink bullet among the black-clad adults...

Here's how Eliana got started down the run most of the time...

And here's how she got back up the run... This might have been her favorite part! (We ran into our friend Zuzana on the hill, so she took a few runs with us while she waited for her party to come down the hill.) You can hear how windy it was that day!!

When Eliana was tired of skiing, we took a little break and did some of this...

There you have a little bit of our afternoon skiing with the 3 year old...

Spring!!!

We are SO EXCITED about the recent sunshine and melted snow! It got up into the 60's today and it's been nice for a few days now, so we've been enjoying the time outside! Ellie has had the opportunity to play with lots of neighbors, both at our house and at theirs. I love this time of year!!

Eliana has gotten to play with Zoe, Ella and Ashlynn, Zach and Kat, Riley, Lucy, and Allie and Noel this week! Lots of kids in the neighborhood!

Dinosaurs

On Friday the Museum of the Rockies had a free demonstration of the animatronic dinosaurs that are in a show in Billings. Since Eliana likes dinosaurs so much, I thought it would be fun to take her. The demonstration was much shorter than I expected, but interesting all the same. The only dinosaur that they could bring to the MOR was a baby T-Rex, since all the others were too big to fit in the museum foyer. This particular dinosaur was largely animatronic, but had a guy inside the suit running the dinosaur for the demonstration. It was eerily real looking, and had Ellie pretty scared! The kids were allowed to pet the dinosaur, but Ellie didn't want to. Observing from a distance was all she was up for!

Exploration Works!

From Helena with Ginny

While we were in Helena, we went to Exploration Works! too, because we got in free thanks to our Museum of the Rockies membership. =D It's a hands on children's museum and is pretty cool. There are all sorts of exhibits about sound and shape and the human ear and all sorts of stuff.

From Helena with Ginny

From Helena with Ginny

From Helena with Ginny

From Helena with Ginny

There were tuning forks to play with, which was kind of cool.

From Helena with Ginny

Leif and Eliana made music together with flip flops and pipes.

From Helena with Ginny

From Helena with Ginny

From Helena with Ginny

I think the favorite exhibit is the one where you could cut fins in paper cups and try to get them to hover over the blowing air.

From Helena with Ginny

The little kid's section of the museum was really cool. It was all gated off so parents didn't have to worry about their toddlers running off into the other sections of the museum. They cutely named it "Little Sky Country." I liked it.

From Helena with Ginny

So did Ellie.

From Helena with Ginny

There was even a section designed for infants where parents could sit and infants could roll around and look at colorful displays without being overrun by the 2 and 3 year olds.

From Helena with Ginny

All in all, a very cool place! If you're in Helena, check it out!!

Carousel Ride

A couple weeks ago we took a trip to Helena to see our friend and photographer, Ginny. She showed us around Helena, took some family pictures, and spent some time hanging out with us before taking us back to her house and making us dinner! It was fabulous! Ellie has decided Ginny is one of her favorite people in the world, and we have deemed her "Aunt Ginny", at least until Eliana has some real aunts of her own. We started our time in Helena at the carousel, and Eliana had so much fun! She got to ride it over and over, and loved it. I loved the colors and details of the carousel, and we got some fun pictures! I can't wait to see Ginny's pictures from the day, but here are a few we got...

From Helena with Ginny

Love the bright colors! They had rings for you to reach out and grab while you were riding around, and if you got the brass ring, you won a free ride! Here it is!!

From Helena with Ginny

The carousel went around fairly quickly, and the horses were pretty high off the platform, but there were belts on each horse to hold the kids on. At first I thought it was kind of strange, but then I was happy to let Eliana ride around without wondering if she was going to try to get off during the ride or not! She didn't mind the belts at all, and they held her pretty securely.

From Helena with Ginny

I loved her expressions as she rode! Sometimes she'd just be taking it all in, and other times she would see Ginny off to the side taking pictures and giggle delightedly. It was great!

From Helena with Ginny

From Helena with Ginny

From Helena with Ginny

From Helena with Ginny

I'm pretty glad this guy has gotten into photography, because it was fun to be able to trade off the camera and take turns taking pictures! He took most of the ones while she was riding the carousel, and then I took a break from going 'round and 'round and took a few pictures from the sidelines. Next up is printing the pictures, I think, and getting around to scrapbooking them! I love that our hobbies are so complementary! ;)

From Helena with Ginny

Alien sighting!

April Fools! It's just Eliana, being her usual goofy self!