The Big Red Barn

This is the barn in Landmark that we ride our bike to in the evenings when it's warm. It's about 9 miles round trip to make our little ride on the tandem with Ellie in tow, but it's a good place for pictures once we get there.

I wonder how many times a day I give her this look?

I think it's my "I don't understand what you just said" look.

Eliana's First Rainbow

She saw her first rainbow yesterday after the rain. It was a double rainbow and it made a perfect arc across the stormy sky. It only lasted a few minutes, and then it was gone, so I'm glad we were all right there when it first appeared.

The Breakfast of Champions...

Ellie is very particular when it comes to her breakfasts. She will eat pretty much anything and everything for lunch and dinner, but she seems to wake up knowing EXACTLY what she wants to eat for breakfast, and nothing else will do. Some days it's cottage cheese. Some days it's toast. Other days it's hot dogs. Today it was macaroni and cheese and pepperoni.

And so, while the mac and cheese was in the microwave heating, we went through this line of questioning:

Me: Do you want some grapes this morning?
Ellie: NO!
Me: Cottage cheese?
Ellie: NO!
Me: Do you want juice?
Ellie: NO!
Me: Do you want some milk?
Ellie: NO! Mac and cheese! (She actually pronounces it 'ack-cheese)
Me: It's cooking, Honey. Do you want some toast?
Ellie: NO!
Me: Okay, here's your mac and cheese. It's hot, though, so you have to blow on it.
Ellie: Thank you. (blows on it until it's cool enough to eat.)

Somehow waiting for your food to cool while you're sitting there blowing on it is SO much better than waiting for it to cool in the freezer while you sit there with nothing on the table in front of you. And now she's happily stuffing her face with mac and cheese. Silly girl.

Letters

What do the letters B, K, H, I, Y, P, O, R, M, L, S, and X have in common?

These are the letters Ellie can identify without hesitation the first time when you hold them up and ask, "What is this?" Some of the others she can get sometimes, but these are the ones she's really good at.

She can also identify the number 8, but none of the others. I find it interesting that she only guesses numbers when you hold up numbers (for example, I held up a 2 and she guessed 5, she guessed 3 when I held up a 7) and she only guesses letters when you hold up letters. So she apparently knows the difference between them, despite the fact that the numbers and letters are from the same set and look the same in everything but individual shape. And while she can't identify her numbers yet, she has recently added 10 to her counting sequence.

These ain't my momma's feet!

For as much as Eliana is like my mother, she apparently got someone else's feet. She has outgrown most of her size 6 shoes and the new shoes I bought her today are size 7. Wow! I can't believe that at 21 months Ellie is wearing size 7 shoes. Crazy. The saddest part is that I have to finally admit Ellie has outgrown my all time favorite shoes ever. I bought them in size 3, I bought them in size 5, and I admit that I'm tempted to go get them in size 7 now. I just love them. Maybe I should just go and buy them in every other size so she can wear them until she's 10.

Come play with me!

Sometimes you just have to stop...

... and smell the flowers.

Even if they're not real.

Yesterday...

Yesterday morning I was laying in bed and Leif was getting ready when Ellie ran into our room wide eyed and excited. "Knock, knock! Door!" she said. Neither Leif nor I had heard anything, but she was so excited I sent Leif to check and see if someone had knocked on our door. Sure enough, Leif's carpool ride was here and he'd knocked on the door to let Leif know he'd arrived! I think that is the first time that Ellie has told us something helpful that we otherwise wouldn't have known!

Ellie has also discovered bugs lately, and yesterday she discovered ants! We were on a family walk after dinner and she squatted down on the sidewalk and got very excited about something! She started yelling, "A bug! A bug! A bug!" We went over to see what she'd found and there were two ants crawling around on the sidewalk. She was so excited by them and kept trying to touch them and pick them up. I am sad to say that by the time we continued on the walk she had managed to squish both of them onto the sidewalk! It makes me so happy to see her discovering the world around her, noticing not just the big things, but the little things, too. And I realized that we'll need to teach her not to touch ants before we go to Texas again, because those ants bite!

In her mother's shoes...

Ellie occasionally tries to wear our shoes. Most of the time she puts on Daddy's slippers, or Mommy's flip flops (though she just puts her feet through the straps on the flip flops and wears them on her ankles most of the time). On Sunday, though, she decided to try on my church shoes. They were in the kitchen and I just love how these pictures turned out. The lighting seems to capture all of the wonder and excitement Ellie had as she put on dress shoes. She never did get them to stay on her feet, but she tried and tried and tried and it was all too precious.

Planting seeds...

On Friday I decided to plant a few seeds since it looks like Spring is finally here. A while back I picked up a few things at Target for such a day as this and these are one of the things I got:

I thought perhaps Ellie might be interested in the little pots and it was an activity we could do together. It was quick, easy, and we could watch them grow together before we transplant them in the garden for summer.

The little pots came with a soil pellet (which Ellie dropped into the water so it could rehydrate) and a packet of seeds. Once the soil was rehydrated, Ellie helped me scoop it into the little pots. We did it in the sink to minimize the mess, and it worked really well!

After the pots were full of soil, we counted out five seeds for each. She helped me squish the seeds down into the soil, though she didn't seem to like getting her fingers dirty. It didn't take long to plant the seeds, so it was the perfect activity for her short attention span. Now the little pots are in the window sill and we're waiting for them to grow. As soon as they sprout I'm planning on having her help me water them with her little bitty watering can from Grammee last year. She helped me water the outside plants with a squirt bottle today, so I think it will be a good job for her. =D

If you're interested...

I've started another blog just for activities I do with Ellie and the things I'm learning on this parenting journey and stuff like that. Less of a family blog and more of a stay-at-home-mom blog. So if you're interested in that sort of thing, or want to know more about the activities I'm doing with Ellie, you can find that here.

Sunday Best

After church yesterday I let Ellie run around in the back yard in her pretty pink dress. She toted around a pink flower and pink ball pretty much the whole time and had a blast. I thought I could maybe get some cute pictures of her with the flower, but she really didn't have time for that and let me know by running away from me and yelling, "Cheese!" with her face turned away from the camera every time I asked her to look at me and smile. I'm waiting for the first time she tells me, "No more pictures!" But that hasn't come yet, so I keep snapping away, hoping for that "perfect" shot. And while none of these are what I had in mind when we headed out, they are pretty perfect representations of the afternoon.

We're Going on a Bear Hunt...

This was one of my favorite books to read with the kids when I worked at Emerson in Iowa. I just love all the motions and sounds you can do to go with it. So, of course, when I bought books while I was pregnant with Ellie, this was one of them.

She has been doing more and more motions to songs, and has been interested in longer books lately, so I thought I'd try reading Bear Hunt to Ellie. As you can see from the pictures, she got into it and had a lot of fun with the motions!

We're going on a bear hunt.
We're gonna catch a big one!
What a beautiful day!
We're not scared.

Uh oh! Grass!
Long, wavy grass.
We can't go over it.
We can't go under it.

Oh, no!
We've got to go through it!

She Love to Run

Big Girl PJ's

Despite the fact that we are still waking up to fresh snow each morning, it has come to our attention that all of the stores have stopped selling footie pajamas. None. Not at Costco, not at Walmart, not anywhere. So we broke down last night and bought Ellie two piece pj's. Cute little shirts with cute little pants, and no zippers. Size 3T.

Last night she wore a pair. While Leif was getting her ready for bed he told her that these were "big girl jammies" and she decided to be proud of that fact. She stood a little taller and said with a nod, "Big girl pj's." This morning when she woke up she told me again that she was wearing "big girl pj's" and again when it was time to get dressed. She looked so sad when I took off her jammies and put her into real clothes for the day. She pointed at them, nodded, and told me sincerely, "Big girl pj's." It was cute, sweet, and sort of sad. I'm afraid, though, that we may never be able to go back to footie jammies again...

More pictures of Ellie at the park

Sometimes we go for family walks in the evenings. Sometimes Daddy just takes Ellie so Mommy can get some things done around the house. Either way Ellie usually ends up at the park by the school and she loves it. These pictures are from the other night...

We're Famous!

Okay, so we're not really famous. But it sort of feels like it lately. A couple weeks ago when we met Leif for lunch one day I very excitedly told Leif that I got interviewed as an active Freecycle member for the newspaper. He promptly trumped my story by telling me that he, too, had been interviewed that morning, only he got interviewed in a sound booth for the radio. Okay. He wins.

The Freecycle story ran in the newspaper this Sunday. Unfortunately, you can't read it online, but I did scan it in, so you might be able to read it here. (Click the picture to enlarge it.)


Leif's interview aired this morning and, fortunately, you CAN listen to it online (or read the transcript if you prefer). So there you have it. Our little smidgen of fame.

The greatest show on earth!

On Thursday, Elizabeth took Ellie to Billings to see the circus for the first time. As Elizabeth had never been to a circus either, she didn't really know what to expect. But they drove out with Erika and Zoe and met up with some Billings friends to attend the circus. The show was about two hours long and didn't start until 4:00 in the afternoon, which was a potential nightmare for the mothers of the toddlers who hadn't taken naps that day. But aside from a couple minor meltdowns, all went smoothly and the girls enjoyed the show. Though the circus, put on by the Shriners, was small, it still had all the makings of a good circus, from clowns (of whom Ellie was not terribly fond)...

... to trapeze artists and ribbon dancers (the ribbon dancers were Ellie's favorite. She just oohed and aaahed.)...

... to tightrope walkers...

... and dancing poodles...

... and camels and elephants, too!

It was a lot of fun and I'm sure we'll do it again another year. To remember the event by, we even splurged on neato lightup spinny toys that the girls could watch while the lights were low between acts. This is my favorite picture from the night:

All in all, we had a good time. We got to spend time with Erika and Zoe on the way out there and back, and that was nice.

And we got to see Karen and Haniya (born the same month as Ellie) again, for the first time in a while.

It was after 11 when we finally got home, so Ellie was pretty tuckered out and slept until 9:30 the next morning! Whew! So while the circus made for a full day, and I can't say it was really the GREATEST show on earth, it was a pretty good show and I'm glad we went.

There's no end to the fun...

... you can have with a little food coloring, some water, and a squirt bottle. This is what Ellie and Mommy did yesterday morning for about an hour...



And no, there wasn't a massacre. Just a lot of food coloring mixed with a lot of snow. Ellie thought it was great. Until her water bottle ran out of squirt. Then...



"More please. Water empty."

And indeed, it was.



So I'd refill it and she'd go out and empty it on the deck again. We went through this about a dozen times. She thought it was great. So did I.

She did a few other things, too, like filling a bucket with colorful snow, dumping it out, and stomping on the resultant snow castle. She also watered the compost buckets for us. And I heard myself saying, as I watched my daughter head toward the compost bucket with a shovel in her hand, "No no, Honey, we don't play in the compost." Those sure weren't the words I was thinking when I imagined all the the things I'd say to my daughter one day. Oh well.