Ellie's trip to the big city

We just arrived in Dallas to see my family. On the drive back to Longview Eliana thought the Reunion Tower ball looked like a dandelion. Then we went under a series of overpasses and she exclaimed, "Wow! Look at that rollercoaster!"

Poor Montana girl isn't used to the big city!

Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas to you all!!

'Twas the night before Christmas

Hope you are all having a wonderful Christmas Eve! Here are some pictures of our place this Christmas season!

Let him eat crumbs....

We brought home a delicious slab of coffee cake from a party last night. Unfortunately, Eliana polished it off for breakfast this morning, so Leif didn't get to enjoy it. He lay in bed dreaming of coffee and coffee cake, and the anticipation of such a glorious breakfast finally roused him and sent him to the table, where he saw the empty plate... When he expressed his dismay, Eliana told him, "It's okay! You can eat the crumbs."

Thanks, kid.

Houseguests

We have 3 new guests staying at our house these days:

They don't require much from us and are happy to stay outdoors. =D Leif and Ellie had a great time building them on Monday, his first day of vacation from work! We're glad to have him home!

Snowflakes!

Ellie and I made snowflakes a week or two ago, and it is so fun to see them hanging in the window against the sunrise in the morning. I think they're beautiful! She was even able to make a couple of them all by herself! Here she is hard at work:

And the finished snowflake:

Our Daughter

Eliana and I were playing in the living room. As I recall, I was holding her across my shoulder while I spun around. With the living room in the Christmas tree configuration, there really isn't much room. Ellie's feet were getting pretty close to the tree. She shouted "Be careful!" so I stopped spinning an put her down. Then she excited pleaded, "Let's do that again!"

The former exclamation was an instinctual response received from her mother. The latter likewise came from her father.

9 Years!

DSC_5417-1, originally uploaded by elizabethwickland.

I can't believe I completely forgot to blog about our anniversary! Well, as of December 16th, we have officially been married for 9 years this year! I can't believe that next year will be 10. Where did the years go?

This picture is actually of us all dressed up for the Right Now Christmas Party, not of our anniversary, but I decided it was fitting enough. =D

Leif's parents came out to watch Eliana so we could go on a date. We started with dinner at Damasco's including the yummiest salads and pasta and calzone. Yum! Then we headed to Barnes and Noble for some time reading next to each other. It's a passtime we used to enjoy a lot and haven't been able to often since Eliana was born. It was really nice just to sit and read until the store closed. =D Bozeman doesn't have much of a night life, and we were too cheap to pay to see a movie, so we headed downtown to Plonk for dessert. They have creme brulee there, and it's a different flavor every time we go. This time it was hazelnut vanilla.

We had a GREAT date night, but are glad that we don't have to go on "real" dates often - they're expensive! =D Dinner and a movie just isn't as cheap as it was when we were in college. Ah, the good old days. =D

Now Leif is off work until after the holidays and we are enjoying having him home! I love happy holidays!

Christmas Pictures

Tonight, before we put Ellie in bed, she got to put on her pretty Christmas dress and have her picture taken in front of the Christmas tree. She was pretty excited to sit there and have her picture taken this year, and was mostly cooperative. That's more than we can say for the last couple years! It was sweet, and I'm looking forward to getting the pictures from Costco tomorrow. =D In the meantime, here's one of the reject pictures, before we got all the lighting figured out... she's still pretty adorable, eh?

And when I went over to fix her hair in between shots (because there was much silliness involved, which lead to messed up hair!) we paused for a smile while Leif clicked a shot. Just a sweet little impromptu photo, but I love it!

Hope you all are having a great week before Christmas! Leif is officially off work for a couple weeks, so we are enjoying having him home!

A message for Robert

So... Robert sent a mock-up dress for Eliana to try on to help him with some project he's working on, which I'm guessing is a dress for Ellie, based on the mock-up. =D She tried it on last night and I took a couple pictures to send so he could get an idea of how it fit. I also took this little video, and Ellie added her own personal message for Uncle Robert. It's sweet. =D

As a side note, Ellie tried it on last night and we haven't been able to get it off her since. She loves it. She slept in it. She's worn it all day. I just hope she likes the real thing as much as the mock-up!

Interviews with Eliana

Since I now know how to post videos again, I figured I'd give you some interviews with Eliana. These are from a few weeks ago. =D

Parties R Us

There's a relatively new play place in Bozeman called Parties R Us that we checked out earlier in the week. It's full of those inflatable obstacle courses and bouncy houses and slides and a really fun way to get some energy out on cold days, which we've been having a lot of lately! Just for kicks I tried out the video camera on my new phone (which uploads the videos directly to YouTube for me - woohoo!), so here's Eliana having fun on the inflatables!

If you're local, I recommend heading over there sometime. It's fun!

Brrrr!

There's nothing quite like climbing out from beneath your warm covers in the morning to discover that it's 24 degrees below zero out there. I think we're staying in today.

Christmas Lights

Last night just before bed I put Ellie in her pajamas and slippers, got her some chocolate milk and two cookies, wrapped her in a blanket all snug in the car, and put on some Christmas music. Then we went out to look look at Christmas lights in our neighborhood.

We drove around, ooh-ing and aaah-ing, noticing which houses had LOTS of lights, and which only had a few. We voted on which houses were decorated the "best" and had winners in two categories: the MOST lights, and the prettiest/classiest. Here they are...

We stayed close to home, just driving around River Rock, but we had a very nice time. By the time we pulled up the driveway into the garage at home again, this is what Ellie looked like:

Sound asleep, with cookie smeared on her face. I love it.

Ellie's Musical Color Analysis

So a while back I mentioned that Ellie likes her bedtime music because it is "yellow and black." The yellow and black music is Abigail Washburn and the Sparrow Quartet. Today Leif was listening to Cloud Cult's Meaning of Eight and Ellie came in saying she didn't like that music. I asked what color it was. She said brown.

She's consistent in saying that Abigail Washburn is black and yellow. I'll have to pay attention and see if Cloud Cult is consistently brown. And ugly. And unpleasant to listen to, according to her. (Though Leif and I both enjoy it.)

Christmas Stroll 2009

Slippery sidewalks, falling snowflakes, people shuffling downtown...
Yummy food, but it's too cold to eat....
(sung to the tune of Silver Bells)

That pretty much sums up the Stroll last night! It was 14 degrees out, but people still showed up to walk the streets of downtown Bozeman and enjoy celebrating the holiday season with food.

We stopped first in a little place called La Tinga for some Mexican food. It was pretty good. We had a few little tacos (pork, steak, and chicken/potato) and warmed up a smidge before going on our way. Ellie expressed her dislike for the crowds by informing me that there were "too many people in this place!!"

At La Tinga, the lady gave Ellie a popsicle that she tried to devour, despite the cold. She did a pretty good job eating it with gloved hands, but it made her cold, so we made another stop to warm up. This time we stopped into F11, Leif's favorite downtown camera shop. Ellie finished off her popsicle and Leif played with camera equipment, using me as his subject.

After a bit of a warm up, we headed back down Main Street. Due to the cold and the slippery sidewalks, Leif ended up carrying Ellie pretty much the entire time.

(Aside from the snot that I'm going to ask Leif to photoshop off Ellie's face, this is my favorite picture from the evening!)

More walking, more cold, and another stop by a booth for some fry bread left us needing another warm place to stop in... so we stopped by Bangtail's new location on Main Street! For those of you who have visited Bozeman, you might recognize the building as the "horse" building. Of course, I live here and when Leif mentioned that they moved into the horse building I had no idea what he was talking about. Ha ha! But we stopped in there and looked at skis for Ellie (because bike shops are also ski shops around here) and finished off the fry bread and warmed up.



After Bangtail we decided it was time for us to head back down Main Street to the car. It was just too cold and too late to make the full loop. So we shuffled back down the street, stopping once to buy a pulled pork sandwich (which I scarfed as we walked - I've never eaten a hamburger bun that cold before!!) and once to gawk at the S'mores stand. How do you make S'mores in sub-freezing temps? Like this!

Our last stop before hitting the car was at The Leaf and Bean, a local coffee / tea house. We ordered some coffee for Leif, Montana Gold tea for me, and some hot lemonade for Eliana. It was too hot to drink while we were in there, but made for a nice way to warm our hands!

Despite the cold, I was glad to get to attend the Christmas Stroll this year. 2 years ago I was in Texas, last year I was sick... I was not going to miss it this year! And once again, I'm glad we didn't! It's one of the Bozeman traditions worth attending.

Your daily Ellie fix...

FlickrDroid Upload, originally uploaded by elizabethwickland.

There's something silly afoot!