Yellowstone in Winter

One of the best things about living here is that we can drive down to Yellowstone for the day, just because we want to. And yesterday, we wanted to. So we climbed into the car and drove the hour and a half or so to the northern entrance to Yellowstone at Gardiner.

Because it's winter, most of the roads in the park are closed to automobiles. But the northern entrance is still open, and there are a couple roads you can still take, at least for a little ways. We don't often head into the park via Gardiner, but it's fun when we do because we get to see the arch.

A little piece of trivia for you... Yellowstone was the first National Park, established in 1872. March 1st, in fact. If you don't believe me, read the sign...

On the way into the park, we were fortunate enough to see 3 bald eagles perched in a tree overlooking a river. They were incredibly majestic, sitting there against the backdrop of the mountains.

Once we were into the park, we made our way through the little town of Mammoth Hot Springs. I think the name should be changed to Elkville, though, because every time we are there we see tons of elk. They seem to think they own the place, and they can apparently read signs and know just where it is that they are supposed to plop down:

As is typical of any trip to the park, we spent most of the day in the car. The winter sun spent most of the day in our eyes. To make Ellie's life a little easier on the long car ride, we let her watch Baby Einstein and covered the seat with a blanket to keep the sun out of her eyes. She is much like her daddy and likes to be in a dark cave...

Winter has got to be the best time to visit Yellowstone. It's definitely the off-season, so there aren't too many people around. The views are spectacular in the cold, clear air, and everything is pristine all covered in snow. It is beautiful.

We decided to get out of the car and go for a little walk about mid-afternoon. So we put on all our snow gear (after our little trek up at Hyalite I was prepared for thigh deep snow this time!!) and headed out along someone else's trail in the snow. As usual, Ellie didn't want to walk in the snow, but she did give it a good try a couple of times, despite being cold.

The snow was mostly packed down, but every so often your foot would fall through and you'd find your leg lost in the snow up to the hip. You can only see one of my legs in the following picture, because the other is covered in snow. In fact, I am standing straight up on that leg, despite the fact that it looks like I am sitting in the snow. As you can imagine, it wasn't a very long walk.

We have been to Yellowstone a number of times, but one thing I have never seen in the park is wolves. They were reintroduced in 1995 and have reportedly been doing very well, but they like to stay out of sight. But while we were out on our little walk, we had the privilege of seeing 4 wolves harassing a few grazing bison. They were beautiful to watch and I was pretty excited to see them this close up. We saw a couple others, too, but they were much farther off.

We were fortunate enough to see another animal that we've never seen inside the park, too: big horn sheep. That's another reason to visit Yellowstone in the winter... all the animals come out to graze. The park is so serene and there seems to be a greater variety of wildlife to be seen. Here are the sheep, searching for a little something to eat:

As the sun started to dip below the horizon, we saw a bull elk grazing by the side of the road. We stopped to admire and in the quiet of the evening we heard the sound of owls hooting in the forest. It is a sound I'd never heard in the wild before and it was ethereal. The hooting echoed through the trees and made me stop and listen in wonder. It was amazing.

We started back home and enjoyed the setting sun over the snowy landscape and it made us both thankful that we live in such a beautiful place.

Feeding her baby doll

Ellie had a play date with one of her friends on Friday, while Elizabeth absconded to the scrapbooking store. When she picked up Ellie, the other mom told Elizabeth that Ellie had been "feeding" a doll. We had the same toys at home, so being good parents, we repeated the incident and took pictures.




And now, here's a gratuitous picture of Ellie throwing something at the camera.

Miscellaneous Bathtime Cuteness

"Camera!" she says.

Elizabeth says she's not looking forward to seeing this look from a teenager.

How I wish this had been in focus.

Jedi master

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

The other day Ellie and Zoe had a little playdate and made valentines. Here is evidence of the mayhem:

It is also proof that Ellie did indeed make the valentine's and it isn't just Mommy scribbling to make it look like Ellie did it. =D

"What valentines?!" you may ask... Well, if you haven't gotten a valentine from Ellie yet, rest assured that it is in the mail... Mommy hasn't been so good at getting to the post office on time lately. =D

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!

Ellie's first snowman, a photo essay

It was 50 today, which really softened up and compacted the snow in our yard. That was sufficient justification for building a snowman. The balls rolled up and stuck together so easily that I got carried away and made three. Our yard's new enough that we don't have trees large enough to give their branches for arms. We only had baby carrots in the fridge. The snowmen were too fat for our coats. So we called the snowmen done as simple blobs.

In case you're wondering, 50 degrees in Montana is always a good excuse to break out the shorts.

Pictures

Sitting still for pictures isn't very high on Ellie's priority list. She's figured out how to deal with me when I get shutter happy: fling a ball at the camera.



Yes, that ball is in midair. Yes, she just flung it. Yes, it's about to crash into the camera. Yes, her aim is pretty good these days.

Here's the closest thing she'd let me get to a formal portrait in which she was not screaming.


And then some miscellaneous cuteness.

Behold! There's something outside the fort!


She put the ribbon in her hair and paraded about.

Sorry I'm slow... and others.

Just a few funny things Ellie said yesterday...

Erika and Zoe came over for a playdate and Ellie was holding Erika's hand while walking down the stairs. At one point she stopped and looked at Erika and said, "Sorry I'm slow." then kept on walking. It was hilarious!

Then at lunch Leif asked Ellie where her milk was. She stopped for a moment, then said, "I'll be right back!" and ran off to her room for a bit before emerging with her cup!

And last night while Ellie was in the bathtub, Leif got the humidifier and filled it up. When he went to put it back in her bedroom, he said, "I'll be back." and she called after him, "Get a towel!" We had friends over for dinner and we all just cracked up laughing!

Every day is a new adventure with her and her little phrases just make me laugh. I'm sure they get tiring for all of you to read each day, but I want to make sure I don't forget them! She learns things so quickly and I'm afraid if I blink she'll be on to something new and I will have forgotten the things she just did. After all, my parents tell me it was just yesterday that I was Ellie's age! ;)

Feeling better...

Ellie seems to be feeling better today, which is great! She's been playing happily since she got up from her nap this afternoon and has been just sweet as can be. Unfortunately, both Leif and I are starting to feel sick now. =(

Out of the mouths of babes....

Two notable conversations with Ellie yesterday...

When I got her up from her nap yesterday, she'd thrown everything out of her crib, as usual. So I picked her up and she said, "Duck! Duck!" We bent down and she picked up her duck, then said, "Bear!" so we got the bear and I said, "You need Duck AND Bear?" and she said, "Kitty! Kitty!" so we got kitty, too. On the way down the stairs to the basement I said "Wow, Ellie, you need Duck AND Bear AND Kitty?!"

And she gave me a big hug and said, "AND Mommy AND Daddy."

That was the sweetest thing ever.

But last night when she refused to go to sleep, we finally brought her to bed with us to spend some time since we were laying there reading. She was fine for a while, but soon started wiggling when she was tired of reading her book and tired of drawing. So she wiggled up to the top of the bed and was playing with things when I noticed she was eating something. I asked her, "Ellie, what are you eating?" No answer. Leif told her to open her mouth and say, "Ah" to show him what was inside. She did, and he didn't see anything. So we left it alone until I noticed that she was still chewing on something. Again, "Ellie, what do you have in your mouth? What are you eating?" And she replied... "I eat booger!"

And we laughed SO hard it scared her and made her start to cry.

Fussy

There's fussy, and then there's "Mom, I'm teething, I have a cold, and I have an ear infection, plus I didn't sleep much last night" fussy. I'd prefer the first kind today, but that's not what I have. No, the 2nd description pretty much fits Ellie today. Imagine what sort of headache you'd have after listening to the shrieks, cries, and tantrums caused by a day of feeling that way and you pretty much have how I feel right now. Blech.

One of the cute things our little sicko did the other day (before her ear was hurting her too badly) was climb up into her toddler bed to read books. We've given up on her sleeping in it until she feels better, but it was apparently a perfect place to read! Talk about cute...

It was obviously before she was feeling too badly, since she could still muster this cheesy grin!

(By the way, if you click on a picture, it will take you to the Picasa directory and you can see other pictures in this same series - I don't always post them all on the blog, so sometimes there are more there than here!)

Yup, She's sick.

Well, after a trip to the doctor's office this morning we've confirmed that she's sick. Poor girl. Dr. Benda is out of town on a missions trip right now, so we saw a different doctor from the same office. He had a 4th year med student observing with him today, and Ellie just stole her heart! When she left the room Ellie said, "Bye bye!" and blew her a kiss, which made her declare that Ellie was the sweetest little thing and her favorite patient yet. And really, Ellie did very well. She let them take her temperature (which was down from the 101 it had been all weekend) and look in her ears and listen to her chest and poke on her belly. She did very well and they said she was a perfect patient. It seems she's got a combination of a really bad cold (which has left a little gunk in her lungs, making her coughs horrible and her breathing raspy) and an ear infection. He said that if she didn't have an ear infection, he'd order chest x-rays to check on the congestion there, but since the ear infection has to be treated anyway, the respiratory junk may clear up with the antibiotics, too. If it doesn't or it gets worse, we'll go back, but right now she's on amoxocillin for the ear infection and we're hoping it does the trick on her respiratory gunk, too. The good news is that she's "dripping from everywhere" (in the doctor's words) so she's well hydrated. I never thought of that much snot and drool as a good thing, but I guess it's something to be thankful for!

Sick

Ellie's got one of her worst colds yet. We got her up from a nap to wipe her nose and give her some milk. While she was babbling half-heartedly, she said something that sounded like "sick." I wasn't sure I heard her correctly, so I asked her to say "sick." She did and it sounded about the same as what I heard before. I looked at Elizabeth quizzically and she reciprocated. I asked Ellie what "sick" meant. In the saddest little voice she replied, "Hurts."

Let me tell you, that tugs at a parent's heart strings.

Ellie's Toddler Bed...

In a fit of craziness, I moved Ellie's toddler bed up to her room from the basement yesterday. I fully intended to let Leif move it, or help him move it, or something, but inspiration hit and I did it by myself. So last night we decided to see how Ellie would do sleeping in the bed instead of her crib.

She has been wanting to climb into her crib by herself, but until two days ago wasn't able. Now she can, but not without some precarious perching! So I thought perhaps she's ready for a toddler bed so that she can get in by herself and feel like a big girl.

Of course, it does mean that she can get out by herself, but we pretty much accepted that whenever we tried to move her to a toddler bed she would get up at least a few nights. It's a process and we're ready to accept that. At least she can't open the door to her bedroom yet, so she's still contained to some degree.

So Leif tucked her in,

kissed her goodnight,

and as soon as we walked away, she popped right back up!

She laid back down and we left. We could hear her moving around in there, and she got up a few times. Leif put her back in bed once, and then we decided just to let her get used to the idea and see where it would go. After quite a while (we could hear her playing with things in there) we heard her knock knock on the door. She wasn't crying, but she was tired and definitely ready to go to bed... in her crib. So we put her down for the night in the crib and she slept until 10 this morning when I decided to wake her up!

When I put her down for her afternoon nap I asked if she wanted to sleep in the bed or crib. She told me crib. So it may take a while for her to get used to the idea of sleeping in the bed, but she'll get there eventually. She props her feet up on the crib rungs to go to sleep, though, and I think she was missing that with the toddler bed.

As a side note, all morning Ellie was pointing to or holding her belly saying, "Hurts, hurts" (but not crying or upset or visibly in pain) and I don't think she's been feeling well. I poked around on her belly a bit and didn't feel anything concerning, and she didn't seem to be in any pain when I poked around. I'm hoping a little sleep will do her some good and she'll be feeling better soon.

More Bathtime Fun

Ellie has bas a little toy fish that fills up with water and then squirts it back out when squeezed. The following pictures were shot in quick succession as she emptied the fish.








Notice that she's starting to smile in the third shot, but in the fourth manages to squirt herself in the face. However, no harm was done and she breaks out a big smile for the finale.

Looking at this series makes me really happy. Firstly because my kid is crazy cute and secondly because it wouldn't have been possible to capture if we hadn't ponied up for an SLR, a good lens, and an external flash. It got off 5 shots with flash in under 3 seconds. Try that with a compact camera.

Heeee-llooooo

Shapes

Ellie has been doing really well with her shapes lately. She is especially proficient with star, heart, circle, moon (crescent) and oval, and she can sometimes do square and triangle.

She is best at star and heart, though.

It's Pea Time!

Remember the peas incident?

Well, in the last few days Ellie has decided that now she LIKES peas. Ate a whole bowl of them for lunch today and had quite a few last night with dinner. She likes beans, too, so we tried to teach her the word 'legume', but it didn't stick.

Along with her peas she ate about a fourth of my vegetable soup, half a can of fruit, and a few animal crackers. She's a little piggy. The other day she ate 4 (yes, FOUR) hot dogs for dinner, plus string cheese and some craisins. Piggy, I say... Piggy.

As a side note, the night before last she said to Leif, "Bye bye, see-ya!" It was the cutest.