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.

A glimpse into the last hour...

It's time for the Busy Girl Photo Hour!! Here's a little glimpse into Ellie's last hour:

Hanging things off the doorknob





Playing dress up and flirting with herself in the mirror





"Drinking" out of a little Tupperware container





Riding her horse (Every time she rides her horse she says "doodleloo doodleloo doodleloo". It's hilarious and took me a while to figure out that she was trying to sing the finale to the William Tell Overture since that's what I hummed the first time I showed her how to ride a stick horse!)





Playing in her fort



Trying to figure out why I'm taking so many pictures





Making a game of climbing out the window of her fort (over and over and over)





Playing with her ball



Playing the "fall down" game





Dragging the other stick horse around like a mop



Knocking down the fort and laying underneath it



Rolling around with the beach ball under the knocked over fort





Giving me the evil laugh because she's about to put things in my slippers





Putting my slippers on





Knocking on and trying to go out the front door



Trying to go out the garage door



Back to the knocked down fort



Climbing inside the knocked down fort



Wearing Daddy's noise-reducing headphones

Whew!! Just reading through this makes me tired! And yes, all of these pictures were taken in the span of an hour! Thankfully it tired her out, too, and she's happily napping right now and will be for the next few hours. Time to go get stuff done!

Ellie's Fort

We saw the coolest snow fort in a neighbor's yard the other day. It had several rooms and what looked like tunnels leading between them. Very cool!

Ellie doesn't have a snow fort. Neither she nor I have the patience to go out into the cold and build one! So she has the next best thing... a fort in the living room! It's just one room of the pop up train we got for her birthday, but she has filled it with pillows and stuffed animals and has been playing in it for about 4 days now. She loves it! It's how she entertains herself. And I'm glad she does, because boy does she have a lot of energy! She can play in this thing for an hour!

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