February Fun

Ellie had her first Valentine's party at school this year ...here she is all decked out in her heart pants and shirt. She was very excited to give her Winnie the Pooh Valentines to her friends! Apparently being around all the kids and going to school is helping her vocabulary. She's using a lot of 4 and 5 word sentences. The longest so far was in response to Mommy asking her if she wanted to go downstairs, to which she replied "no, play cards for a minute". She is talking up a storm ...her teacher Miss Tracy said she doesn't stop talking the enire time she is at school.

Here's a pictures of her watching her favorite Care Bears video with Daddy (doesn't Daddy look thrilled!) and one of her wearing her flamingo hat. We think it's about time to start potty training. In addition to being very interested in the goings on in the bathroom, in this last photo, she decided she wanted to wear her new Elmo underwear over her jammies...funny!

Dan got out today and got a little exercise on his snowboard at Mt Crescent in Iowa. I'm sure he's saying "it's not Mt Hood" but it sounds like he had fun!

Ellie in the Construction Zone

We made a stop at the Children's Museum (the museum as Ellie calls it) after swimming lessons today. Here she is checking out the kid's construction zone!

Back to Blogging

A few family & friends have asked us why we hadn't been keeping the blog updated. One answer: time:) Ellie is growing so fast and changing so much that we've decided to give it another shot. We even went back and added some milestone pictures - I can't believe it has been 9 months since we were blogging regularly!!

Here's what she's been up to.....Ellie has been going to Montessori for a month now and she LOVES it! It only took a couple of weeks before she went from crying when we left her to not wanting to leave when we come to pick her up. She does all kinds of activities at school and

we think loves the singing the best. She can already sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star from start to finish (check out the video for her trying to sing that with Row, Row, Row Your Boat) and yesterday Grandma Wright heard her lead the class in the ABCs when she picked her up at school. She can almost do that one on her own too (usually minus a letter or two). Her favorite activities seem to be the bean scoop and the water station. They let them wear aprons and pour water and wash things. Two or three times a week she comes home with different clothes on since she got her 1st outfit all wet.

Speaking of water, she is in her 2nd swimming lesson class and is having a blast. She also still loves to read...usually about 10 a night and the last thing she usually says in her crib is 'one more book'? and quite often she likes to read her Elmo books. Like most toddlers, she is crazy about him.

Here are a few photos (that's Ellie's good friend Luci with her at the zoo). Hopefully we'll update this Blog again soon!