Playing, Experiments, Cooking and More!

I have been feeling like we are watching way too much tv at our house lately-mostly due to being sick for a few months....so after finding lots of fun things to do on Pinterest and other fun websites, we decided to try some of them out.

Moon Sand-I saw this on Pre-school play and had to try it. You just mix flour and baby oil and it comes out super soft and really cool feeling. Ellie really liked to play in it. We made quite the mess in our place, but the next time it was warm enough to go outside and play with it. I enjoyed playing as much as she did:)-March 14, 2012

Fruit Loop Necklaces-March 23, 2012

Playing with Daddy-I just love both of there faces. They have so much fun together! March 25, 2012 I don't remember where I saw this, but I wanted to try it. I was actually pretty surprised at how excited Ellie got over this one. All you do it put a little vinegar in a bottle. Then fill a balloon up with baking soda and put it over the top. Turn the balloon so it empties out the soda and it will start to blow up the balloon-March 27, 2012

I don't remember where I got this idea either, but Ellie spent some time putting all the pipe cleaners in the colander. At first I got out our little colander that has slightly slanted holes. She couldn't quite make them go in and just wanted me to help(do it) for her. I switched out the colander and she did great.-March 27, 2012

Making pizza's-Ellie really enjoys helping me cook. I thought this would be a fun thing for her to actually be able to help with. She had fun decorating the pizzas....and only a couple of them were mashed all up by the end:)-March 27, 2012 Mini volcano's-This one came from Preschool Alphabet-I thought this was awesome and so easy. You probably have everything in your cupboard already. It's just baking soda and vinegar. I colored the vinegar and then Patrick and Ellie used little medicine droppers to make little volcano's. Perfect activity while I made dinner. March 30, 2012

I found some fun bubble accessories at the dollar store. Ellie loves to help with everything that we do and she was actually able to get bubbles to come out with some of the gadgets.

March 30, 2012

Although it is super messy and sometimes takes a little work, it has been fun to watch Ellie experience the new things. And it has helped to drag us away from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse:)

Ahhhh! I'm Going to be a Big Sister!

Yep, that's right, another little baby is joining our family. We're due Sept 1, 2012 and can't wait to meet this little one!

Bee Sting

We have been playing outside a lot lately and have been really loving the nice weather. I was outside BBQing dinner and Ellie was just playing. All of the sudden she was pointing at a bee and saying bug. Neither of us had shoes on, so I called for Patrick to come and take care of it. I told Ellie to go inside because I didn't want her seeing him squishing it or picking it up and think she could do the same(trying to avoid a future bee sting). All of the sudden we heard her screaming inside and Patrick ran in to see what was wrong. She just kept saying bee got me over and over and pointing to her arm. We found a little stinger and I of course....had a mini heart attack. Thinking of the worst that she may be allergic to it. Patrick got the stinger out and I called my mom and she had me put baking soda and water mixture on it to draw out the poison. Ellie did so good with it. She cried a little, but was mostly just really distraught about being stung by a bee. She was so still on the chair with her arm up while the mixture dried and we had to call each set of grandparents to tell them all about what happened. It was so sad, but luckily she wasn't allergic. Her arm did swell up a bit, like a mosquito bite that it scratched too much, but she was fine. For a couple weeks after she would always say that bees will get her, or bugs. I just kept saying they won't and that they are outside. The worst was when there was a fly in our house while we were eating and it landed on her highchair. She freaked out and wouldn't stop screaming. She doesn't seem quite as afraid anymore, but is still extremely cautious. She will sometimes still point to her arm and say that the bee got her. Here she is being so patient. March 25, 2012

Happy St Patrick's Day

We love St Patrick's Day around her and I feel like it snuck up a little bit this year. We have been pretty busy and it seems like I had so many things I wanted to do that didn't get around to. Next year I will have to be more on the ball. We did have a green breakfast...for dinner:) Ellie thought it was pretty interesting. We changed it up a bit and had breakfast burritos....so yummy!Ellie and I made a trip to Old Grist Mill to pick up there yummy sugar cookies earlier in the day and she was super excited to finally get to eat it.Testing it out...Huge hit!!!

Valentines Day

This year I decided it would be fun to have a little bag for Ellie each day in February leading up to Valentines. It was fun to be able to have her come down and get a little gift. Here are some of the days.Window stickers-these came off and on over and over throughout the month:)Coloring book and crayon roll(I finally got around to making this and love how it turned out)We made cookies one day. Ellie had a great time doing this. She enjoyed decorating them, and especially enjoyed eating them. She was showing us just how messy her hands were.

I found this little butterfly that you wind up and it goes forward and flaps its wings. Huge hit.We made Valentines cards for Grandparents and Daddy. Got this idea from a friend last year:) thanks Alycia! I did a few other things that I didn't get pictures of:( We also had some great packages come in the mail. Thanks Grandma's and Aunt Krista! Ellie LOVES getting things in the mail. She gets super excited. Once we were even leaving to go someone and there was a box on the doorstep. We had to come back in and make sure to open it up to see what was inside. She's a funny girl. Daddy also brought Ellie home a flower for Valentines day. She was so excited and loved smelling it. Patrick brought me the pretties flowers also. He is such a great husband. I made some yummy strawberries filled with cheesecake!

21 Months

On March 7, 2012 Ellie was 21 months! She is growing like crazy and I'm pretty sure she has gotten a bit taller now. Some of her pants are turning in to floods and it's crazy. Here are some things Ellie is doing now.

• She takes one nap from 1:30-4:00ish. It changes each day but is usually 2-3 hours. Going from 2 to 1 nap threw me off for awhile. I loved being able to have the time in the morning to shower and get ready, but I have to say that one nap is awesome. She sleeps longer than before and I find that we are able to go and do more during the morning. It did take Ellie a little while to get used to doing only one nap. She would get really tired around 11am, but when I tried to do one nap earlier, she wouldn't sleep as long and the day was a lot more whiny!
• Ellie has really started climbing more and more. The other day while I was getting her lunch breakfast ready, I turned around and she had climbed almost completely into her high chair. I am sure she could do more before, but she never really tried to. Now she climbs onto chairs and will pull them over to different places. And...she will eat much better if I let her climb into her high chair by herself:) February 18, 2012
• The weather has really warmed up and Ellie loves to be outside(What kid doesn't?) She just loves to explore and see what everything is. We have horses close to our house and she really likes to go over and see them. It is nice to be able to spend the time outside with the weather. She also loves to play with chalk. Patrick took a soccer ball outside with her the other day and showed her how to kick it. She will run up and kick it now and is pretty good. She thinks it is a lot more fun to run and fall over it and then she laughs and says she fell down. We have a sandbox and she ends up there almost every day. March 14, 2012
• Ellie really loves singing with us. We noticed a couple weeks ago that she will really sing a lot of the song if we pause and let her. Her favorites are I love to see the Temple, Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam and Popcorn Popping. If we stop on a certain word, she will usually say the next word.
• She loves action songs or sayings. Her favorite right now is Ring around the Rosie. It is funny because she will actually say the whole thing if you just start her out with ring around the rosie. She will even fall down at the end now and LOVES it!
• Stickers have always been a favorite, but recently they are so much fun. Grandma Brown bought Ellie a Tinkerbell sticker book and she will sit for a long time and put the stickers on the pages. She can actually get the stickers off by herself now too. She is also getting much better and not sticking them onto everything. Only sticker books and her clothes. She also always seems to like the bug stickers.
• We tried to teach somersaults awhile back and she just can't seem to get quite all the way over, but she will spend a few minutes sitting like this. March 14, 2012
• Ellie has done so good with coloring and always only doing it on paper(or in the tub with her tub crayons) last week she decided to color all over our couch!!! I was shocked....and kind of worried about getting it out, but it all came out and after a time out, she hasn't done it since....Lets see how long that lasts. It was funny because at the end of time out I asked her if we color on the couch and she said very enthusiastically, YES! So I said no, we only color on paper and then I asked where we color, and she said the couch:( Hopefully she was just saying what she had done, and not what we SHOULD do...
• She is talking like crazy. The other day when she woke up from her nap, I asked what she would like to eat for a snack. She sat and thought for a minute and then looked up at me and whispered....Eat Cookies:) We had bought girl scout cookies the day before and they were a huge hit.March 7, 2012
• She has really started saying prayers more and more. She still won't say the whole thing by herself, but she starts and ends it and then will repeat what we say. It is really cute.
• Lastly, she still loves dancing. Patrick taught her to shake her bum and it is seriously the cutest thing ever.

Love having her around and she really keeps us on our toes and laughing all the time. So glad she is part of our family!

What we've been up to/19 Months

We haven't been doing a lot lately, just enjoying January and how things kind of slow down after Christmas. We didn't actually take a picture of Ellie for 19 months(January 7, 2012) with her monkey, but I still wanted to post a little of what she is doing.

• Ellie got a little paint set with a couple poster pictures to paint. She loves painting and had a great time. December 30, 2011. She is so focused when she is painting.
• Santa also brought bubble bath for Ellie and she has been enjoying that. She thinks its hilarious to make a beard and say ho ho ho. I'm pretty sure daddy helped with the bubble on her head. January 5, 2012
• My mom and dad got Ellie a kitchen for Christmas. She was super excited, but the doors were all warped and wouldn't shut. We were going to exchange it, but they have stopped making this model, so we ordered a new one instead and it came. She is very happy to be able to have it in our kitchen. I also really like it because she will play with it while I am doing other stuff. January 6, 2012
• She has been really good lately about telling us right after she has gone poo poo. So, we thought it was a good time to get a potty just to have her start getting used to the idea. The first night we had her sit on it, she went pee. I was shocked....this has not happened since, and we aren't pushing her at all to start. But she likes to sit on the potty every now and then and I hope it will help in the future. My mom also got her some undies which she loves, especially to carry every pair on her arms and yell UNDIES! It's hilarious! December 20, 2011
• Ellie loves drawing/coloring and does it a lot. She is especially fond of pens and likes to sit next to the computer(probably when I am on it) and use our paper as a chair. January 16, 2012. She also got some bath crayons and she thinks those are great.
• She loves animals and gets so excited to see them. Especially dogs. She will run right up to all animals(kind of scary) and just wanted to hug them. Patrick's sister has a little Chihuahua and she is learning to be very soft with them.
• Ellie really likes ranch dressing. We gave it to her to dip her chicken nuggets in one time and looked over to her licking the plate clean. She always asks for 'moe anch pease?' How can you resist when it sounds so cute?!? December 15, 2011
• She is talking like crazy and says more and more each day. She mimics a lot and we have to be careful about what we say these days. The other day Patrick was changing her diaper and said she had a stinky butt. She then walked around saying stinky butt afterwards....so we've corrected some of these words that you wouldn't want a 1 year old walking around saying:)
• She loves to be around family and gets so excited to call or see them. Here she is at grandma Judy's riding on there rocking horse. She just kept saying YeeHaw over and over. I love having this little girl around and seeing her learn and grow. She has such a cute personality and is a very happy little girl. It's wonderful to be a mom!

Finally we get to go Sledding

We got a really fun sled for Christmas and amazingly haven't been able to use it. I can't believe how the weather has been this year. It kind of makes you sad that there is no snow, but really nice that we have been able to spend a lot of time outside in just jackets. Here is what we had been doing with our sled since there hasn't been enough snow to go sledding. December 28, 2011. Ellie had to make sure she had every animal in there with her. She will also put them all in and pull the sled around. She is doing her cheese grin.January 7, 2012. We woke up to lots of snow this morning and decided we had been hurry to use our sled in case it melted quickly. Ellie LOVED every minute of it. She couldn't get enough of just having daddy pull her around and around.We finally made it to a little park by our house that was perfect for her. It was just a little hill. I was of course nervous for her to go down so she went with me for her first time. (I'm so glad we made a trail without her in the sled the first time, because the snow went all over me and and would have completely covered her) After a couple time with me and Patrick, she wanted to go by herself. Then she just wanted to keep going and going. Patrick was so good because he had to keep carrying her up the hill each time. Here she is at the bottom laughing and saying again. We had such a fun time and we can't wait to go again.

Making Muffins with Momma

December 19, 2011...Ellie loves to be in the kitchen with me. She likes to be anywhere that I am:) I think it is fun to have her want to help and one morning we decided it would be fun to make muffins. Ellie loves muffins and I think she equally liked helping to make them. Making sure to get every drop off.I love that she looks like she is singing in this picture. She is such a little character.

20 Months

I am super behind on posts. But I wanted to get a 20 Month post about Ellie in still, even though she is almost 22 months! Here are some things Ellie has been doing.

• Ellie has such a cute smile and loves to cheese it
• She also, loves to be comfy. She is always laying down...everywhere....even at the library, or grocery store....
• Ellie loves to rough house with Patrick. Almost every night while getting ready for bed, Patrick and Ellie will play on our spare bed. They love pillow fights and Ellie thinks it's hilarious to be knocked down with a pillow. She also loves hiding in the pillows
• She is saying so many new words and putting 3 words together so often. It is crazy to me how much she is picking up. It is also nice to be able to have her say what she wants more and more instead of screaming it.
• She is doing so well with using utensils. I am amazed at how clean Ellie is with them and how much she actually gets in her mouth compared to on her bib. She really likes to have a napkin and if something spills likes to have it cleaned up. February 12, 2012
• Ellie has been loving hats lately and think its fun to put on beanie's...especially Patrick's. I love this picture and how proud and happy she is with herself for putting it on. February 21, 2012
• I absolutely love this age and think it is just so much fun to watch her learn and grow. It is scary to think that I am in charge of teaching her so much and I hope that I can do a good job!