Veggie Booty!

Elly loves dancing, but she takes it very seriously. She stays on the beat and tries to make her moves go with the music (faster moves for faster music, etc.). But, she doesn't smile and laugh like other kids might while dancing. This is a song that plays on Sesame Street pretty often and she loves to dance along with the kids on the screen. She freezes when they freeze and tries to yell the name of the veggie right after they do. It's all very purposeful and deliberate, but absolutely adorable.

Cousins Visit!

For Spring Break last week my sister, Keri, and her two girls, Emma (9) and Lily (5), drove to California to visit me, and by me I mean Elly. They also brought my 16 year old cousin, Karen. She was a total lifesaver! Talk about babysitter/friend/rock bander! We had a blast and it was sad when they left. Elly absolutely fell in love with her three cousins whom she hasn't seen since she was 6 weeks old (I'm a terrible mother/sister/aunt, I know.) Here are some highlights:






Easter Egg Hunt!







Elly didn't grasp the concept as well as her cousins.























Elly loved having more people to read to her!










When the mommies go shopping, the kids get to ride on something.




Emma was a super helper and definitely a future babysitter!


Playing at the park...


Elly loved the ducks, but I had to stay super close to her, because a few times I caught her trying to jump in the water with them.




THE ZOO!!

Elly and Lily wore matching outfits the day we went to the zoo, they looked adorable. (Ever notice how Elly always has the same face in every picture?...I don't know.)


We watched the Sea Lion for a long time. Truthfully, that trainer doesn't have a lot of control over them. But, I guess the Fresno Zoo is a far cry from Sea World.


How could we leave the zoo without a treat?

That's ice cream, by the way.


And finally...when the children sleep, the adults play!!


What an awesome trip! Thanks for coming, everyone!

Two Ray-nuts!

Elly's been Tagged!

Elly was tagged by her friend, Lincoln yesterday.

Here are 8 things about Elly:

:: Elly entertains herself very well (mostly while Mommy is blogging!) She'll trot around our great room playing music for herself and then dancing, pulling pillows off the couch onto the floor and then putting her head on them (only her head, while her little bum sticks out in the air), pushing her grocery cart, stroller, or vacuum around the room, finding a random piece of paper and then reading it aloud while still walking around, etc, etc.

:: Her favorite song at current is ABCs. She'll listen to us sing the song and then say "A B C D", we worked on adding the D for a while- now it's on to E.

:: Elly can do sign language. My mom bought her a Baby Einstein First Signs DVD when she was only about 6 months old. Brandon and I rarely did signs for her when we spoke to her, therefore she didn't do them back, until one day she did one from the video. Turns out- she had learned all the ones from the video and we had no idea she could do them! (I guess we let her watch that video a lot!) The one she uses all the time is please. She can also do Mommy, Daddy, Baby, more, eat, ball, blanket, cereal, milk, bath, kiss, and some others I can't remember.

:: Elly is and always has been an awesome sleeper. She regularly sleeps 12 hours at night and takes two naps during the day. But, she is a pretty light sleeper, too, thanks to her parents.

:: Elly's favorite foods are: bananas, oranges (which she calls oh-neech), peanut butter, and goldfish. Pretty regular toddler stuff I guess. She'll eat pretty much whatever we give her. Except she does have a serious distaste for any kind of meat. Thankfully that is slowly coming to an end, especially after we gave her maple-flavored breakfast sausage a few weeks ago!

:: Elly loves animals! She loves making the sounds, too. She does an awesome elephant which sounds like "Bwooooo", and she also loves the bird: "Wee-wheat".

:: Elly basically will not let me get in the shower without inviting her to join me and she never turns down an invitation. If I want a peaceful shower, I have to do it when she's sleeping. (She used to just sit on the floor and play with her toys.) She stands up next to a little wall where I put her rubber ducks and various hotel sized shampoo bottles and plays with them. Her first task is immediately getting them all wet by holding them high into the stream of the shower behind her, without looking of course, or she'd get water in her eyes. She's rarely ready to get out when I say it's time. She just loves it.

:: It's so much fun for us, because Elly has begun to see the joy in trying to entertain us. She'll fake laugh, which makes us laugh. She makes faces she knows we think are funny. It's the greatest.

Family BTs Evening

Tonight for Family Night, we went to our all-time favorite Mexican/American place, BTs, a Visalia original...otherwise known as Buns and Torts. It was a beautiful night and we sat outside. We were too lazy to go back in and get a high chair, so Elly just sat between us on the bench. I needed a picture of this moment, so yes- I set the timer. (It was pretty awkward sitting there waiting for it to go off pretending to just eat our dinner.)

When she had had enough, we let Elly get down and walk around the tables. Unbeknownst to us, she found this:


Also, unbeknownst to us, she put it down my pants (no thanks to my stupid low rise pants; I'll never be trendy again) where it quickly turned into this:


But how can you be upset when you see this face?


This made for an interesting ride home as I could not get all of it out by shaking my pants as hard as I could. But, the ride was brightened by this beautiful sunset:


The End.

I love the Valley in the Spring!!!!

You have to work fast if you want a good picture of the blossoms on the fruit trees here because they don't last. I finally got some time to get out to the orchard right by our house to take this. I'm not sure what kind of fruit these trees will produce, but oh my- how amazing! The other thing I love about the blossoms is the smell. It is so powerful; thankfully, it covers the smell of the nearby dairies. Pretty soon, the blossoms will fall and it will look like it snowed right in the orchard. I'll try to get that as well. For now, enjoy!

What a good husband.

This actually happened several months after Elly was born, but I just thought about it today for some reason and I loved remembering it so I thought I'd share.

Brandon and I were hanging out with friends of ours who were expecting their first baby. Of course, the woes of pregnancy were dominating the conversation as both wives commiserated with each other about sleeping problems, eating problems, and hormones hijacking your body. Brandon and the other husband were very quiet during this time and I suspect that the other husband had some sort of hopeless look on his face, when Brandon said:

"Don't worry, Dude, you'll get your wife back."

Maybe you don't think that was such an unusually sweet thing to say. But, to me it was gold.

Dancing 1

This is what Elly does when she hears dancing music. She has several moves. This video includes "Booty Shake", "Hip Sway", and a little bit of "Head Bob". She super loves dancing. And there will be more dancing videos to come. Until then, enjoy this one!