The Turtle Days of Summer

I filled up the turtle and let the water sit in the humidity yesterday. I wish I could say I let it sit in the sun, but there has been none for two weeks now. Every now and again it peeks but no where near my satisfaction.

So Ellie splished.

And then splashed.

And then looked at the water.

And then considered the water.

And then attempted a dip.

But then decided to consider a little while longer.

Perhaps a floaty would be better.

Back to splishing and splashing.

We enjoyed ourselves.

Poolside

Yesterday Ellie and I joined my dear teaching friend, Barb, who I taught first grade with three years ago and her granddaughter, Aunika (Aunie for short) at their pool. Ellie's been to the pool a few times, but I think this was when she really fell in love with splishing and splashing. Unfortunately, it took about an hour for this love to bloom and I only captured pictures of the girls warming up to the idea together.

Mom, I'd rather of some of these...

YES, THESE!

Dipping the girls in....

The all interesting spoon...

Yes, I'll play with the spoon!

Learning to share the spoon...

My turn!

All gone!

One of Ellie's newest joys...playing with her hair.

Pretty Aunie

Spoon = Old News Playing Catch with a Stranger = The In Thing to Do

Then, throwing the ball for mommy to go get...

Keeping cool with lots of water!

All in all, it was a beautiful day with our little pool girls!

Play Date

Well, I'm still working on my blogging knowledge. I had a lot of fun playing with code last night trying to put this in a different font, but then on the very last step...it didn't work. So...we'll keep trying. After this adventure, I'm going to study some photography stuff to try to take my own pictures with our new camera. Chris takes most of these beautiful pictures, but I want to try my hand at it. The pictures from our play date I'm about to share are very obviously my go at snapping the shots, but I'll keep working...Oh the joys of having summer off.

Our first arrival, Jessica and daughter Reegan (four months old today!)

I'm totally bummed I didn't get any of all the kiddos facing the camera, but this is James (21 months I believe), Elianna (14 months) and Avery (2 years old yesterday!) with little Ellie. I told all the mommies thank you for coming, I was trying to include some good influences in her life and hopefully spending time with all their children would encourage her to take some steps!!!

The beautiful birthday girl chilling in Ellie's room after everyone else left.

I was hoping Ellie would be studying Avery and how she is running all over the place, but what did Ellie do? Look at her books, of course!

Eating lunch after everyone left where Ellie decided to eat all the hummus and none of the veggies. Oh well.

Test Post

I'm trying to play with some setting on this blog, so please have patience with my un-techy HTML knowledge. I'm following the directions from a photography blog on how to make the photos large...However, in the process, I've lost the ability to include a background. If anyone knows how to do this...please let me know...

But now on to the important part...the star of our show...

A few weekends back, we took a trip out to a local farmstead. I forgot to upload the pictures, but I'm thinking now that I know how to make the photos larger, you'll see how much fun we had in a bigger picture!

No. My daughter is not riding a bull. I do not plan on her riding bulls. However, this is her trying her seat in a saddle.

We thought this picture was neat because the cow's name was Ellie. In fact, we considered naming Ellie, "Ellie Mae" but we received two reactions that changed our mind. The first: "Isn't that the girl from Beverly Hillbillies?" Yes. The second: "Oh, that's my dog's name!" Oh.

The real Ellie Mae with Ellie Anna.

Our little farmer girl.

The funny thing about this picture is that I wanted to be an "Indian" (Yes, I am aware of how terribly politically incorrect that is...however, that is what I called it when I was 7.) with all of my heart when I was young. Here I am convincing Ellie how cool the Native American lifestyle was. Sidenote - I was devastated when my parents finally broke it to me that this occupation was not an option.

Please ignore the completely untanned skin of mine - adore the completely untanned skin of my daughter.

You know you're a dad when...you don't even think twice about stuffing a pink fisherman toddler hat in your back pocket.

Trying to teach my daughter to stop and smell the roses...or wildflowers...or carefully manicured and landscaped garden's daisies...same thing.

That's all for now. I have more pictures of our play date today, but will share after I clean up the kitchen from the Tequila Lime Grilled Chicken I'm marinating. And, my first attempt at homemade refried black beans! All thanks to The Pioneer Woman's website (LOVE it) in which I'm entered to win a cherry red KitchenAid...oh please let me win random number generator!

Starting our Summer

Well, things have been pretty getting to our summer. Wrapping up the school year was, as always, a rush! My students are well prepared and moving on to middle school and I'm anxious to have a few weeks home with my little Elle-belle, but it's still bittersweet.

I'm not going to lie, every moment with El is precious. I treasure her noises, her curiosity, her reluctant obedience, her silent way of exploring things. However, adjusting to a new routine and finding one that works for us is a challenge.

She's in the transition time between two solid naps and one well-timed refresher snooze. Today she had about 45 minutes of quiet time at 8:15 in her crib, not quite a nap, but peaceful crib time. As soon as she started fussing, I got her up and took her to Jazzercise, which was, amazingly, a huge success! She's had stranger danger since about 4 months old and every time I take her to church nursery or Jazzercise care, it's a toss up to see if it's going to pan out that day. Today, not only did she not starting bawling the minute we walked through the doors to check-in, but she only cried for one breath when I left before playing the whole time with a little boy only one month younger than her! Hooray! Side note - at the moment, she is sitting right outside our office here, reading a book to herself while lounging quite luxuriously with her leg in the air. What a princess.

Anyway, after Jazzercise, we came home, had a lunch of cheese, edamame, blackberries and applesauce, then a bottle then took a solid two hour nap! Mommy got lots done during this time... Back to the side note, now she's standing playing with the door opening and closing it over and over. Watch those little fingers, baby.

After her nap, we took a good walk up to the library, played for awhile in the kids center, checked out some books and new baby music and back home for playtime. What a life! But back to my struggle with finding her new schedule, today was great, however, yesterday, she took a 3 hour morning nap at 8:15 and then was up until bedtime. Yikes.. So...I did some more research on Dr. Weissbluth's sleep methods and I think we're going to aim for morning quiet times, then solid mid-day naps, then early bed times. Here are the photos of our playtime after our nap, notice the kisses for her stuffed animals.

And the painted toenails.

Reading over what I just wrote, I'm laughing at the time I, a very obviously first-time toddler mom, took explaining my little girl's schedule. However, in my defense, reading back over this blog is such a sweet experience. It's almost like a little journal of our journey together. Oh, the experiences to come for our little family...