A Day at the Park

First off -- Let me just say how fun it is to have a girl! I love it.
She not only has hair long enough for itty-bitty pigtails now, but she sat so patiently while I painted her little toes the other day.

PARK -- We had so much fun at the park on Monday. We had set the day and time aside earlier and Dan had planned to take a break from schoolwork to go with us - so we went even though it was randomly 50 degrees outside. We may not have stayed long, but we did have the whole place to ourselves. :) At least we got to use Elena's warm weather clothes one more time before they get packed away.
The dinosaur rocker is Elena's favorite thing to do there - this week at least. As soon as we got out of the car she started to say: "Dine! Dine!" The springs on the bottom on sensitive enough that she can make it rock pretty well by herself.

Having fun on the swings:

She was so scared of this slide the first time she went down it. I was waiting at the bottom and Dan had to give her a little push to get her to slide. The next time Dan was at the bottom. Once she realized that he was waiting down there for her, she used her own hands to push herself down. I am so grateful that she has such a special relationship with her dad.

The "uh-uh" near the beginning means yes.
She says "shoe" at the bottom because it fell off right then.

Rainy Day (+ random pictures)

Monday was a rainy day here, so I was pleased to be aable to get out of the house and go to the Children's Museum. My awesome friend Summer hooked me up with free tickets and so we went and met up with her and Shelby there. Here are some random pictures that I took of Elena and her friends.

This is the face that Laurel (Shelby's daughter) made when I told her to smile. Hilarious.
Just hanging out:Although she is a pro blog stalker, Summer has no blog of her own, so I wanted to be sure to put up some pictures of her kiddies. Conner (sp) and Hannah were climbing up the beanstalk together. Aren't they adorable?
This is Summer's youngest - Andrew. As you can see, he really enjoyed a couple of slices of watermelon for lunch. :)After "working" so hard in the Krispy Kreme factory at the museum, I took Elena out for the real deal. We split a delicious donut with sprinkles. Unfortunately the "Hot Now" sign was not on at the actual KK store, so we didn't get to see how they are really made. There's always next time...or the next. :)

On a side note: Elena had her first real bubble bath the other night and she really enjoyed it. Much like her experience with snow, she kept trying to eat the bubbles.My sweet baby is a toddler. She continues to assert her independence. I let her play on her own for just a minute the other day and this is what I found:
This is Aerin. I have been lucky to be able to babysit her for the past couple of months. Her dad goes to school with Dan and her mom is nurse at the hospital here. Aerin is the easiest, most even-tempered baby. She just coos and smiles all day - that is: when she's not taking a 2 hour nap. She even puts up with all the kisses and hugs from Elena. We are really going to miss her and her parents when they move next month.