Too good to last...

G*ogle is now charging for uploading photos. Not much, but I have to figure out how to do it, or get some time on the calendar of my technical assistant. Until then, here are some text updates.

No more Mama

Ellen has called me mama for the past year or so. In the past couple of weeks she has started calling me Mommy, just like Lucas does. I don't care either way, but it's just another sign that she is growing up way too fast.

Love this girl...

Ellen may be the funniest person I know. For one thing, you can't help but smile when she's around because she is always happy. Unless, however, Lucas is annoying her and making her scream. Here are two of the funny things that she is doing that seriously make me laugh each day.

Imitating: She started this a couple of weeks ago while we were reading one of her small board books. There was a picture of a frog on this particular page... he was sitting like a frog would sit, had his head turned to the side and his tongue out a little. I was reading the book out loud, as usual, when Ellen said, "Frog. Does this" and proceeded to squat down like a frog, turn her head to the side, widen her eyes, and stick out her tongue. Just like the picture! I laughed, which she loved, so the rest of the bedtime routine was more of the same, except she covered just about every animal she could find. What is so funny is that she's so serious about what she's doing. It's like she's auditioning for a play or something. After she makes sure we have seen what she's doing, she smiles really big. And then yesterday we were at the library and she saw a lady that was sitting and reading a book that was in her lap. She asked me who that was - "what's that?" When I told her it was a lady she said, "Lady does this" and then crossed her hands in her lap and put her chin to her chest, just like the lady was doing. I'll have to get a video... words don't do this justice.

Holding Grudges: A little girl named Lauren bit Ellen in the fall. It didn't seem like a big deal at the time. The teacher told me that when she got bitten Ellen just looked at the girl like, what the heck did you just do? It was her intro to biting. Anyway, Ellen never mentioned it, until recently. At dinner one night she, out of nowhere, said, "Lauren did this" and bit her own arm. We asked the teacher the next day and she said it hadn't happened again. Later that day, and every day since, Ellen has said and done the same thing. Now it's turned into kind of a game. She'll fake bite her arm and then we'll say, "What? Lauren bit you???? What did you say to her?" And then Ellen will say, "NO LAUREN! No bite me!" as she shakes her little finger in the air.

Next, we were at the park this week and a boy about the same age as Ellen slid down the slide while Ellen was still sitting on the bottom part of the slide. His feat rammed into her back, but it wasn't THAT big of a deal. I helped them both off the slide and asked the boy, who was named Max, to say he was sorry. End of story. That evening, and every day since, Ellen told us several times, "Max did this" and then hit herself on her lower back. We told her it was an accident, but asked her what she would say if Max did that again. "NO Max! Go home Max!" Again, it's funnier in person. Little Ellen with her lips poked out and her finger waving. You don't want to cross Ellen - she doesn't forgive very easily : )

River Walk

There is a river about 45 min away that we've been wanting to hike along. It was lovely, but we picked the wrong day because it snowed on us! Still nice... but we couldn't stay long... we'll be back in the spring.

Happy New Year!

We wanted to start the year off right, so we loaded up and went for a walk through a nearby "forest." It was nice to be outside after the snow last week.