Spring is Here!

Spring is finally here! Yay! Ellie, Adam and I have been eagerly waiting the warmer weather. We have been outside almost every day playing, walking, hiking, jogging- whatever we can think of! We love it here in North Carolina, it is so gorgeous!

Ellie loves being outside too :) She loves to pick Mommy flowers and brings them to me with such a big happy smile- I love it! She has also recently learned ring around the rosy- and likes to play it over, and over, and over, and over, well, you get the point! Between that and her new games like tickle the parents or hide and go seek, we have quite an active little toddler these days! We have been having a lot of fun lately, and here are some of my favorite shots of Ellie.

We had some fun at Marbles Children's Museum and dressed Ellie up as a princess ballerina butterfly- gotta love a girl with ambition!

This is shortly before church one Sunday. This is Ellie's "silly Mommy!" face :)

Also at the Children's museum, we dressed Ellie up as a firewoman. We thought we should support at least one occupation that did not require a pink tutu :)

And, last but not least, a devil pic. Because she was being such a stinker one day, I thought her hair should reflect the demon inside...

Videos

I know that there are several people who wish they could be around Ellie and Aiden a liitle more often, so I am posting a few little videos to share a little bit of daily life with these rugrats. Enjoy!

I know I'm just a proud papa, but I have proof that my daughter is smarter than a captive adult gorilla. Check out the proof!

Every parent alive has gloated about their child's intelligence and I swore I would never be the one to blog about it, but here I am, doing exactly that.
Last night as I was giving Eliana a bath, I was reminded of a time I was at the Salt Lake City Zoo. While I was there I witnessed what I thought to be a remarkable display of animal intelligence. I looked on as a gorilla picked up a water bottle, carried it to a stream, filled it up, and drank from it.
I went home that day thinking that I had witnessed an evolutionary miracle.
I have since learned that the real miracles are part of every day as a parent. Thankfully Ellie is always into some kind of miraculous monkey business that keeps me laughing in amazement. I enjoy every second of my life with her.

Circus :)

Ellie and I went to the Circus! It was so much fun :) Although, I must say, the circus is not quite what I remember... It is a lot more like a show on the strip in Vegas than I thought it would be! With lights, a diva singer with a full back up, and a constant overwhelming assault on all of our senses, it was a lot for my little one year old! But all in a ll, she loved the animals and seeing all of her little friends, so it was great :)

We went with Stacy and Aiden, and Liz and the two kids she nannies for, Dane and Cali. All of the kids were really great, and the only really uh-oh moment was when Aiden dropped his sippy cup from the balcony onto the ground floor! Luckily it was intermission, or he may have taken out some poor little child...

And Ellie in the laundry... just thought I would throw this one in for kicks and giggles. Adam and Ellie are always getting into mischief and and then calling me in to see what they have come up with now! I know I am in trouble when I hear "Mommy, bring the camera!"