Moody Gardens

My family was hanging out at Moody Gardens this weekend to participate in the sprint triathlon and the half-Ironman, so Ellie and I drove down there Saturday to meet up with them. We had such a fun day! The Moody Gardens hotel had one of those jumping things which Ellie just loved. She especially loved going down the slide.
I haven't been to Moody Gardens in several years, but I don't remember it being so expensive ($45.00/person). Luckily, Ellie was free. She really liked the tropical rainforest and the aquarium. Unfortunately, she wasn't interested in the 3-D Imax (note to self: still cannot take Ellie to movie theater). The one negative aspect of the day was that Ellie would not ride in the stroller or let me carry her. That would be fine and all, but she usually insisted on running in the opposite direction. I spent most of my day ditching the stroller and chasing after her. She isn't the most obedient of children.
We took a break in the early afternoon to cheer on Leilani and Mia in the Little Lonestar race. Leilani placed 5th! I found myself channeling Tom and envisioning Ellie running the same race in a few years.
Saturday night, we went back to the hotel to go swimming. Ellie LOVED it. The kid has no fear. I was throwing her high in the air, dunking her under water, having her jump to me...she loved it all. She started getting mad that I was holding her because she wanted to be on her own in the water. To show her what would happen, I let her go and she promptly sank, but when I brought her back to the surface, she just grinned and asked for more. I am happy she loves the water so much, but I must admit that it worries me. I was so exhausted by the end of the day, but I loved having a day to just play with family.

Food poisoning

Tom had a track meet yesterday so I decided it was leftover night for dinner. I scrounged around in the fridge and discovered that I still has some brisket left over from Easter dinner. Yummy! I was a little unsure of the timeline, but it smelled good so I popped it in the microwave. I shared a little bit with Ellie, but ate the majority of it myself. Around midnight, Ellie woke up crying and we couldn't get her to fall back asleep. She kept saying "hurt, mommy, hurt." I gave her some Tylonel and tried to curl up on her crib mattress with her. She whimpered on and off the rest of the night. Well, at 3 am, my stomach started killing me. It hurt so freaking bad. I barely made it to the bathroom and spent the next two hours perched on, or hunched over, the toilet. Good times. Ellie and I both stayed home from school today. She is currently sound asleep, but my stomach is still cramping too much to nap. Note to self: Never eat leftovers again!

Spring Break recap

Well, Spring Break is over and I returned to school today. I really enjoyed having this past week with Ellie and Tom. It gave me a little taste of what summer will be like! I had two goals for this break: to wean Ellie from the pacifier and to deep clean my house. I am proud to say I accomplished both of those goals! I had planned to clean one room a day, but that didn't really happen. Instead, toward the end of the break, we had a little mini-crisis that forced me to go into full-time cleaning mode. Boy, did I clean! As for the pacifier, well, Ellie has not asked for it since the first night we took it away from her. It does take her a little longer to go to sleep at night and she won't always take a nap, but I am glad to be rid of the thing. I kept worrying about her teeth...it's crazy the little things I find to obsess over. At least I no longer worry about her head!

Easter Sunday was a lot of fun. Last year, Ellie was too little to really get into the egg hunt. She hated the feel of grass. But this year? This year she was a girl on a mission. They did a little egg hunt at her daycare so she knew the drill. We sent her outside with a basket and she beelined it for one egg after another. She didn't stop to pose for pictures or to open an egg...just kept looking for the next one. Good times. Special thanks to my mother in law for putting it all together. I like these holidays where I don't even have to lift a finger! Now if only I could pass off Ellie's birthday party to someone...

Sunday Best: Easter edition

Go Western Day

My Attempt at a "Western" Outfit

Daycare Art (or brainwashing)

Throwing Gang Signs

The Rodeo!

Yesterday we met up with Daniel, Sabrina, and the kiddos to go to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. It was so much fun. Thankfully, Ellie took a nap (paci-free!) before we left so she was ready to play. With so much to do at the Rodeo, I couldn't understand why Ellie kept insisting on sitting in these chairs:
The petting zoo was awesome. They had the normal goats and sheep and bunnies and all that, but they also had baby zebra, kangaroos, and deer. Very cool. This little pony was fenced off, but Ellie was determined to get in there. We took her for a pony ride later that she totally loved. Unfortunately, she kept trying to "ride" all the animals in the petting zoo as well.
See the zebra?
Ellie loved the carnival just as much as she loved the petting zoo and pony rides.
I wish this picture wasn't so blurry because I think it really captures how much fun we all had!

The best clearance find EVER

$12.50. Target. Includes: tent, backpack, flashlight, sleeping bag, water bottle, and headband. She has been sleeping in it since Saturday night.

Sunday Best

Watching a little Elmo before church...

Spring Break or Bust!

Today is the first official day of Spring Break. I have been looking forward to this week since September. I have lots of plans for Spring Break. Some fun things include taking Ellie to the Rodeo, the park, those jumping places, and so on. The not so fun include deep cleaning my house. I have scheduled a different room to clean each day. Today I am tackling my kitchen. You can't fully appreciate what a huge undertaking this is unless you see my house. But even that is not as big of an undertaking as what we implemented last night with Ellie...weaning her from the pacifier. That's right, no more nigh-nigh paci.

I didn't want to just plop her in her room without any forewarning, so I took a page from a friend's book and told Ellie we were mailing her pacifiers to a baby. Then, we gathered up all her pacis and carried them out to the mailbox (you bet I took them all out later when she wasn't watching. No way was I going to be without a paci if this didn't work). I don't think Ellie really quite understood the concept of mailing her pacifiers to some needy child, but at least it made me feel a little better about prepping her. When it came time to put her to sleep, she frantically searched her room saying, "my paci, my paci." I felt really bad. Not as bad as I felt the next few hours as she sobbed herself to sleep. I'd go in there every 30 minutes or so to lay (lie?) down next to her and comfort her. She finally crashed and didn't wake up again til 6:30 this morning. I'm not holding much hope that she will even take a nap today, but I am determined that by the end of this week, she won't even be missing it.

Bedtime stall techniques

Ellie has become grand master of the bedtime stall technique. Ah, I remember the days when it was just more water or read book. Those are easy to resolve or cut off. But now? Now it's I want kisses and one more hug, a hug, MORE HUG!!!. And can I just say, it is near impossible to shut the door on your little toddler when she is lying there with her little arms spread wide, begging you with tears in her eyes, More hug peease!

Not so adorable (or heartbreaking) is her favorite phrase, stop it. Said as one word, stopit, I hear this phrase 50 times a day minimum. And I don't like it. It sounds very rude coming out of her little mouth. Then Tom pointed out to me that I say it all the time to Ellie. I sure wish she would pick up a phrase or two from him.

Sunday best

Look! She's awake!

Again with the pictures

What's this? Another freaking picture of Ellie sleeping? I know, I know. But it's funny, right? Sleeping under her bed instead of on it? Right?

Turning this into a "pictures of Ellie sleeping" blog

Notice the Elmo diaper peeping out? I usually buy H.uggies because they send coupons in the mail, but I bought her P.ampers awhile back and she went completely nuts over her Elmo diapers. Now, if I try to put on a Huggies diaper, she freaks out and insists that she has to wear her "Ehmo diapa!"

We kept Ellie home from school on Tuesday and Wednesday because she was running a fever and has a nasty cough. But she was just so happy to stay home with her mommy (Tuesday) and daddy (Wednesday). Seriously, laughing and playing all day long. I almost hated to take her back to school today. One thing I realized while staying home with her is that she can now identify and say all 26 letters of the alphabet. She has been doing it long before Christmas, but she would still mess up on several of them. Now, you can point to any letter and she will tell you what it is. I'd like to take full credit for this, but goodness knows I teach the child next to nothing. It's that crazy school she goes to. They are all about the letters and the numbers and the shapes and the colors.

Ellie's newest phrase? "Oh gosh!" And she says it so cute. Tom and I have taken to dropping things on the floor just to hear her say it. Also, she feels the need to say "bye" to everything. And I do mean everything. As we leave a room it is all, "bye plate, bye chair, bye door." Pretty much everything in the room gets a wave and a "bye."

Sleeping and playing games

Not much going on around here. Still working on the whole Ellie sleeping on the floor big girl bed thing. It really isn't that bad. She plays for like 30 minutes and then crashes somewhere near her pullout couch. I usually just move her before I go to bed. Her attitude seems to be improving as well. Let me just tell you, last week I was about to trade the kid in for a newer model. It got to the point where I couldn't even put her in time out because 6 times in one hour is a bit much. Even her teacher at school mentioned that Ellie is going through a "stubborn phase" and they have been doing lots of "negotiating" with her. But, thankfully, she seems to be returning to her old happy-go-lucky self. I guess I'll keep her.

I was able to talk Tom into playing a game of Monopoly last night. I freaking love games. I grew up playing games with my family every Sunday. And having 6 siblings pretty much guarantees that you have someone to play with whenever the urge strikes. Unfortunately, Tom hates games. No, really, he hates them. Unless they are on the PS2 and involve some sort of sport. But ask him to play a board game and he acts like you have told him he has to have a root canal. Without Novocaine. So I was pretty excited when, not only did he agree to play a game with me, but he agreed to play Monopoly (actually, it was Aggieopoly, whoop!), the longest game known to mankind. I happily popped some popcorn and doled out our cash. First roll, and Tom lands on Contingency and draws the card that sends him straight to jail (but in Aggieopoly, Jail = Home). That pretty much set the precedent for the rest of the game. Tom was in jail (home) no less than 7 times. During that time, I managed to buy up the whole board and install hotels (diplomas) on most of them. Yeah, I totally killed him. He will never, ever, ever play with me again.

Picture of the day