Easter de Mayo

I've been meaning to do a post for a little while and just haven't gotten around to it. So here are a few belated Easter pictures and other miscellaneous Ellie updates.

Easter weekend was cold. Nice and sunny, but cold. So I opted out of the cute springtime fashion for Ellie and she sported her winter coat for her first Easter egg hunt.


She didn't quite get the idea of it. She picked up two eggs and was content to have something to carry in each hand, so decided she was done and walked away.


Daddy had to bring her back and help her understand the purpose of the basket.


She figured it out, though, and was pretty proud of her half dozen or so.


Then she got home and found out they open. And have candy in them. Eggs were a very serious business that weekend.


We've finally had better weather since then and spend some good time outside every day. Ellie would live outdoors if we let her. Here is the frilly hat portion of the outfit she would have worn had it been warmer on Easter.


It took some convincing to get her to wear it. For several days she wouldn't let me near her with it. But she would wear Brady's hat. He told her she looked "cute" in it. So she would put his hat on and walk around declaring herself, "Cute! I key-yute!" After that, she decided that any hat (or washcloth, or upturned bowl) on her head made her cute. So today I told her this hat would make her cute. She was sold.

Other favorite Ellie-isms of late: "Awesome!" "Giiddyup" (meaning "get up" or "pick me up"), "Crazy," "Okayokayokayokay," "Oh boy!" "Sure," and a pretend phone conversation I overheard, "Hewo? . . . Yeah! . . . what? . . . okay . . . hi! . . . howyadoin'? . . . bye!"

We've been trying to work on "please" and "thank you" for a while now too. Often when Ellie asks for something, the conversation goes something like this:
Me: Say "please?"
Ellie: Okay
Me: No, say "please?"
Ellie: Okay . . . (and so on)
One time she wanted me to take her upstairs, demanding "Up!" I reminded her to say "please," to which she replied, "Up, plea, okay?" (translation: "I've jumped through your hoops, now gimme what I want!")

So that's an update on what's been keeping us busy lately. Ellie is becoming quite the parrot and is pretty funny to talk to. Now if she would just learn to listen a little more when it comes time to clean up . . .

As long as she doesn't figure out that the syrup bottle is a flip-top, we might not be in too bad of shape . . .