"I want to be a Star"

Recently we read a book called Dream Big, Little Pig! by Kristi Yamaguchi about Poppy the Pig who wanted to be a star.  Ever since then, Eliana has used the line "because I want to be a star!" as her excuse for doing anything and everything.  In the picture above, Eliana was painting, and I found her painting her face and teeth (yes, teeth).  When I asked her why she was eating the paint, she said "Because I want to be a star!"

"Oh no, Eliana, you had an accident.  Why did you pee in your pants and not in the potty?"
"Because I just want to be a star."

"Eliana, why are you ripping pages out of that book?"
"Because I want to be a star!"

"Eliana, stop poking me in the eye."
"I have to, because I want to be a star!"

The answer to any why question, especially when she is in trouble, is always "I want to be a star!"  I guess Eliana thinks being a star means doing any crazy thing she wants.  Where did she get an idea like that?

State Park fun

David just finished up his ER rotation and happened to have Tuesday off before starting his next inpatient rotation today.  So we took the day for a little family vacation to a state park and a dairy farm.  We drove an hour southwest of Columbus to John Bryant State Park near Yellow Springs, OH.

Clifton Mill

Hanging out with Daddy on the covered bridge.

Little Miami River

We started with a really easy walk in Clifton Gorge Nature Preserve to a picnic spot in a meadow.

After eating, David wanted to rest for a few minutes on the picnic quilt.  Eliana couldn't figure out why Daddy was laying down.

So she decided to join him for a few seconds.  Then she got bored, got up, spilled her green beans (in the small pink bowl by her head), and put the pink bowl on Daddy's belly.

Exploring the meadow

She liked picking dandelions.

That's a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in her hand, and peanut butter all over her face.  She likes to eat her sandwich from the inside out - first licking all of the jelly off, then scraping the peanut butter off, and then sometimes eating the bread.  It is a very messy process!

 After our picnic, we tried to get Eliana to walk the short path back to the trail head.  It is amazing how much she would run around in the meadow, but try to direct her to run in one direction, and all Eliana wanted to do was be carried.  We had so much fun.  Hiking is definitely different now (much slower with a lot more time spent looking at sticks and rocks) but I had a great time and was just cracking up at Eliana's antics.  Great time spent together as a family.  We went on one more walk with Eliana in the hiking backpack.  Since I was already carrying Baby Boy, David had all the responsibility of carrying Eliana on his back.  Therefore it was a short walk, but through the gorge among lots of purple and white wild flowers.  I really loved it, but I think David was pretty sore afterwards.  That was all the hiking we could handle for the day.  Near the state park is Young's Dairy Farm, so we stopped there next.  This was by far Eliana's favorite part of the day.  Between the ice cream, tractors, and petting zoo, this girl thought she was having the best time ever.  She was giggling nonstop and was having fun no matter what she was doing.  She loved the animals and got down on her knees to pet some baby goats.  As she gets older, it is more fun to take her to places like this because she enjoys it so much more now than when she was little. 

Eating our ice cream that is made there on the dairy farm.  This monstrosity was called the "Cow Trough" and involved five giant scoops of ice cream, three topping, whipped cream, nuts, several cookies, and a cherry on top.  It was quite impressive in its size, which was rivaled only by the size of Eliana's eyes when she saw it.

Driving her tractor.

Checking out the colored barrels

And last, giving the goat a hug.  So sweet!

Easter

Amazingly, David was able to get the entire weekend off of work, so we made a quick trip to Indy to celebrate Easter with our families.  We spent Saturday at my grandmother's house, Eliana's G.G., and then Sunday at David's parents house.

G.G. found a baby turtle in her front yard that she saved for Eliana to see.  After this, we let the turtle go in the pond behind her house.  Eliana was only mildly interested in it.

Eliana playing with Grandpa, sitting on the picnic table that he built for her!  So cute to watch them interact.

Hanging out with Uncle Mike.

My family's Easter picture.

And now just the three of us.

Sunday morning before we headed over to David's parent's house, my mom had a little Easter egg hunt.

That's right, it was a hunt for all the big kids too.  My mom puts money and lotto tickets inside the eggs to encourage participation from even the most reluctant hunter.

Hunting with Grandma.

Sweetie

Checking out her piece of candy.  After putting it in her mouth, Eliana spit it out, then picked the chocolate off the ground, put it back in her mouth again, and spit it out again.  Then she asked me to help her get the dirt off of her tongue.  That's why the rest of the candy we switched out for goldfish.  Happy Easter!

Adele's 2nd Birthday

 Eliana's good friend Adele just celebrated her second birthday.  As part of the party, her parents had Mr. Eric (a kid's music man) come and sing some sing-a-long songs with the kids.  He had some instruments available and a couple of microphones set up for kiddie karaoke.  While most of the children enjoyed playing the instruments, few were brave enough to try out the mics.  After singing lots of songs in my lap, I finally convinced Eliana to go up to the microphone and sing.  She was awesome!  Eliana loves to sing and knew most of the words to every song (Wheels on the Bus, Itsy Bitsy Spider, etc).  The song that finally pulled her to go up was "You are My Sunshine," one of her favorites.  Once up front, Eliana stayed as the center of attention the whole time.  She's our little diva!  Adele is such a great friend to Eliana and we had a really great time at her party. 

Hanging with the birthday girl on the right wearing their party favors, sunglasses!

Happy 2nd Birthday Adele!

COSI

A really fun place to take your kids in Columbus, OH is COSI, the children's museum downtown.  We just purchased a family membership to the museum and within a week had already been twice!  Almost all of the moms in my Mom's Group have a membership, so I bet we will really get a lot of use out of that card.  Eliana loves the little kids area that is basically an indoor play place.  They have slides and cars plus a farm area, farmer's market, house, and construction area.  It has baby dolls and a kitchen which are pretty much Eliana's favorite things.  Besides the play area, there are several rotating exhibits throughout the museum.  Right now they have one on the Ocean that Eliana also really likes.  It involves lots of water and splashing so she always ends of really wet.  Some of the exhibits are a little over Eliana's head, but she finds plenty of things to explore. 

Riding in the wagon with Theo.

Driving the ambulance.  They have a hospital/clinic theme that involves a lot of bandaids, the remedy to all ailments.

In the farm area.  Eliana is feeding the chicken an egg.  I guess they are cannibalistic chickens.

She is gathering up the eggs.

And feeding the eggs to the chicken again.

Riding a car.

Trip number two with Daddy.  Eliana and David played in the clinic area.  Eliana knew just what to do with the stethoscope.

Fixing up her baby.

By the way, do you happen to remember this picture from when Eliana was a baby?  It's in the genes.

Giant Box Fun plus a lesson from a first time parent.

Recently our hot water heater went out and had to be replaced.  When the plumber finished installing the new heater, he asked me if I wanted him to break down the box it came in and haul it out to the garbage.  Seeing the great potential in this giant box, I of course said no way!  Eliana thought the box was pretty neat.  The plumber cut it open in such a way that it basically had a door to get inside almost like a little house or a phone booth.  Eliana's top game to play with it was hide and seek.  Usually when we play this game, Eliana asks me to count and then goes and hides, almost always in the same spot over and over again.  True to form, Eliana wanted to play hide and seek with the box.  She would have me count in the living room then run and hide in the box ... every single time.  I would count to ten then come in the kitchen and act like I couldn't find her.  The whole time she would be giggling inside the box.  If I asked a question out loud like "Is Eliana under the table?", usually she would respond "No," and then giggle.  What an unexpected present our plumber brought us!

Another activity we did with the box was painting.  It made for a great big canvas, so I just threw a tarp under the whole box and let Eliana start painting away wherever she wanted.  Eliana was wearing her painting shirt, so it didn't matter if she got messy.  However, she was pretty wild with her paint brush and got some on my shirt.  David asked, "Is this paint washable?"  Having purchased the bottle of paint because it was super cheap, I didn't actually know.  So I quickly checked the bottle and discovered that it "cleaned with soap and water" aka, not very washable.  (It also means after you do wash your kid with soap and water, it is really really hard to get the blue paint out of the tub).  First time mom mistake.  Always check the bottle before purchasing to make sure the paint (or markers, etc) are washable!  Because I guarantee that your toddler is not going to only paint what you deam ok. 

After painting the box for a while, Eliana wanted to paint some of her rocks too.

Cutie!

Girly

A few weekends ago, my sister Abby was in town for work.  Ok, technically she was in Findlay, OH, but that is just a short drive to Columbus, so she came to visit for the weekend.  And if my sister is in town, you can bet that my parents are not far behind.  So on that Saturday, we hung out with my parents, brother and sister-in-law, and Abby.  It was great getting to spend some time with family, including the girls (sans Eliana), going to get our nails done as a special treat while Grandpa and Uncle Michael hung out with Eliana and David cooked dinner.

Eliana is really becoming a girly girl.  She likes to play dress up and wear high heel shoes (especially mine).  I have a jewelry box for Eliana that has play items and old jewelry from my Grandma Retzner.  Eliana loves to play with it!

This is how we started out the morning: Eliana in nothing but a diaper and wearing a backpack with her bear in it. 

Eliana also likes to play with the camera and take pictures.  She took this one of David, which was really good!

Wearing all of her jewels.

Grandma Retzner's clip on earrings.

Hanging out with Grandma, showing off her toes.  After Eliana saw my toes painted, she really wanted to have hers done too.  So I painted her toes, one foot pink and the other purple.  She was pretty excited about that.