Rice & Beans

One of the Montessori activities (or lessons, whatever you want to call them), is "playing" with beans, rice, or peas. Using different size scoops and bowls, a child passes beans back and forth into and out of containers. This helps with fine motor skills (and I'm sure something else...). Ellie stays occupied for a while with this new activity. I actually let her help me sort beans for a bean soup a few days ago and she spilled quite a few of them on the floor. Those became her beans. She picked them up off of the floor for me and we put them into some containers so she could practice scooping them in and out. So far, Montessori stuff has been great for Ellie. I'll post more stuff soon!

Anna

Woops.

Apparently I have offended some of my great friends back in Shreveport with my North Louisiana post. The offended shall remain nameless, only to say that their names begin with an R and an S... Anyway. I was told that while I wrote about Johnny's Pizza, I failed to write why I was even there in the first place. Which is true, so I decided to write a follow up post.

While in Shreveport for my three day stay, I had an awesome time. I met a bunch of friends from my old small group at Johnny's to kick it all off (thanks for coming guys, you made me feel special and loved). I had lunch dates (Steph and Jancee), I got to attend my old small group, hung out with my friend Aaron, Arielle, but not Julie (sad). I held my friend Elizabeth's one week old baby, got my teeth cleaned (thanks Ryan!), and spent every night at Ryan and Stephanie's house. I truly did not want to go home when I left Shreveport to pick Ellie up... I miss my Shreveport friends and no one will be able to replace all of them. There, did I leave anything out?? I don't think so, but it's been a few weeks since I was down there, so sorry if I did!

For future reference, this blog is titled "Tiny Raz" because it's really about Ellie's adventures. That's why I don't bother to record my own thoughts, otherwise you would hear about things like how I am tired of consumerism and the American culture, how I would really like to be disciplined enough to eat all raw, possibly a bit about politics, maybe even what blogs I have been reading, and how many books are currently on my nightsand (I think it's 5, not counting my journals). But for now, all I blog about is Ellie and the stuff I sew (because the two subjects generate interesting pictures and don't require to much brain power, which is reserved for scheming how I can take over the world).

Ok! I hope everyone is having a great Friday... oh and Happy Birthday Ryan!

Anna

Montessori Beginnings

So I've been talking to my friend Tabitha about activities to do with Ellie. Tabitha is a college friend of mine who taught at the Montessori school in Shreveport. And if she had a blog or a website (hint hint), I would link you to her site because she knows her stuff! She also sent me oodles of pictures of classroom activities that were extremely helpful.

You see, since Kentucky has such inclement winter weather, we are still going to be indoors for a while and I need some stuff to keep Ellie occupied. So I started reading a few books about the Montessori Method. I have even considered taking a course in the 0-3 year old range just to know how to help Ellie learn. We'll see about that, though. I LOVE the way Montessori (the actual person who created the methods of teaching/learning) breaks down the learning process into different levels/sensitive periods. With the help of Tabitha, I discovered that Ellie is in a gross motor development period (so I stopped trying to get her to do puzzles!). Now, I just "follow the child" and do the activities that she is interested in. Within reason, of course! But it's going to be an interesting journey and I will be posting more about our progress on the blog.

Anna

Yackady Yack!

While we were gone to Louisiana, Ellie started making more sense when she talked. Now, for those of you who don't understand what I'm talking about... well, do your best to remember the last time you were next to someone speaking another language. They are communicating, just not in a way you understand it. This is Ellie. She'll talk and talk and talk sometimes and we have no clue what she's saying.

We were leaving Dan's parents traditional Saturday morning Cracker Barrel breakfast, and Ellie was falling pretty far behind Vicki and I. Everyone was looking at how cute she looked holding her blanket still dressed in her new favorite animal pj's. All of the attention was more than she was comfortable with. She got a bit scared and said "Momma, up please." I think I paused for a second, startled at the utterance of her first (rather complete) sentence, and I couldn't pick her up fast enough!

Sometime later on in our visit, whenever I would come into a room after being gone for a while, Ellie would say "Hi Mama!" and wave at me. Then she would go about whatever she was doing. It was cute, but a bit strange... I'm not used to it yet. She also uses a nice Southern drawl saying "Maa Maa."

Dan and I were trying to think of Ellanguage and it's been pretty hard to come up with all of her words. Not all of them are English (for example, "Bosh" is diaper). However, she speaks mostly in English and her English words are: Da (dad), Mama, NO, Mo (more), please (pronounced "peese"), ice, wash (for water), night night, bath, hi, mi (movie), uh-oh, hop, and lots of animal sounds. Her two favorites are No and Mo. She answeres any question with No and any time she wants you to repeat something (or wants more of something to eat) she uses Mo (and then the sign language if you don't move fast enough). She uses "please" any time she really wants something, because she usually gets it. I can't resist good manners!

Anyway! This might not flow too well because I'm up late writing it. But oh well!

North/South...

Catch me if you can! A new favorite game...

Helping unload the car... she later ate most of those strawberries!

A little pansy behind the ear makes everyone look better, right?

Playing in water is an all time favorite

Ellie and Pop!

Me and Pop! Er, Dad.

iChatting with Dan (and apple-eating)

While at my parents Ellie and I didn't do much besides enjoying the great outdoors. While at my parents, we ate at Johnny's Pizza... which by now, you loyal blog followers have probably notice how much we like pizza. And this seems like a perfectly good opportunity to take a moment to give a shout out to Johnny's Pizza. Let's see, how do I describe Johnny's? It's awesome! When I was growing up, every Friday night that our school had a home football game our little family piled into our car and drove to Ruston for pre-game Johnny's Pizza. Now some people think there's too much hype around Johnny's (Ok, so just Dan...). But ever time I eat it I could sit back, close my eyes and relish in the sweet crust, the mild sauce piled high, the medly of toppings, and the tingly sting of coke washing it down. Sounds good, doesn't it? Well, you'll have to go to Louisiana to taste it! Oh, did I mention we had a Johnny's within walking distance from our house in Shreveport? In fact, I could see it from our bedroom window...

So, enough about pizza already. Back to what we did at my parents: I tried to find Ellie some shoes that fit (with no avail), we had a bonfire which we haven't done since I was in college (Ellie didn't get to attend, she was sleeping!), Ellie swung in a new tree swing, I got to see my old friend Claire and meet her boyfriend while eating at another fine dining establishment (Sonic!), ate dinner with my family (aunts, uncles, cousins...) at my parents, and.... well, I can't think of anything else. We had a blast!

Anna

Dan's Parents

I left Ellie with my in-laws for a few days so I could go up to Shreveport. You could say, they were kind enough to entertain her for three solid days so I could have some me time. It was fantastic! As I drove off, Ellie was in the drive way in her Oma's arms waving and smiling me good bye. I think she was pretty tired of me, actually. We'd been cooped up for TOO long together inside our house, there are still claw marks on the walls. Hah. Anyway.

Per reports, Ellie did LOOOOOTS of playing outside while she was there. Vicki told me they went outside at 8:30 one morning and didn't come back in until 11:00. The child didn't even want to eat her lunch! She played with Bailey (but not Sammy... the dogs), tried to swim in the pool, did her fair share of swinging and pushing the swing, picked berries off bushes, ran in circles, and went for walks.

Once she was done with the outdoors, I hear she: played with a tea set, drug around stuffed animals, watched the Fox and the Hound, played with stickers and crayons, went to the Children's Museum, went to Chuck-E-Cheese... she pretty much stayed completely entertained and loved every minute of it.

I have no pictures to prove all of this, but I'm sure Opa's camera didn't get much rest during Ellie's extended stay. I'll have to get his pics sometime.

I met Vicki at a half way point to pick Ellie up, and to my surprise, she was super-excited to see me! And I'll have to admit, I was pretty darn excited to see her too. Then we traveled up to see my parents in North Louisiana!

Anna

Flying South

Well, yesterday Ellie and I took a bird south to escape to Louisiana for 10 whole days. Yeah!!! [Side note: Dan is back in Lexington slaving away and pretty sad to be by himself] When we left the airport, they had to de-ice our plane because it was 5 degrees. This was a completely new experience for me and I would be lying if I said it didn't freak me out. When we got to Dallas, it was in the 40's and while waiting for the gate-checked stroller, neither Ellie nor I had on jackets. And when we made it to Houston, it was a fabulous 58 degrees. We had the air conditioner on in the car... welcome back to the South, baby.

I took a few pictures of Ellie on our traveling adventure. We had a 2 hour flight to Dallas and a 45 minute flight to Houston where Vicki (Dan's mom) picked us up. I was all nervous about how Ellie would do on two plane rides, but she did great. We had stickers, crayons, paper, bribe food (and lots of it), airplane orange juice, Sky Mall, and a few (desperate) m&m's.

When we got to Sulphur, Ellie played and played and played outside... for the first time in what seems like forever. She seriously loves to swing and will stay glued to the thing for more than 30 minutes. Today she even braved up and jumped off of the swing all by herself (according to Opa, who was the only one around as a witness). I had to leave my absolute favorite SLR at home, so I'm using a point and shoot. Don't expect great pictures, haha.

If you are a Louisiana friend, give me a call on my cell phone (or shoot me an email) if you want to catch up!

Love,

Anna & Ellie

P.S. The pictures are backwards and I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how to switch them on Safari... not on my mac... sorry.