Coloring.

When we saw how much Elena's friend Lunden loved coloring, we decided to go out and get Elena her own crayons and coloring book too. Might as well find some more indoor activities that she likes while it is so cold right? After her afternoon nap I decided to break them out and see what she thought. She thought coloring was pretty fun!


Look at the sheer concentration on her face! Too funny.

The coloring lasted about 5 minutes and then she was more interested in dumping the crayons out of the box and putting them back in - that lasted about 20 min! Ha ha - go figure! I'm sure she will like coloring more and more. :)

Elena's 1st piece of art!

Snow fun.

Today I took Elena out in the snow like I had promised her yesterday. :) 1st we got all bundled up - what a pain! By the time we had all her layers on we were both about ready to just scrap the whole idea and stay in by the fire! But after all that work we just had to go out, at least for a little while. Here Elena is with her first layer and a half on~

She thought she looked pretty cool!

Following 2 more layers we headed out. I guess it is a little hard to walk all bundled up like that!!

Elena went straight to her little outside cottage - she just loves it! I can't wait til it gets warmer because she wants to be outside so bad.

My little snow princess~

Ok Grandma - I'm ready to go in and get warm!!

The path of destruction~

Ahh...time to warm up by the fire!!

16 months!

Today Elena is 16 months old!! I'm telling you each month just goes by faster and faster - before I know it she will be 16! Yikes - that's a scary thought!! I took a few pictures of Elena enjoying her bath tonight and thought I would share them.

Puppy Love.

Elena just loves our dog, Cooper. She always yells "Cooper" when she sees him and it was one of her first words that she said very clearly. It snowed last night (a lot!) so we were stuck inside watching it continue to snow most of the day. They were both itching to get out and play in it but we didn't get around to it this morning and after her late afternoon nap it was getting really cold - so we are going to wait until tomorrow to get out and play in it. I'm sure I will snap a few pictures for ya! ;)

Meanwhile she was very cuddly with Cooper today and it was so cute! He is so good with her and even lets her climb all over him! I think he really just loves all the attention!!

Flashback Friday - 1st Smile.

First "real" smile that is! This picture of Elena was taken on my camera phone on the way down to visit Robert's family for Thanksgiving in 2008 - Elena was almost 2 months old. I say "real" smile because she had kind of smiled before this picture - but this time she literally looked right at me and just gave me this big huge smile that I had never seen before. None of those previous kind of smiles could even compare. She looked up at me with this smile and I felt like my heart melted and I instantly burst into tears! That is why I call this her first "real" smile. It was one of the best moments ever and I will never forget it!

Hot Dog!

For those of you that aren't around little ones, you may have never seen Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Well, it is a show that most little kiddos love, including Elena! In fact, anytime she sees Mickey she yells out "mouse"! It is quickly becoming her favorite show and the Hot Dog dance is definitely her favorite part (and mine too!). She loves to dance along to the music, and it is so adorable!

For those of you who would like to see the whole Hot Dog Dance, you can click here. Enjoy!! :)

KC.

As you know we traveled to Kansas City this weekend to hang out with Lynette and her family. We started off on Friday night by all getting together at Lynette's parents house for some yummy food and to just hang out and catch up. It was so fun to get together with everyone again!

Here is Laura with adorable Baby Jensen ~ doesn't Laura make a cute prego girl? Her baby will be 11 months younger than Jensen who is 11 months younger than Elena. I see visions of all of them running around a playing together before we know it!

Elena played with Jensen's car seat most of the evening! She is just obsessed with any car seat and the buckles on them.

Something else that she has recently become obsessed with is finding every outlet in a room and pointing at them and saying "nooo" - and she says it so seriously too! It is pretty funny, at least I know that she is staying away from them! She definitely found each one in this house multiple times throughout the night. She also had a blast playing with this cute doggie named Presley. They were hilarious together, if you can't tell Elena loves all dogs!

Elena hasn't stayed in a hotel too many times, but this time she thought the huge comfy bed was pretty fun! Ahh...this is the life!

So what do you do to entertain a 15 month old in a confined area?

For a while she tried to hold all of her stuffed animals that we brought at the same time...

and then rock them to sleep - back and forth, back and forth ~ so funny~ she was even cracking herself up!

Then we looked out the window at all the cars going by for a bit~

Of course Elena passed some of the time with reading books~

I also took this opportunity to take her down to the hotel pool. She had an absolute blast! She is such a little water baby, this summer is going to be so fun!

Aunt Nettie hung out with us all weekend and it was so great to get to spend some time with her!

Here we are all playing with our phones~

Elena managed to get Lynette's phone from her! :)

Elena also got a hold of my camera so I went ahead and let her take a picture. Not too bad! 2 of her favorite people - me and Elmo! Ok, I might have pointed the camera a little for her! ;)

Grandma and Elena hanging out!

On Sunday we went for a quick playdate with Steph and Drew's sweet baby Jensen before we headed home! We got her this cute little jumpsuit for Steph's baby shower - and how could I resist getting a matching one for Elena?! So we put them in their outfits to grab a couple cute pictures. It was a little hard getting them to look at the camera at the same time!

Steph got one of them almost looking at the camera at the same time so I copied it from her blog. :)

Steph and Elena playing~

Baby Jensen is SO cute!! She seemed so small - it is hard for me to remember Elena being that age! (good thing I have like 1,000 pictures to help me remember!)

Elena really enjoyed playing with some "new" toys and Jensen was pretty happy to watch!

We took a quick pic of the 4 of us together - if you can't tell it was about nap time for both of them! Guess we should have done that 1st! Oh well, next time I guess!

Thank you to all of the Dankert's for a wonderful weekend! We had a great time and can't wait to go back!! Also, thanks mom for letting us go with you!!