It's Been Awhile... This could be long!

Hey everyone!



So sorry I haven't updated this blog for awhile. We've been having some battles with Ellie about when she should go to sleep - she says No sleep at all, we say please, please sleep now. By the time our battle ends, I'm not interested in working on the computer - just check the email, pay the bills and may be check a couple of blogs. If you have a suggestion for getting an exhausted 2 year old to sleep please send it our way; I've resorted to checking out books at the library on getting kids to sleep, let's hope one helps! Enough complaining onto the fun stuff:

Ellie and I had our first Mommy & Me Tiny Tots Gymnastics class this past Wednesday. The class had about 10 kids and their mom's and was held at the Murrieta Community Center. Ellie had a lot of fun; I know, big shock. When we walked in and she saw all the kids, she got all excited and started walking up to them and talking (she still doesn't make much sense, but the other kids seemed to understand her!). When the class started, Ellie was still gibber gabbing and wouldn't sit still... sit for role call, no way it's time to play. The teacher, Miss Lee, had us warm up to the itsy-bitsy-spider song, then we did a ring-around-the-rosy type thing, then the kids did some 'gymnastics' - all of this was set to music. Ellie wanted to dance and twirl around, she really wasn't interested in following along with the class too much! I was able to get her to try most of the 'skills' the teacher had set out. We rolled down a wedge shaped mat, jumped off of a spring board, bounced on a mini-trampoline and walked on a 1-foot tall balance beam (this she liked a lot). The only thing that she absolutely wouldn't try, wouldn't even go near, was the single bar - all she had to do was hang on it, but she wouldn't go near it. Spooked her I guess, who knew? May be next week she'll give it a try. The teacher also reads a story each week and has the kids help by taking turns hanging a picture from the story on a felt board. Surprisingly, Ellie wouldn't sit still for the story time; Thankfully, there were a couple of other trouble makers, so we weren't the only ones!!! I tell you what, Ellie was very worn out at the end of the class, and I shall confess, I was too!!!



The rest of our time has been spent riding hobby horses (well, Ellie has a hobby horse, I get to ride on a whiffle ball bat), playing in the sprinklers, drawing with sidewalk chalk, coloring in coloring books (my favorite), picking our over-productive tomatoes (Ellie doesn't differentiate between ripe and unripe, so, we have a lot of green tomatoes!), watching the movie of the moment (currently cycling between Monsters Inc and Toy Story 2, Thanks Kristie & Gene!), watching the Sprout channel (she really likes Jakers and Zaboomafoob) and playing with Ellie's Cars and Farm play set (these two go together, the Cars frequently park in the hay loft and the grain silo - I think they've been hittin' the sauce!).



Hope you've all been having a good summer! Check back again soon... I'm considering some type of prize for commenting on a blog post - I'm still considerin' though, so check back!



Bye for now!