Getting Organized

I feel like it is a constant battle to try to find the perfect way to store things away. I was tired of going through Ellie's clothes what felt like every week as she grew out of clothes and into new ones. I would find whatever box or bag I could and try to get things put away, but then the box would run out of room and I would find new clothes of the same size. It was also hard to stack my mix-matched supply of boxes. Maybe I'm crazy, but I told James what I really wanted for my birthday was some storage containers.


So, here is what I did today..


With Ellie's help, of course.


The random (NOW EMPTY!!!) boxes.


The perfectly stacked and organized new boxes. Hooray!

So, that is a small part of my life and house that feels better. Does anyone have any good ideas for how to organize or keep things organized?

Adopt-a-Dog

We're dog sitting this week. This is the 3-month-old Golden Retriever, Tigerlily.

Ellie thinks she is in charge of guarding all the dogs toys.

Brielle is fascinated with having a dog and loves to be able to get down and dirty with it.

Everyone I know in Michigan raises indoor dogs. I allocated a very small portion of our house for the dog, so that I didn't have to puppy-proof everything. Most of the day we stay outside and play though.

Ellie says "please can we keep her!"

If it wasn't such a full-time job keeping a puppy from eating everything (sticks, pine cones, socks, garbage...whatever she can find) maybe we'd think about getting one sooner than later. And, I'm not such a fan of my house smelling like dogfood and wet dog. So, until Brielle is old enough to take care of a dog herself, I'll just enjoy borrowing other people's animals for short periods of time.

Petting Zoo

We went to the County Fair this past week. It happened to be "ladies day" so we got in for free! Ellie's favorite part of the day was the petting zoo.

There were goats, sheep, a calf, a donkey, geese, chickens and a big rabbit. Ellie loved all the animals except she was terrified of the rabbit. Now keep in mind the rabbit was huge, but it was just laying there doing nothing. It looked like a fluffy pillow that you just want to cuddly and she would cry whenever I tried to get her near it.

When we had friends over for dinner last night one of them caught a bunny in our backyard. Ellie also was scared of the bunny. I'm not sure where she got this fear of rabbits, but it kind of makes me laugh.

Ellie and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

So, there isn't even a very exciting story to tell, but this is how it happened. We were walking in to church, early since James had an appointment to get a new calling. Ellie was holding my hand and walking when she tripped and fell down on the carpet. No big deal, because since she is still mastering the walking thing she trips a lot. Except this time it was a big deal because she starting crying hard, like she was hurt.
All day Sunday she wasn't using her right leg. She was acting a bit better Monday, but I called the doctor just to check things out. After the doctor check up (which Brielle hated) we were sent to get xrays (which she also screamed through) and discovered that Ellie had a buckle fracture. We went to get the cast put on, they didn't have any exciting colors small enough for her leg, so she just got plain old white. And that, is the story of Brielle's first sports injury.

I told Ellie she was getting a sock put on. She loves socks, so she was okay with that. So far it hasn't bothered her much yet. We go get it checked again in 2 weeks, and she should get it off in 4-6 weeks.

Happy Faces

My friend had some great pictures from our Lake Michigan day trip last month. In Holland, MI there is a small Bison farm. Ellie was enamored with the animals and was just giggling as she watched them in the field.




And Ellie and I both enjoyed running and sliding down a small sand dune later that same day at the beach.

Dairy Days

Today was the Dairy Expo at MSU. I was impressed at how well planned it was with a lot of hands-on activities for the kids. Ellie was very excited about seeing so many cows and wanted to climb right on top of them. She helped me milk a cow; we also watched a cow digest its food (it had an opening so you could see its stomach) that was stinky.

Ellie learned that ice-cream comes from cows. She decided it was pretty good.

Walking Update

Ellie is still working on her walking skills and getting better every day. And of course she still is obsessed with the stairs and eating things she isn't supposed to...so she seems to be a normal, healthy 1-year-old.