Sledding!

Elizabeth was reluctant to get all dressed up to play in the snow but Andrew coaxed her outside. After a few trips down the snow hill, she was hooked! In the end, it was hard to convince her to come inside. Now whenever she's outside she goes straight for the snow piles!

Smile

My new smile!

Presents!

Our friend gave Elizabeth her old stuffed animals. You should've seen Elizabeth's face when Andrew showed her an entire bag full of animals! It was sooo cute - thanks Sheereene!

Uncles are the best!

Elizabeth loves it when Mike comes over to play with her! To be honest, I think he loves it too..!

Saying Hello!

Maybe she's not a painter...

I thought it'd be a blast to do some painting with Elizabeth. As you can see from the photos, she didn't enjoy the experience as much as I'd expected...we'll just have to keep trying!

Are we there yet?!

More from Minneapolis!

Minneapolis

We used the excuse of looking at a car to head to Minneapolis, MN over a 3-day weekend. We didn't end up buying the car but enjoyed an excuse to get away! We stayed in St. Paul the first night at a hotel. The hotel had a really nice pool that Elizabeth enjoyed playing in! On Saturday, we went to the Como Zoo which was a ton of fun. We were surprised that there were a ton of other people visiting the zoo too! It wasn't too cold and most of their exhibits were indoor. We love zoos anyway and the older Elizabeth gets, the more she enjoys them too! They had a few special flower exhibits which were beautiful. It was almost overwhelming to see so many gorgeous flowers in one place (minus all of the other people!). Of course, any trip to the cities wouldn't be complete without stopping by the Mall of America. Andrew had never been inside so I told him it's a must see. He wasn't too impressed and we were in and out in about one hour! I didn't mind because I figured it'd be more fun to take a trip there with some girlfriends! That night we headed to Rochester to visit out good friend Nick who's doing his residency at Mayo. On our way there we came across an Elk Ranch where we stopped to take pictures. Every elk was a huge bull; they even had two albino elk! We had a blast with Nick, it was so nice to see him again! We ordered take-out Chinese and sat around telling stories and laughing all night! We came home Monday tired (Elizabeth did not sleep well either night...) but grateful we'd made the excuse to get away for a weekend!

Reading & Playing

Elizabeth's new thing is to copy exactly what Andrew and I do - scary huh! She loves to lay on her belly and "read" books to you! She's such a dare devil - she wanted to play with the ExerSaucer so bad, she climbed into it sideways when I wasn't looking. She loved being in there until she realized she was stuck!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Thanks everyone for all of the nice cards/gifts. Elizabeth loved wearing her new dress she got from Grandma M on Valentines Day! Aunt Sarah sent a sticker book which Elizabeth loves. She takes each sticker off, sticks them to her hand or my hand, and then puts them back in the book. The only problem is now whenever Elizabeth sees a sticker on anything (such as a toy or magazine address label), she tries ripping it off! How fun!

PS-Sharon, this is the swing I bought for you!

Check out the sandals!

Good for all ages!

We let a friend borrow Elizabeth's Exer-Saucer and just got it back. Elizabeth spent the entire afternoon playing with the thing! (I included a pic of her from a year ago playing with the same toy ... quite the change, huh!)

Troublemaker!