A Little Ballerina

Eleanor had her first ballet class last Friday. She woke up that morning bright and early, a little too early really, which explains the minor meltdown she had during the last five minutes of class. But I digress...

She wanted a pink tutu for class. I didn't have any pink tulle, but I did have some shiny, stretchy pink stuff, so voila! A pink tutu-dance skirt. She I showed it to her she said, "It's too small." Meaning it's not poofy, like her white tutu, or the tutus she's seen on the Nutcracker. But then I reminded her that we were fresh out of pink tulle, and then she was cool with it.

Class was fun. Her teacher is a sweet Japanese lady who is really great with a class full of two to three year olds.  Mostly Ellie liked watching herself in the mirror. Little narcissist.

She had a little meltdown at the end when another little girl tried to get into my bag. She freaked out. It was kind of funny really.

Now she likes to practice plies and chairs at home. It's adorable.

Kurihama Flower World

Last week we took the train down to Kurihama Flower World.  I think we hit it  between peak blooming times, but it was still beautiful.  And there is an awesome park with a giant Godzilla.  So it was worth every ichi-yen.

Actually, the park is free, so that's even better.

These first few fields were full of poppies.  I really wanted to make Ellie lay down in the them and say, "Poppies, poppies will make them sleep.  Sleeeeep."

There was a huge line of the koi wind sock-things that they put out for Children's Day.

Ellie making some Japanese friends, who taught her how to blow dandelions.

On the roller slide. She loved it!

GODZILLA!!!

Kurihama Harbor

We enjoyed two servings of Lavender ice cream (one at the start of our excursion, and one at the end).  It was quite tasty! We also rode the little "train" they had, which was probably the highlight for Ellie, who loves trains more than her Uncle Philip did as a little boy (he would always say he wanted to be a train engine-antor).

10 Months

WHAT!?! 10 months, that can't be right...

Clara is a doll. She's a super speedy crawler, and pulls herself up stand on anything she can.  She recently started experimenting with free standing, but has had mixed results.

She has two teeth on bottom and two on top with two more trying to poke through.

She loves food of all kinds, except beets, but who can blame her since they were from a can and I have no idea how to make beets. Her favorite food seems to be anything off the floor...

She still thinks that Eleanor is the funniest person in the world, with Dad running a close second.

She loves her pacifier, and things that make noise, particularly pulling pans off of shelves.

I love her sweet cheeks.