Back to the zoo

Apparently a 60-degree sort of drizzly day is the perfect day to hit the zoo. That, or the animals just REALLY like us. Here are three elephants:
The leopards were cooperative again.
Who even knew there were two? This is the second.
The sea lions were swimming loops right in front of the glass--a bit intimidating for Em.
A penguin posed in the window for us
As did a monkey--much to Emily's delight.
The gorillas (?) were up and about.
The ocelot even came near.
And a black bear.
We found more goats to pet. She liked this one because it was "chewing gum".
This polar bear was playing with a giant plastic barrel.
Then there were two others--one pacing on land, the other swimming laps.
The lap-swimmer would go over to the right, lay on his back & push off, then swim on his tummy across and start over.
Ellen really enjoyed all of this, of course.

Owls that were "a little scary" to Em.

Yet another close-up encounter: mountain lion

Jealosy pops up in the weirdest places

Guess who started with a bath in the sink...

Laughing

You have to understand that you usually get "seconds" when we show videos--we enjoy what's going on, and then grab the camera. So Ellen was laughing a lot more prior to this video, but you get the idea.

The Steeles are multiplying

Okay, so it's the Steele guppies. I have about five friends that recently revealed pregnancies, so I thought I'd join in on the fun. Anyway, we have around eight baby guppies. You can sort of see one in the upper right quadrant of this picture--they're hard to capture in a picture.

Four-month checkup

Ellen now weighs in at 15 pounds (!) and is 24 3/4 inches long. That's not much bigger than Emily,
although looking through her baby book I noticed some discrepancies with measurements...the AF had her at 26 inches when she was 4 months old, then our other doctor (whom I tend to trust more), and her at 25 inches when she was 6 months old. So I guess we'll just have to compare weight.

For my Southern friends

I'm sorry...you probably all hate me now. But check out those lows!!! It also explains the presence of sweatshirts in some of my pictures--it doesn't get really warm until later in the day.

New number

I changed my cell phone/home phone number. If I missed you in an email, send me one through my profile and I'll get it to you!

Cutie

As much as she pretends to be a Mommy's girl, Ellen loves her Daddy's snuggles.

Ponytail

After her bath, I put Em's hair immediately into a ponytail (to help it grow in a direction other than directly into her face) and she looked kind of weird and grown up/old with all of her hair up (no wispies). Granted, it was right before bed, so when she grabbed her pac, and big duck, she looked two again.

Fish face

Jon can't do a fish face (I blame the dimples), so this is all my genes...

(I do not claim the spaghetti mess, however)

OMSI

My parents gave Emily an annual pass for OMSI for her birthday, and today we made our first trip. She played in the water a little:
She LOVED the balls (in the infant section, of course):

One of her favorite parts today was the dinosaurs


She actually touched the snake, but the camera took just a little too long and I missed it.
Much of the day was spent looking like this blur:

Thanks!

Giving me the "smile" face, but not toward the camera...
Emily was VERY excited to get these new books from Uncle Jim, Aunt Christie, Jeremy, Lindsey & Danny today. However, she wouldn't let us read them to her...she had to go read them herself. Thank you for the awesome books!

S'mores

(Ellen is my new centerpiece)

Kim came over a few days ago and we made s'mores on my s'mores maker (which is used far too little, if you ask me).

Why there's been a "pause" in blogging...

"No 'smile,' Mama."

Chubby

Ellen is definitely a chubby kid, and weighs more than Emily did at the same age, but my family seems to think that Emily was always skinny. I need to post these pictures of Em when she was roughly the same age--see, chunky.

Pampers points

If any of you moms out there use Pampers diapers and don't keep track of your points, feel free to email me your codes (they're on a little sticker inside the plastic wrappers).

Recent favs

"The Dark Knight" was AWESOME. Thanks to some babysitting money (and cheap movie tickets at Costco), we went on Friday night. It is rather dark (and I think it should be rated R), but it was outstanding. And Heath Ledger did a fantastic job--no wonder he struggled with insomnia, etc.
If you haven't seen this show, you need to Netflix seasons 1 & 2. That's what Jon & I did, and we have to limit ourselves to three episodes per night. Season 3 just started Friday night, but we no longer get the USA network, so we'll have to search online. It is HILARIOUS.