the life & times of smiddleton middlewartz: weekend photos

So what's been going on with us? Well, Ellie's been on the whiny side of late because of a cold - her first! - but overall she's been in good spirits. For some reason though (probably because of the cold) as of last week she decided to replace her usual 8:00am wake up time with a much earlier one around 6:00, which has Mommy running on empty. I keep telling myself that it's a short-term phase and that even if it wasn't, a good deal of toddlers wake up before dawn (ugh!), but I guess I've been spoiled! Anyway, here are some random pictures and a video of my baby girl from last weekend, when we were in NJ for a super short visit home. Enjoy!

Holding on tight to our neighbor's fake turtle and toy syringe.
She didn't want anything to do with the Cabbage Patch Kid! (10/16)

Playing monkey in the middle with Elise and Adelai.
Ignore my annoying voice in this video, please!

Stuck in the car - again! (10/17)

Today was totally gorgeous, so I decided to take Elliott to the zoo. This was our first trip there just the two of us, and it went really well. She could have spent all day just sitting on the ground playing with leaves - who needs the animals? She also really enjoyed the play area (a huge foam pizza), where she was surrounded by rambunctious preschool boys. The highlight for me was watching the baby gorilla, who was only about 10 feet away from us. It was Elliott's size, and just eating and hanging out with its mom. I would have paid to see him and Ellie playing together! The whole zoo was decorated for "Boo at the Zoo" this weekend, which added a nice Fall touch to our little outing. I didn't get any photos of Elliott with the actual animals, as I was chasing her around the whole time and in need of a few extra hands, but I did get some cell phone shots of us just hanging around:

She was actually saying "cheese" in these two photos. So cute!

It was impossible to walk anywhere
because she had to stop and pick up every leaf she saw!

Woops, I almost forgot to add these - she was completely passed out by the time we got back to the apartment. Mommy was tired too after walking all the way to the zoo, through the zoo, and back from the zoo!