outside!

Elliott is definitely a fan of the great outdoors.  She can often be found climbing into her stroller, or banging on the door to get out, or shouting with glee the words "walk!" or "outside!"  When she's stuck inside for too long, the dramatic, whiny behavior rears its ugly head and drives her mama up the wall.  She also starts exhibiting some, uh, interesting behavior when cooped up for too long, as the photos below will show:

 Ellie recently put her three favorite animals down for a snooze,

atop the plastic lids of her under-the-bed storage containers.

She also organized her alphabet magnets into a long, meandering line.

Take note of the "mural" she and Dominic once added to our wall.

We often resort to some incredibly dorky behavior when stuck inside, too; not that there's anything wrong with running around the apartment squealing and chasing each other!

Anyway, I try to take Elliott out whenever the weather cooperates and I'm feeling up to it.  The last few days we were three for three on the getting-out front, and Ellie was in her heaven.  Hooray!

On Friday, she and I hung out at the neighborhood playground.  Even though we practically live there, I hardly ever bring my camera to take pictures.  It amazes me how much she has grown and changed in less than a year.  I remember just last Summer when we went there to play, and she was still "knee-walking" all over the wood chips (ouch!) and needed my help to do almost everything.  Now she is climbing up all the equipment, sliding all by herself (on slides much bigger than the one pictured below), sitting on the seesaw without me holding onto her like a paranoid mom, and running around all over the place having a blast!  What happened to my baby girl?

 

On Saturday, we took Elliott to Family Day at Glen Echo Park (that bizarrely cool old amusement park area where we saw If You Give a Cat a Cupcake.)  We had a great time picnicking in the gorgeous weather and riding the old 1927 carousel with wooden, hand-painted animals.  Notice her adorable sun hat - she wanted to be just like Daddy and wear her hat on our adventures.  She was a little concerned that I didn't have one on, too!

   

And today, we ventured over to the beautiful (and free) Brookside Gardens.  Even though it was rainy and cool, we enjoyed exploring the grounds and stopping to smell all...the...flowers (it took a bit of prompting to get Ellie to keep on moving, as she is a huge admirer of "shlowers.")