Hats, Boots, Coat, Lena

I don't take Ella outside to play very often. Mostly because it is really cold outside, there aren't very convenient places for me to sit my unwieldy, too-quick-to-tire-six month pregnant body down for its requisite break every seven minutes, and because it takes almost ten minutes to clothe Ella in all the layers she needs to stave off pnemonia (or worse, clucking tongues from Babushkas). Luckily, Ella doesn't suffer too much because her nanny, Elena, is far more willing to accomodate her wishes in this regard. So, three days a week Ella gets a lengthy outing outside to do her favorite things, sliding down slides and building tiny snowmen. A few days ago though, I started to rethink this arrangement when Ella and I were having a conversation about what she has to wear to go outside. Ella listed all her clothes, "coat, scarf, gloves, hat, sweater, snowpants, boots..." then she listed the other essential, "Lena". So I started to wonder if I was missing out in not taking her to the park once in awhile. So on Saturday I bundled both of us up and we visited the playground near our house. I made sure to take lots of pictures just in case it doesn't happen again. And because Ella was so happy and cute while we were there. She kept saying, "Ella happy, Ella happy" over and over again. Hard to argue with that.


Here's Ella preparing to make a very small snowman.
The snowman ended up being just a tad bigger than her attention span, but she showed it some affection anyway.

Now for the real fun-- the slide.

Ella is such a "big girl" now she doesn't need any help getting up the steps.

Or walking over the inclined arch to the slide, just remember to hold onto the high rail with both hands.