Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill

We wanted to continue to enjoy our weekend of wonderful weather by spending as much time outside as possible, so late Sunday afternoon we drove to Harrodsburg to visit the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill.

I visited once a long time ago with my parents but Pete had never been.  The above picture is the only building we visited, me mostly wanted Ellie to see all the different farm animals.  She was terrified of the turkey, and almost started crying when he gave a great "gobblegobblegobble."  She wasn't particularly fond of the chickens, either.  She liked the goats, and she REALLY liked the two white horses that galloped past us.  We had to go to the other side of the village to find the sheep, but once we did, it was well worth it (and I finally dug the camera out of my stroller bag).

 

We also played with bubbles and watched the geese.

 

 

We were greeted by five little ducks on our way out.

So we decided Ellie should meet them.  Ellie was excited - well, excited and scared.

We stopped by one of our favorite restaurants for dinner on the way home and then whisked the baby girl home for bath and bed.  Happy Baby = Happy Family.

Ellie's First Haircut.

Thanks to you, faithful readers, Ellie has had her first haircut.  (Faithful readers = comments from Jen and Joanne, but still, it was enough!)

I thought we would take her to a place that only does children's cuts, you know, one of those salons with chairs that look like cars, or trains, or horses, but Pete didn't think we really needed all that.  Plus, there isn't one in Lexington that's super close to our house.  It's all of maybe a 10-15min drive from our house, but Pete wasn't feeling it.

It's just as well.  We needed to stop by Kroger to get ingredients for a pot luck later this evening and there's an old-time barber shop right across the street.  I told Pete we could stop by after the grocery store and ask if they did children's cuts and he had me grab my camera as we headed out the door.

There were two men getting their hair cut, and two men waiting in line when we opened the door.  Right away Pete pointed out the special booster seat they had in the corner and asked if they could do a First Haircut and they said yes.  Score!

Ellie was enamored with the trimmers and the scissors and the general barbershop goings on and sat pretty patiently while we waited.  The nice gentleman ahead of us in line let us take his place when the next chair was free so we didn't have to wait very long at all.

Tony, the guy who cut Ellie's hair, put the child booster on his chair and got out the kiddy cover-up for our Wellinor.  She was only a little scared at the very beginning, but then was fine to sit while Tony trimmed a whopping 1/2-inch off the back, which probably took less than five minutes.

Here is the finished product!  No more mullet :)

We had a great day afterward as well.  Stella's first birthday party was in the afternoon, and then we went to Talon Winery with pretty much the same crowd in the evening for a wine tasting.   I live the good life.  Seriously.  Lucky little family here.

The Natural Bridge

On Friday, we headed to the Red River Gorge for lunch at Miguel's before hiking up to the Natural Bridge with Ellie.  We were expecting rain all weekend, so we thought we should take advantage of the sun while we could.

It has been at least eight years since our last trip to Miguel's - and our memories did not fail us.  The pizza was delish!

Once we got to the state park, Ellie was Little Miss Independent and wanted to walk on her own.  She only let us carry her on the especially steep parts or jagged steps.

We finally made it to the bridge, a 500 foot elevation increase from where we started.  Now we had to climb up the steps, and through the narrow passageway to get to the top (65 ft above the base).

Ellie wasn't super-happy that we wouldn't let her run free at the top, but it's only 20 feet wide, so we needed to be cautious.

However, she loved the Ellie-sized passageway on the hike back down.

She was getting tired though, so I carried her a good portion of the way down.  I only held her superman-style for this one staircase, don't worry.
 

She walked again for some flat portions, and loved looking at the water under this bridge.

Then we crossed the wobbly bridge one last time and it was only a quarter mile back to the parking lot.

A great first family trip to the Gorge!

16 months.

Here is sample of what it is like trying to corral a 16-month-old to have her picture taken.  The YHLers are lucky they have each other to help, because it's pretty impossible with only one adult.

First I had to get her to stay in the same room with me, which is no easy task now that she has mastered going down the stairs on her own.

 

Then there's the whole stand-in-this-spot-next-to-your-giraffe-while-looking-at-the-camera-thing.  You can see how well that went.

Eventually Pete was able to come help and we managed to get these two, neither of which are great, but you get the idea:

I think Ellie has grown enough hair in back that she needs a haircut.  Pete disagrees.  So if you think Ellie looks like she has a mullet, you'll have to mention it to her daddy.  I tried pigtails the other day, and they looked really cute.  And lasted for no more than 5 seconds.

In her sixteenth month, Ellie started voicing her opinion and displaying her independence.  She has had a timeout now (once for 2 minutes for throwing toys) and several days where both Pete and I have been at our wits' end trying to keep her happy while not giving in to her every whim.  Example: We try to keep our wagon rides to once a day, usually after dinner, but if she happens to see her wagon in the backyard, the next twenty minutes sound something like this: "Wide?  wide?  wide?  wide? wae wide?  wide?  wide?"

And if she's hungry, she'll walk over to her chair at the table and start going, "Chair?  cheese?  chair?  chair?  cheese?"  Sometimes she substitutes "apple" (/ae_ʌ/ for my speechies) for "cheese", but it's usually one of the two.  The other night while I we were making dinner, she hung desperately from the bar on the freezer and shouted, "Beeee!"  So we gave her some pre-dinner yogurt.  (Ellie eats Yo Baby yogurt, so if you mention yogurt, she will reference the baby on the packaging.)

She is still loving the shopping car we found at a garage sale, and the sandbox.

 

Here are some iphone pics from last month, and a pretty funny video.

at the UK Arboretum

the prettiest little boy on picture day

Ellie's first piece of artwork

a bedtime story for Pippa

I lied.  I found three videos worth posting.  If you're short on time, just watch the third one, it's the funniest - Ellie finds her shadow.