A-tisket. A-tasket as sung by Ella Fitzgerald

A-tisket. a-tasket

A-tisket, a-tasket,

A green and yellow basket

I bought a basket for my mom

And on the way I dropped it

I dropped it, I dropped it

Yes, On the way I dropped it

A little girlie picked it up

And took it to the market

She was truckin' on down the avenue,

Without a single thing to do

She was peck-peck-peckin all around

When she spied it on the ground

A tisket. A-tasket

She took my yellow basket

And if she doesn't bring it back

I think that I shall die

(Was it red?) no,no,no,no,

(Was it brown?) no,no,no,no,

(Was it blue?) no,no,no,no,

Just a little yellow basket

--Anonymous nursery rhyme (as sung by Ella Fitzgerald)

Here's another long post full of facebook updates with some photos and videos thrown in.  Feel free to skim.

• Feb 22 Elizabeth has figured out that singing a song means having sustained notes, and not just reciting the lyrics. She has not figured out how to carry anything like a tune yet though. That means that Mama gets to listen to Aaaa-Beeee-Ceee-Deee-Eeee-Fff-Geeee! and Puuuut Heeeerrrr iiinn aaaaa pumkiiiin sheeeelllll annnnd ...theeeeereee heee keeept herrrr veee-ryyyy weeeelllll in a very loud monotone for hours on end today.
  
  
• Feb 22 By dinner time Elizabeth's stream of consciousness had degraded to "Diddle diddle diddile blablablablablablabla Blah!!!! lalalalalalalal bl-ey-bl-ey-bl-ey!" Will I never hear silence again?
• Feb 24 Lizbeth quote of the day: "I want a credit card too!"
• Feb 25 Lizbeth was playing with my jewelry while I got dressed and brushed my hair after a shower. When I finished and put the brush away, Lizbeth looked at me in the big mirror and said, "Mama -- how pretty she is!" Some days I don't mind when she talks.
• Feb 26 Elizabeth keeps saying, "Patient song! Patient song 'gin Mama! I want the patient song!" Can you say ironic? (click the link to hear the song she means) looking at the words now, I realize I've been singing it wrong -- I sing the last line as "Love and help each other be patient kind and true." So that''s where the "patient" comes from.
• Feb 28 Lizbeth's latest non-sequiter: "Hooray! I'm happy. Hooray for Lizbeth."
  ok, so she then went on to quote one of her favorite passages from the book All My Little Ducklings -- "Pitter patter scatter" -- four or five times, then suddenly shouted, "Oh! Oh my!...said Lizbeth" and when that got laughs, she said it a few more times, complete with dialogue tags.
  
• Mar 4 Elizabeth has been deciding more and more often recently that she just doesn't want to wear clothes. She'd rather go around naked and snuggle with super-soft micro fiber blankets. How do you explain modesty to a two year old?
• Mar 4 Showed Elizabeth some of Mary Poppins tonight for the first time. Bored by Mr. Banks' song, entranced by the chalk drawing sequence, and rubbing her eyes and yawning during Stay Awake. I think we've got a winner.
• Mar 6 I think Elizabeth ate three bites of her dinner tonight, and no amount of cajoling would convince her to eat any more. The rest got spat out, played with and thrown on the floor. Needless to say we're a bit grumpy this evening.
• Mar 9 When Lizbeth stripped naked and started rolling in blankets today, Grandma offered to make pants and shirt from a blanket so she could stay dressed and still feel the super soft stuff on her skin. Lizbeth danced with glee at the idea. And though she pulled the pants and shirt up and down to get the feeling of it over... and over, she did stay dressed for the rest of the day! :)
  In this video, taken Apr 3rd, she is wearing the blanket pajamas and playing with her blue blanket. This is a game Elizabeth made up today. She put the blanket on her head and said she looked like a baby (since that's how I swaddle dolls). Then she said, "and I have two wings like a bee!" and was so impressed by the idea that she played baby bumblebee for about an hour, buzzing, dancing, and repositioning her blanket wings and hood.
  
  Another cute photo of the baby bumblebee in blanket pajamas
  
  
• Mar 14 Lizbeth woke up crying hysterically. When I went in to comfort her it took a couple of minutes just to stop and breathe. I asked her what she was dreaming about and for the first time, she was able to give me an answer: "It was a frog." what was the frog doing? "It was hopping out of an egg." she tells me it wasn't scary, but it wasn't happy and it wasn't fun either.
• Mar 17 had a long busy exhausting day. Kept Elizabeth happy and energized with gummi bears. The zoo was great, and Elizabeth is finally going down slides again. Wore my leprochaun socks, but ate Indian for dinner (sorry St. Pat!).
  Our trip to the zoo was a lot of fun. It was the first really warm springy day we'd had that we actually got to go outside for a long time. Elizabeth had a lot of energy and spent a lot of time running around on the playground, doing things she had been timid about all winter.
  This is about her third time up this rope ladder. The first time she needed a lot of help, but she quickly gained confidence and skill.
  
  
  At the bottom of the rope ladder
  
  
  At the top of the rope ladder
  
  
  At the top of the twirly slide. Notice what the static does to her hair.
  
  
  Trying to get a cute Easter greetings photo. This is the best one we got. I have about 20 of the top of her head or with her climbing in or out or looking away from me.
  
  
  Enjoying the snake slide. You have to go up a couple of flights of stairs to get to the top of this slide, and Lizbeth enjoyed it so much she went five or more times in a row.
  
  
  In the turtle shell
  
• Mar 18 Grandpa Roly was watching the BYU game while Elizabeth ate lunch. She paid particular attention to how he sat on the edge of his chair and yelled at the screen. When he went to change the laundry, she climbed up in his chair and started shouting, "Yes! No! Yes! No! Okay! Whoops! Nuts!"
• Mar 18 I clipped Elizabeth's fingernails this morning. As we were heading downstairs for naptime after lunch, she looked at her stuffed kitty and said, "Clip kitty's ears. Clip kitty's nose nails." I said, we have fingernails and toenails, but no nose nails!" She looked at me smiling at her, tapped my teeth with her finger... and said, "Mama has mouth nails!"
• Mar 24 We were talking with Lizbeth about the new baby sister that's coming this summer, and I asked her, "do you know where Baby Sister is right now?" Lizbeth thought for a moment and answered, "At the DI?"
• Mar 26 RemoveKaren Stay Ahlstrom Said, "Do you want to pick out a shirt?" Lizbeth said, Kitty wants to pick out a shirt. She has hands for picking out." Then using the kitty's paws as pincers, she grabbed a shirt out of her drawer. "Oooohhh! Kitty picked out a lovely shirt!" she said as I put it on her. After breakfast, when she picked up the kitty ...again, she said, "Oh Kitty, Look at this beautiful shirt."
• Mar 26 Driving home from a long day of shopping, Elizabeth kicked off her boots and socks and was making wired singing noises in the back seat. When she giggled at something she had said, I thought I ought to pay attention. This is what I heard: "This little kitty had roast beef, this little kitty had none. This little kitt...y went wee wee wee all the way home. I said the piggies were kitties. That's funny! Ha ha ha!"
• Mar 27 I asked Peter, who is working on a tight deadline, "Are you playing catchup or getting ahead on work right now?" Peter answered, "I'm not getting ahead." Lizbeth said, "Daddy is getting ahead. Daddy has Daddy's head." as if this should be obvious to anyone with eyes.
• Mar 28 Today in nursery they gave Elizabeth cutouts of Jesus, the tomb, and a stone to block the door. Much of Sacrament meeting was spent rolling away the stone and letting Jesus come out. Good Job Church Curriculum Department! :)
• Mar 28 Just before we went upstairs for lunch today, somebody started a music box that played, "I'd like to teach the world to sing." It reminded Elizabeth of the Happy Birthday song which she insisted we sing to her. When we got upstairs and put her in her chair, she said, in an injured tone of voice, "We have no cake!"
• Mar 30 Peter posted this video of Lizbeth on Brandon's facebook pages and got tons of funny comments from his fans
  
  My two-year-old finds some of the manuscript of THE WAY OF KINGS by Brandon Sanderson (turn up volume).
• Mar 31 Tonight, Elizabeth fell into the too-hungry-to-be-rational-enough-to-put-on-a-bib-sit-in-her-chair-and-eat-something trap. I managed to get a little beef and barley stew and applesauce into her after much weaping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then I tried to see what else she might be interested in. I began with some old standby favorites.
  "Do you want some frozen peas?" I asked.
  "No" she answered.
  "Do you want some turkey?" I asked.
  "Nooo" She answered.
  "Do you want some ham?" she asked.
  "Do you want some ham?" I asked, playing along, hoping that she really did.
  "Noooooo" she answered.
  "Do you want some roast beef?" she asked.
  "Noo-oo-ooo" she answered herself.
  "Do you want some barley and potatoes? Noooooo"
  "Do you want some Applesauce? Nooooo"
  "Do you want some milk? Nooo"
  
  By this time, all I could do was sit and giggle at her. Peter got out his phone to take video, but toddlers are quantum creatures, and recording them changes their behavior, and she started hamming it up for the camera:
  
  "Do you want some ham? Nooo"
  "Do you want some ham Daddy? No"
  "Do you want some ham Daddy? No"
  "Do you want some ham Daddy? No"
  "Do you want some ham Daddy? No"
  
  And that was all we could get out of her until she asked if Daddy wanted some frozen peas, which he did, so then she decided she did too, and eating resumed.
  
• Apr 1 Tonight Lizbeth demanded a new song entitled "Jesus has a Blue Blanket" After she rejected the slightly modified "Jesus Jesus Rest your head, you have got a blue blanket" I sang the following: Jesus has a Blue Blanket, Blue Blanket, Blue blanket. Jesus has a Blue Blanket, and He shares it with Lizbeth. When I finished, Lizbeth sighed contentedly and said, "Yes. He shares it with Lizbeth." I justified it doctrinally by saying that everything we have comes from Heavenly Father and Jesus, and we're thankful that they made such a wonderful world with good things like Mamas, Daddies and Blue Blankets in it.

These were taken on Palm Sunday. Mom is out of town helping Heather with her new baby, and was disappointed not to see the Amaryllis bloom. So these shots are for her.

Here's our Easter Secular Saturday celebration photos:
Dying eggs
 

Drawing on eggs
 

Smile for the camera!


Here is a long video of Elizabeth's Easter Egg hunt. We all had a lot of fun dying eggs, then hiding and searching for them with Elizabeth. It was especially cute when whoever was searching wasn't fast enough to find the eggs she had hidden, so she picked them up and put them in their basket herself.

If you're wondering how my life is going, I'm feeling more and more pregnant (30 weeks now) and getting more and more annoyed at people who tell me I'm so tiny.  It's hard to sleep, and hard to walk, and hard to sit, and I'm pretty sure my hip got dislocated for about a day.  I am in pretty good spirits most of the time, though with Mom gone and Peter working long hours, I'm feeling rather isolated and anxious and getting frustrated with Elizabeth more easily.  I'm really enjoying our ward's quilting group, and we've been having more friends come over to play with Lizbeth lately, so that helps some too.  I've been looking at apartments and rental units so we can move closer to Peter's work, and out of Mom and Dad's basement, but I only found one that really looked like someplace that I'd want to move to on purpose, and it got rented to somebody else, so that's on hold again for a while.

Well, that's all for now.  See you in about a month, unless I get around to writing about Elizabeth's favorite games (as I've been meaning to do for about a week now).