Yeh Family Outings....and Ellie's New Favorite Activity

So last weekend we decided we wanted to get out of the house for a few hours. I (Katie) searched online for things to do in the "east bay" and came across a small little wildlife museum in Walnut Creek called the Lindsey Wildlife Museum. It is an animal hospital, rescue, and hospital for wild animals. You can read about its history here. 

It is a small little place, which honestly was perfect for us and a 16 month old. It was busy and there were lots of other kids there. On "display" were many different wild birds, including a bald eagle!

(And please excuse the poor quality pictures....for one I did not want to "flash" the poor animals, and also I did not bring my nicer flash)

As you can see from the above picture, Justin and Ellie's heads in the lower left corner, we were really only about 5 feet from the birds. It was pretty awesome! For each bird, there was a sign that explained its history. Most of the birds had been found injured, many with injured wings. These birds would never have survived in the wild, so they now live at this facility. A couple of birds were found approaching and "talking" to people, indicating that most likely someone had attempted to raise these birds in their home. One of these was a quail (the FATTEST quail I have ever seen, I might add) who talks to humans as if they are quail and acts like humans are "family". It was kinda cool...he walked right up to the glass where I was!

Anyway, there were many eagles and owls also..and even a bobcat! He was cool, but of course, being a cat, was sleeping the whole time we were there. 

And one of the eagles, a golden eagle, was even tame enough to come out for a visit. 

There was a "discovery" room for children where they could do all kinds of neat activities. Ellie liked that room!

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The first walk through Ellie appeared a little afraid of the animals. She clung to Justin and just watched....but after one run through she wanted to go back and look up closer at the hawks and owls again

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It was a fun little outing :)

And then of course, I wanted to share Ellie's new Favorite Thing. 

TEA PARTY!!!

With her friends....

Picking up as many things as she possibly can...

And of course....having some tea!

That is all for now....it's time to watch LOST on our DVR!!! :)

The Easter Bunny Visited!!!

Last weekend we had a couple visitors. First, Grams and Grandpa (Katie's parents) came to visit..and then on Sunday....the Easter Bunny came to our home for the first time!

But we did have some preparation to do before the big guy arrived to eat carrots and hide eggs....we had to get our eggs dyed! This was Esella's first year dying eggs. She had a blast! Daddy, Mommy, and Grams helped, of course.

The many colored cups...

 

Daddy mixing the water with the dye

Daddy helping Ellie draw on the eggs with the "magic crayon" (which, by the way, she loved)

After magic crayon its dye time! Ellie puts it in herself.....

Looking at the eggs in the dye....

Check out the stickered nose....thanks to Daddy! (She had this on her nose for a LONG time!)

That night, we went out to dinner with BOTH sets of grandparents! We are sooooo lucky and blessed to live close to both sets of our parents (one set 40 min away one set 2 1/2 hours away). The meal choice this evening? CHINESE! And Ellie, as I mentioned before, LOVES Chinese food. She ate quite a bit! She also got some an Easter present from her GranB and YeYe (Justin's parents). Some awesome sand toys for the park!

When we got back from dinner, it was time to prepare Esella's basket for the man himself. We knew he may be hungry so we bought him some carrots.

So we filled up the basket with eggs and carrots and put it out for Mr. Bunny to find.

In the morning. Esella found this....

(Inside: A surprise newborn cabbage patch kid- you don't know the gender until you take him/her out of the cabbage and see the color of underwear! Also...two board books, and a diaper bag for her new baby which had two bottles, a spoon and a "jar" of baby food, a diaper, keys and of course, a cell phone, right??)

And its a bouncing baby......

GIRL!!!! He he he....

Talking on her new phone....

After opening the goodies (she also got some sidewalk chalk) it was time to find those eggs! After pointing out a couple to her and telling her to put them in the basket, she caught on and didn't need as much help. 

And the basket full of her eggs. The Easter Bunny also brought Ell some cool plastic eggs shaped like different animals and bugs (which is so funny since mommy had seen some like that at Target and thought they were uber cool.....hhhmmmmm). We decided to keep them and put them out next year. Maybe the Easter bunny will fill them with candy and money next year!

Ainsley checking out the goods.....

But the fun wasn't over yet....Grams and Grandpa brought Esella a "cheezy" Easter basket....Grams couldn't pass it up because it had a....

PINK SOCCER BALL!!!! (If you don't know...Justin played soccer for MANY years and can't wait to coach Esella's future team! Ha ha ha)

And...she LOVES her ball!

She also loves her new baby and all the contents of her diaper bag. Especially the baby food jar and spoon....as you can tell... (actually, in these two pictures she is feeding baby from one of her plastic Easter eggs shapes like a lady bug....he he he)

After the egg hunt was done, Ellie continued to play with her goodies and Mommy and Daddy made a nice big breakfast of home made waffles, with eggs, bacon and sausage. Grams and Grandpa had a good time I think, and Esella ate up all the extra attention she was getting!

We had a great Easter full of food, family, and Goodies. We hope you all had a great day too!

A day in the life....

So sorry it has been a while...Last week was just a crazy busy week! This week is my Spring break from work...so I have a *little* extra time. I do have some work stuff to do and of course some school work too...

Anyway I took some pictures of us from last Saturday...a week and a half ago...to show a kind of "day in the life" of this little Yeh Family. I meant to get them last week but today will have to do! :)

Last Saturday was a busy day. Our cleaner came (she usually comes on Fridays) so we got ourselves out of the house for the morning. But first.....

Ellie found Elodia's cool pink broom on the floor and decided to do some cleaning!!

 Then, we started out with some breakfast at Tully's Coffee in Pleasanton....

And of course we caught up on the daily events...

Then it was time to walk around the Farmer's Market!

Ellie had a great time people watching and trotting through the isle! After walking around the market we decided to kill time by walking through downtown and we ran into Auntie Melissa and Cousin CJ having breakfast with their friends!

After a nice walk we headed over to the mall to buy Ellie her first big girl shoes! Ellie LOVES to play with the big kids in our neighborhood and we discovered that she really needed some "play shoes". So we headed to Nordies and Ellie got her foot measured for the first time (size 5 1/2 by the way!)

And then she tried on about 8 pairs of shoes!

And this is not exactly her idea of a great morning activity...but those people at Nordstrom know how to make little ones happy...

They gave her a balloon! Which pair did we pick?? You shall see later...

We went for a walk through the mall and guess who was there? Well the Easter Bunny of course! So mommy stood in the line while daddy and Ellie went off and played with some baby goats.

Seriously. There were baby goats. In the mall.

When it was our turn..I knew Ellie would not have anything to do with the giant scary bunny so I sat with her.

Needless to say...she wasn't THRILLED with the Easter Bunny! ;)

After the Easter Bunny it was about time to have lunch. We were meeting Justin's parents, their friends Donna and John, and their son Mark who is currently working on his PhD in Austin, TX and was home for a visit. Justin and Mark have known each other basically their whole lives...so it was great to see him! We wish his wife Kelly could have made it too..hope we see her soon!

So we met for Dim Sum and let me tell you...this little white blond girl DOES have some Chinese in there! She LOVES Chinese food!

After Lunch we headed home and Ell took her daily nap. The holw family relaxed on the couch while she napped. I LOVE this snuggle time!

After nap we went for a nice long 2 mile walk...which includes this hill...

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It may not look like much...but it is a pretty steep hill. I go up and down it 4 times in the beginning of my 2 mile walk.

After our walk it was play time! Esella LOVES being outside...especially when the big kids are outside. And sure enough..this day the big kids were having a water fight! So she headed out to play. But first...the winning shoes.....

Pushing her car...a new favorite activity

Um-Oh. Some maintenance is required....

After this we headed in and had dinner...then we all cuddled up together on the couch until miss Ellie went night night. This was a busy day...but is not uncommon in the little Yeh family. These days I will treasure!!! 

Hope you all enjoyed this little post. It took me much longer to post as Dear Esella was having a fit because I said we were all done watching Sesame Street. Ha ha ha. 

Until Later...