Ellie Behaves Poorly in Nursery

Jon woke up and went running in the cold and snow and woke me up at breakfast time. While he was on the men's retreat I made some waffle batter since we were out of Bisquick. I still have some left in the fridge (it keeps for a week) so we had waffles for breakfast. I would not recommend the batter recipe, though, because I don't really care for the taste of it.
After Jon went to work I did some of my Precepts homework before Ellie woke up. I had a bad week keeping up with it and I still wasn't finished everything by the time we had to head to church. But it didn't really matter because the childcare worker came and got me at 11:00 because Ellie was sad. Since she had woken up at 8:30 she was tired. In the past she has been distracted enough to stay awake and content by the other kids but recently she has been very tired after her two hour window is up. I went and nursed her but she didn't fall asleep so I packed her up. She seemed content in her car seat so I left her by the door where I was sitting (outside of the room) but she only lasted a few minutes. So I packed up my study materials and left. I was bummed because there was a lot of good conversation happening! We were looking at Ezekiel 37.
We headed home and I tried to keep Ellie awake because I never transfer her successfully. As I was unbuckling her car seat straps she was nodding off to sleep and I just placed her in the crib and she went right to sleep. Perfect timing.
After lunch I called up Donna and set up a time to visit Grandma Mountz. My piano student came from 3:00-3:30 and we headed out to run some errands before stopping by Donna's at 4:00. Ellie was due for a nap and I was hoping she would fall asleep while I was driving (we went to the post office and bank so she never had to leave the car) and I even did an extra lap through Summerfield. I was unsuccessful so I decided to just brave it at the Mountzes' and hope she was happy.

Heading out for errands

Grandma Mountz was thrilled to see Ellie. Donna broke out the Johnny Jump-up for Ellie and she pivoted around on her toes for a bit. She lasted about 45 minutes before becoming cranky so we went home to prepare dinner. I had warned Jon that dinner would be wimpy since I haven't gone to the grocery store yet. Donna saved the day, however, by giving me a bag of spinach. She had purchased a large bag on sale and knew she wouldn't use it all up while it was fresh. So I googled a recipe with the ingredients I had on hand. I had about a pound of sweet italian sausage to use up, too, so that narrowed down the options. I went with this sausage and pasta recipe with a few alterations: I used red wine instead of chicken broth, two cans of diced tomatoes, some red pepper flakes for an extra kick, put the parmesan cheese on at the table, and I didn't measure anything.
Following dinner I cleaned up the dishes while Jon hung out with Ellie. She was busting some moves in the exersaucer for him and he hovered her across the carpet to help her get the feel for crawling. I put her down for bed before heading off to the women's Bible study with Tara at Brittany's house. Jon hosted the men's prayer group and Ellie slept through the prayer time. She woke up while the guys were chowing down on brownies and Ryan Frey held her for a bit. Apparently she started crying soon after the men left and was very sad and pathetic looking when I finally arrived home twenty-five minutes later. She's now sleeping soundly while I sit by the fire and Jon starts working on our taxes.

Ellieisms:
Ellie has more of a schedule established. When she wakes up she is tired within two hours. She also has taken better naps lately.

below: hanging out with Daddy