My Little Pony

Along with her love of animals, Ella has inherited from her Aunt Sara a love of My Little Pony dolls (as my dad said when I told him of Ella playing with the ponies, "We used to have those ponies everywhere!). Ella had a few that she played with this summer with her cousin, Baikal. For Chanukkah, Grandma and Pa gave her a few more. As Ella said excitedly, "Grandma gave me hundreds and hundreds of ponies!!!"

This morning it was too cold (14 degrees) to play outside so Ella and I stayed in and played with the ponies. She got so involved she played, uninterrupted for one hour and 15 minutes- pretty impressive for a two-year-old.








The magnificent (and painfully gaudy) pink and purple sparkle pony castle is something I got for free at the local dump's give and take center. It looks as though it has never been used (suggesting, another Redding parent was less willing to have an enormous pink and purple sparkle castle in their family room). I just figured, given the economy and real estate market these days, a free castle is something you just can't pass up.

The castle starts out folded up like a small (gaudy) cottage but with the press of a button it expands into a three level, two turret castle guaranteed to attract the attention of all little girls.














Here's a video of Ella playing with the ponies. She got shy when I turned on the camera and stopped her running commentary but this video definitely gives a feel for the way she plays with her toys.

She particularly likes feeding the ponies and putting them to bed, only to wake them up to feed them so that they can be put back to bed.

Another game she likes is to have the baby pony be in mortal peril, so that the mommy and daddy ponies can rescue the baby.