Early morning tea parties

This past week Sierra has refused to go to bed without her whole entourage of friends (which is led, of course, by Elephant, but now includes Miss Mouse and Lambie as well). Now when I go to get her up in the morning she is sitting there in a circle with all the animals and having animated conversations with them.

The other day we were trying to leave to go somewhere and she was determined to take all three of the animals with her (it's really quite a sight to see her carrying them all at once because she has one under each arm and the other one squeezed in between, pretty much obscuring her whole face). I explained that she could take one, but not all three. She would pick one and we would start down the stairs, but then she would realize that she was leaving the other two and have to go back to assess the situation. After several tries, we managed to get out the door with just Elephant!