A Little Update

I just had to jot down some of the stuff Ella has been up to. She is just so stinkin FUN! When Ella was a baby-probably around 3 months old-I remember being a little bummed. She just wasn't that FUN. She was cute and sweet and I loved her a ton, but I just didn't have as much fun with her as I thought I would. Is that horrible to say? Then a friend of mine said that she was much more of a "toddler person" than a "baby person". At the time, I thought "No way, I am totally a baby person. I love babies!" But now that I have a toddler...I SO am a "toddler person". Not that I didn't love the baby stage and often miss holding, rocking and nursing Ella, but I have to say I just enjoy the stage she's in right now so much! Rusty and I were talking the other night about starting to think about baby #2, if God blesses us with another one, and Rusty said "I wish they could just be born at like, 6 months old." :)

Ella is just such a joy to us. She talks up a storm and it is so funny! It's amazing how much her vocabulary has expanded, just in the past few weeks. She knows pretty much all her colors-she is consistent with orange, yellow, pink, purple and black. She's been doing better with green and red, but blue is still iffy. She can say her numbers 1-10 but not always in the right order :) She knows most of her animals but we need to work on the animal sounds, I've been slacking in that area!

Her interest in drawing/coloring has gone down a lot but she loves to play with play-doh. She also loves to just sit and read books or do puzzles. She's also discovered her shopping cart, which she's had for months but hasn't shown much interest in until now. I line some of her play food on my lowest pantry shelf and let her "shop" out of mommy's pantry. That will keep her busy for the longest time! She also has started pretending and its so cute to watch. Most of the time I'm not really sure what she is pretending to do but she gets really into it! She loves to pretend to be asleep, play hide and seek, and build a "house" out of couch cushions. She loves to touch the ceiling when Rusty holds her up high and she loves to climb up me with her feet and then flip over.

One of her newest sayings right now is "Oh gosh!"-I'm not so happy about this one. I try not to say "gosh"-I'm not really offended by it, but I'd just rather her not say it. She heard it on Mickey Mouse of all places, he says it all the time. She's also gotten really into watching the movie "Cars". Cute movie, but they say "idiot and moron"-why? So far she hasn't picked these words up. I don't want to be the super overprotective mom that doesn't let her kids watch anything, but I don't want to wait until she starts saying those words to address the issue. Not really sure what to do!

As far as her vocabulary goes, I feel like she really knows most common household words and can communicate what she wants pretty clearly. It does usually just come out as a bunch of babble with just a few recognizable words but it gets the point across at least! Her sentences are short and missing words but I think she does really well! Her memory is also starting to develop more. She retained a lot of what we did this week and has continued talking about it for days after! She remembered going to Monkey Joes and the Childrens Museum. Today we hung out at my sisters's apartment and Ella remembered exactly the spot where she had found a rock the last time we were there-probably 3 weeks ago now!

This Friday, Rusty and I are celebrating our anniversary by going to Kings Island and IKEA! Yippeee! My sister is watching Ella for us all day-I will definitely be missing her but it will be so nice to get away for a day!

Summer Days

We are having such a great summer. I can't remember the last time I enjoyed summer so much! Normallly I'm not the biggest fan of summer but this summer is different. Ella (like all kids I guess) LOVES being outside. On most days, we're outside more than we're inside. Even 90 degree weather hasn't bothered me like it usually does which is a blessing! Here's a little of what we've been up to the past few weeks.

Ella loves running down the hill in our back yard. Actually, it's really just a small slope. But to her, it's like climbing Everest! The angle of this pic does make it look pretty steep but it really isn't. She likes to climb to the top and then run down, saying "WEEEEE!" Then she says "Fun! Again!"

Ella also loves taking her babies for walks in their stroller. This usually ends badly, with her getting tired of walking and wanting me to carry her (and the stroller and the baby) home.

Last week we went to the zoo-probably for the last time this summer. Ella was surprisingly not into the animals and wanted to just run. Everywhere. She didn't even like the dolphin show, which surprised me. She kept saying "all done!" Stinker.

And...most of our afternoons are spent like this. Outside, playing in the water and taking a break to eat a popsicle.

After Rusty gets home from work, Ella likes to help him water the flowers (please ignore our totally dead hanging plants that died while we were in FL. We are trying hard to bring them back to life but I think it's a hopeless cause).

Guess that's about it! Hope your summer is going as great as ours!