Ellie as of Late

Here are some fun pictures of Ellie from December and January and some fun things about her right now.

First of all, Ellie loves pretending she's on the phone. This started back in October or November, and it has me worried maybe I'm on the phone too much around her.... Pretty much anything can be a phone for this girl.

However, she loves actual phones and pretend phones, so we bought her a phone after Christmas when we were sure nobody else had already bought her one. She was in heaven in Toys R Us while we collected different phones to see what she liked best. The ultimate winner was an Elmo phone because she loved that it sings the Elmo's World song each time you open it.

That brings us to her next newest love: Elmo. This is actually going out of order some, but oh well. When Ellie was sick over break we got her a new toothbrush thinking maybe her old one was too rough on her gums. It has Elmo and Abby on it from Sesame Street. I thought she'd like that, but no big deal. Wrong! As soon as she saw it she yelled out in perfect clarity "Elmo!" This is made more impressive by the fact she'd never said Elmo before. Later in break, while at Hobby Lobby in Preston, we saw some Sesame Street fabric with baby characters, and Ellie was so excited she was saying "Elmo! Elmo!" We decided she liked him more than we thought, so we bought her some cheap Best of Elmo videos for her new dvd player in the car on our way home. She was excited yelling Elmo and hugging the videos in the store. Then on the way home when I asked "Ellie, do you want a movie?" when she was grumpy, she immediately yelled "Elmo!". Same after her first video, so she watched the second one. Totally entranced. Although, to be honest, she gets the same way with Tangled. She LOVES that movie and doesn't watch other movies but laughs and gets totally engrossed in Tangled. Anyway, we finally decided we'd get her a little Elmo stuffed animal, so we went to our little Toys R Us here and found one. Ellie was so excited when Steve showed it to her and was yelling Elmo and screetching in delight. She was really unsure and not at all happy when Steve took Elmo away to purchase him, and when he gave the stuffed animal back to Ellie, she was holding him up twirling him, bouncing in her seat, and singing jibberish to him. Yeah, she likes Elmo. You'll see him in many of the following photos.

Before break, when Ellie was getting sick, she suddenly turned into a blanket girl. She's always liked cuddling with blankets while she sleeps, but now they go all over the place with her. We have blankets in cars, in her room, in the living room, etc. And we can't get her out of the crib without upsetting her unless she has a blanket that comes with her. Luckily she isn't like this all the time, just in her moments, and we don't have a special blanket that has to come everywhere with her. We hope to keep it that way.

We also learned during break that we have reentered an everything-goes-in-my-mouth phase. Mr. Potato Head parts are a favorite. But everything ends up in there.

She also loves her hats. Here is a picture of her sporting one of her favorites to wear and a "Rudolph nose" that the librarian gave her at story time. She loved that silly sticker on her nose, and it was so funny to watch her try to take it off and put it back on in spots slightly off the mark. She had a lot of hits to the nostril....

More hat pictures from after break when we got home. Oh yea, and she really likes to wear her mittens too. She thinks it's hilarious.

Look at how much older she looks in the second picture. Same day! Freaks me out!

We also enjoyed learning about markers recently. It was funny to see her not quite sure about the colors on her hands when I pointed it out to her and she finally noticed it.

Another fun development is that Ellie's independent streak continues to grow and is only about a mile wide now. We go through phases where she won't let us feed her at all. I try to let her feed herself when it's something she can try and eat on her own, but here's an example of the messes we end up with. Believe me, this picture doesn't even begin to show the real mess....

The independent eating fit has also led us to some awesome toddler-sized tantrums lately. Which brings me to this video of Ellie. It doesn't quite capture the magic of the song, because Ellie was just tired and cranky about eating, but "If you're happy and you know it" is pure gold in our home. Ellie fell down 2/3 of a flight of stairs at our friend's house over break, and was totally freaked out (but fine). She was crying pretty hard, and then Steve started singing Happy. She said "happy" as she cried and by the end of the song was fine. It's like she can't help but sing it! And every night during bedtime if we ask her what she wants to sing, we are always met with "happy". On a side note, she's also working on Old McDonald since she can say "moo" and sings "e-i-e-oooo". So cute!

Here's another cute video of our girl. She's been saying "two" for a while during this, but the other day out of nowhere started saying "two, one!" over and over. Daddy is usually greeted now by squeals, "Hi Daddy!" and then "Two, One!" Enjoy her real voice at the very end. Not sure why she uses the higher pitched voice to talk a lot of the time....

Another recent acquisition was her new car seat. This is the Graco Nautilus. It should be her last car/booster seat. But, who the heck said she could get so big she needs a booster seat???

Another when did she get so big moment. This was Ellie before church on the 8th. And she's so good that even though she has a month to go, the Nursery leaders at church told us just to leave her and enjoy classes. It's nice to go to class together for the first time since Ellie was a newborn, but it is crazy to see Ellie independent in nursery. When Steve and I checked on her half-way through her first time alone, we saw her sitting in her little chair independently eating snack and drinking out of a little cup. Just about made me cry between the feelings of pride in her doing so well and feeling like she is growing up way too fast!

I know this is really long, but it's our journal, so what do you expect? A few other fun things right now: Ellie says her own name now, and will say "Hi Ellie" at random times. She will walk through the house saying Mommy till I answer even though she doesn't need a thing. She stands up in the middle of the room since shortly after Christmas. She climbs on anything she can, including our coffee table, but still can't get up on the furniture itself. She also now has all of her baby teeth except her 2 year molars, and she has two of those moving around these days. And a funny one is that if we ask Ellie if she is poopy when her diaper stinks, when she is she'll squat down and pat her butt. She still cracks us up daily and we are so grateful to be her parents!!!