november 2011

Another month has flown by. I seriously can't believe we are already into December!

Ella is as cute as ever. She's in full blown toddler mode. She has such a huge personality in such a tiny little body. We had her 15 month check up and she is still at the bottom (under 5%) in weight but she shot up in height and is now in the 80%! I thought it seemed like she could suddenly reach a lot more.

I was a total slacker in taking pictures this month. Ella does so many cute things every day and has so many funny little mannerisms that I really need to be catching. She literally makes me laugh out loud on a daily basis. 

Ella has discovered a new love in life. The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. She loves it! I know I mentioned it last month but the last few weeks she has become obsessed. As soon as the song comes on she dances around the house and points and laughs. I know she shouldn't be watching TV but she does. Don't judge.

So naturally her other love is Minnie Mouse. She loves Minnie. This doll was supposed to be a Christmas present but we couldn't wait to give it to her. She loves to carry Minnie around, share her sippy with her, feed her and hug kiss her. And by the way, according to Ella, Minnie eats through her nose.

Then when we were at Danny's parents she found Jill's old Minnie doll so now she likes to carry around two Minnies. What a lucky girl.

Another one of her favorite things is babies. I'm having so much fun with this age and her interest in all of the fun little girly toys. She loves playing with this dollhouse and her favorite is the tiny baby. She puts her in the stroller and pushes it around and in the little high chair and then makes eating noises for her. It's so fun.

She also has fun riding in this little car. We usually take at least one ride in it a day to the mailbox. She loves holding on to the steering wheel and waving at the cars as they pass.

This year for Thanksgiving we went to my Grandma Cook's house. I have many little cousins and Ella has never really been around that many kids at once. We put her at the kid table and she sat wide-eyed and watched the chaos around her.

She has become an extremely picky eater. She usually picks one thing at each meal that she'll eat. I think on Thanksgiving that lucky thing was peas. Not rolls, not potatoes and gravy, just peas. She does this every time we eat. Another example is I made a cheesy spinach pasta and she would only pick out and eat the spinach. Not the cheese or pasta. Strange child.

After dinner her and Grandpa Spiers (my dad) went outside to play a little soccer. Ella absolutely loves kicking and throwing balls.

A few more things:

• Ella loves to go through the pantry to decide what to eat. She puts her pointer finger up to her mouth and says "ummm" while looking at her choices. 
• She is learning more and more words. She currently says "mom" "dad" "hi" "hot" "gross" and "baby." You can tell she's my daughter since "gross" is one of her first words. And she knows what it means. She walks around the house picking up little specks of crumbs, says "gross" and then throws them in the garbage. 
• She still loves to clean. If I need to keep her busy while I make dinner or something, I just give her a wet washcloth and she goes crazy. She'll wipe down the floor, the cabinets, the couches, her toys, basically anything that is holding still. I love it.
• She loves to talk on the phone and will pretend anything is a phone. Once she gets one she walks around the house holding the phone with her shoulder and waving her arms, jabbering away, pausing for a minute and then laughing. I wonder where she learned that from.
• She also loves to give kisses. She kisses us, her toys, babies and anything else she sees that she thinks needs a kiss. She has even started making the "mwah" noise when she gives one.

She is such a fun girl to be around. We love her so much and are so happy she is in our little family.