december 2011

We had a great time celebrating the holidays last month.

Ella absolutely loved having the Christmas decorations set up. She quickly learned who Santa was and would walk up to her Santa ornament or Santa Christmas stocking and say "ho, ho, ho" in a really deep voice. She also loved having the lights on on the tree and mantle. When she'd wake up she'd walk over to each and point at them so I'd turn them on.

We decided to take Ella to see Santa. As you can see she wasn't quite as big of a fan of him in person. She prefers the inanimate object version of the big guy.

We also took the traditional trip to Temple Square to see the lights. This year we went with my family as part of my mom's birthday celebration.

I bundled Ella up with as many layers as I possibly could. The poor girl could barely move but I think she stayed fairly warm.

The whole Spiers clan.

My little family.

I give myself about a "C-" on taking pictures the rest of December (well except for Christmas day which will be a separate post). Ella does so many funny things each day that I really need to be better at getting pictures of.

One of her favorite things is to go into the pantry and pull out the cans. I have a picture of me at her age doing the exact thing. 

She is SO observant at this age. She sees us doing something just once and she imitates us. I had a cold for a couple of days and was constantly blowing my nose. So Ella would get a tissue, hold it up to her face, blow through her mouth and then throw the tissue in the garbage.

The next couple of pics are some randoms from my phone.

We hung out with some friends and took the kids to Boondocks. Ella had a blast. She loved running up to all the games and just pushing the green button. We could have gotten away without even buying any tickets!

This was taken after Christmas sitting in her new favorite spot...her Mickey Mouse couch. She is enjoying licking the frosting spoon and watching Mickey Mouse clubhouse...bedhead and all!

Another post Christmas pic. Her Grandma and Grandpa Hafen gave her a Cozy Coupe for Christmas. Here's her first car crash. Danny came upon the scene first and thought to grab the camera before rescuing poor Ella.

And finally a picture that would make Grandpa Spiers proud. Ella was "helping" me make her lunch and got excited about the peanut butter. She decided to not wait for the sandwich and just stick her face in for a taste. (I just noticed that in all of these pictures she is in her jammies with crazy hair - I promise I do get her dressed and comb her hair daily.)

A couple of other things that I just love and want to document:

• She is great at folding her arms for prayer. We read scriptures together as a family at breakfast and then have a family prayer before Danny leaves for work. Without fail, as soon as we're done reading Ella automatically folds her arms. And then at the end she says her cute version of "amen." Love it.
• She loves singing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and attempts to do the little motions. 
• She loves her babies and is a good little mommy. She gives them their binkies and bottles and smothers them in blankets. Sometimes thought, she wants to be the baby and will put in a fake binky or suck on the toy bottle and walk around and do a pretend cry. 
• She's getting good at animal sounds and can identify and make the noises of dogs, cats, horses, elephants and anything that roars. 
• She still loves to "decide" by saying "ummm" while tapping her chin.
• She's a little tease and absolutely loves to make people laugh. There are times when we'll be sitting together and I'll give her a little look and we'll catch each other's eye and she'll just bust out laughing. This is one of my favorite things. She's my little buddy.
• She gives great hugs. Sometime if I'm sitting on the ground she'll come up behind me, put her arms around my back and hug tight and then start rubbing my back. 
• She's our little neat freak. She really doesn't like things to be messy (just like me) and is really good about putting her toys away in the right bins when we're done playing. In fact, in sacrament meeting she'll sometimes go to other families and pick up the toys off the floor and hand them to the moms. Just keeping things neat.

We're having a great time with our little toddler. She keeps us on our toes and laughing every day. I love being a mom and spending my days with her. It's not always easy and some days are exhausting but I wouldn't trade it for anything!