Life Lately: Lately

Oh my. I haven't posted in forever, so this is a big catch up post!

Excuse all the details. For my own journaling purposes:

After we got back from UT over Christmas break, we went to Houston for a little post-Christmas vacation with Clay's family. We came back home for a little while, and then I went to UT for a few days and Clay took Ellery to Houston (more on that later).

E Lately: She's been talking a lot, but mostly unrecognizable sounds. She says, "nana" a lot which seems to mean, "no" "milk" and whatever else she wants it to mean.

She gets SO stinkin' excited when Clay gets home from work in the mornings. She is the sweetest little thing and absolutely loves giving hugs and kisses. She'll even hug and kiss her toys, books, and friends. My favorite is when we're playing together and she'll just randomly smile and lean in for a very sincere hug or kiss out of the blue.

Her favorite activities lately include:

Being outside-She wants to do this ALL day long, every day and shows me by attempting to put her shoes on herself and sticking her fingers in the crack of the front door.

Rearranging the fridge-does this all day long too. I hate that the fridge is her favorite toy. I'm sure we waste so much energy because it's wide open all day long. Fortunately this has only resulted in a huge food spill mess once. It's also annoying because she can't open it herself, so she just whines at the fridge all day long. Partly because she loves to eat, but mostly because she just wants to play with the bottles and what not in the door of the fridge.

Playing with her toys and reading books-Ellery has lots of favorite toys, but I'd say her very favorite ones right now are her baby doll, Camille (the life sized one), and her little walker that converts into a scooter (right now she's loving the scooter version). She hugs and plays with her doll all day long, but it's too heavy for her to lift, so she either drags it around, just doesn't pick her up, or I help her. She loves to get on and off her scooter and goes backwards by herself, but not forward unless we help. She likes to put her stuffed animals and dolls on it, so they can have rides too (we didn't teach her this!). Her favorite books right now are Little Blue Truck (still, this has always been a favorite), and this foam shapes book my parents got her for Christmas. You can pull the shapes out and put them back in, but they are tight, so she usually can't do it herself. She brings me this book all the time to help her with it. She also loves her princess sing a long books.

Bath time-She LOVES bath time and no longer cries at all when we wash her hair (wahoo!). She can get in and out of the tub herself now, which resulted in her climbing in with all her clothes on the other day while I was almost done filling the tub.

Playing on the couch/with the pillows-She LOVES this. "I'm going to get you!" chase game on the couch, tickeling, peekaboo, whatever. She loves it.

Ellery also plays happily in her crib during the day and actually enjoys being put in there. She especially loves it when we play peekaboo while she's in the crib, since I keep blankets draped over all the sides. She still goes to bed super easily at 7pm, but is now sleeping in past 7am most mornings, which is an awesome improvement. Lately she's napping from about 12-2pm. She is very, very sensitive and sad after her naps every day. It takes a good 20 minutes for her to really wake up after. Overall she is a very happy, pleasant baby (er…toddler). She is extremely easy to make laugh and smile. She loves to mimic us and picks up on the littlest things we do! She likes to play with friends (especially older friends!) and is often good at sharing. She waves goodbye whenever we say to. She spins in circles when we tell her to. She blows kisses. She LOVES to Skype and talk on the phone. She pretends to talk on the phone all the time. She often sounds like Donald Duck. She likes to climb on things. She still loves her chair and gets in and out of it all day. She is getting better at coloring and likes to draw. She just discovered stickers and loves them.

Bed head after a nap. She loves bread.

She loves shoes.

Sometimes she gets in this "busy mode" where she seems like she is very seriously working hard on something. Like in this picture above, she kept going back and forth bringing things from the living room to her room like it was an important job and she meant business. Not sure what makes her think she needs to do these things sometimes! haha Maybe she'll be a really hard worker someday!

Aunt Kari and Uncle Jared brought back some cute, yellow slippers from the Netherlands for Ellery. She loves them!

Sharing some berries in her favorite spot with her favorite man (she could eat a bajillion berries in one sitting if I let her).

Love her legs in this picture ^

Sleeps with her bum in the air. So cute.

Daddy's little personal trainer.

Playing in the crib.

E's favorite ^

Ellery playing with a snowball in her high chair.

Overall it's been an insanely nice, warm, sunny winter (like 70 every day), but we have had a couple of cold, snowy days. But then it's back to 70 the next day : )