Where have we been!?!?

Peek-a-boo!

Back at Hawaiian Falls

This child has no fear of the water. She goes under a hundred times and the first thing she says when she catches her breath is "AGAIN!".

Ella sporting Mommy's feather headband. I'm lucky I got the picture because she almost immediately declared it "Tight!" and took it off. Everything is tight these days. If it's not a loose dress or jammies, she's not happy. Naked is, of course, the most preferred state of dress.

Ella's last music class. She was starting to really get into it. I'm shocked at how many songs she knows. I sometimes catch her singing songs I didn't teach her and although she doesn't know all the words, she knows it well enough for me to recognize. Since her class ended I've been taking her back to story time at the library since we do a lot of singing there. Singing has also taught her to count to 10 (with some assistance), something we weren't trying to do, but she just picked up on. Her memory really is getting to be quite impressive.

Ella and baby Claire. Ella has been very into babies lately. She's always been curious to see them, but usually her interest fades fast and she's on to the next thing. Now she wants to hug them, pick them up, give them kisses, etc. As long as Mommy doesn't try to hold them.

We got Ella a little step-stool so she could "help" us in the kitchen. It has been a battle for a while now to get anything done in the kitchen without her whining and my old tricks were no longer working. So I read about this somewhere and decided to give it a try. It usually works pretty well. We set her up with some bowls and spoons or whatever and she's pretty content. If I really want her to be absorbed in what she's doing, I give her real food to play with.

I hope she's not mad at me some day for posting all these pictures of her little butt, but it's just so cute! Potty training is eeking along. Some days she's pretty good about it (mostly when she's with Jeff), some days she's not. I know we need to go pants off more as that seems to help, but it's hard when I see her little naked butt crawl up onto my couch...

Happy Father's Day! Jeff "accidentally" discovered his Father's Day gift a day early. It's a huge cooler with wheels he's been coveting for tailgating.

Sigh... Best part of my day. Besides when she goes to sleep :-)

Saturday we went out to the Fort Worth Solar Fest. I've been sick with a stupid summer cold all week and the idea of getting out in the heat was not super appealing, but neither was staying home with a cooped up toddler. It turned out to be a blast. I was really dragging by the end, but it was worth it.

Speaking of being sick, this is the second time I've been sick since Ella was born, and the first time I got sick first. Last time, she got it first and I got it a few days later. I'd been stressing all week about if she was going to get sick and crossing my fingers that it would be mild thanks to the antibodies she's been getting from breastfeeding. Well, we're going to get to test that theory. Last night I could feel how warm she was as she slept and could hear all that congestion rattling around. By the time she woke up, she seemed cooler and in a pretty good mood. But by the time I left for work less than an hour later, she was grumpy and just wanting to be held. Erin said by noon she hadn't eaten much and felt pretty hot. I had Erin give her some ibuprofen and put her to bed. They're still napping now, so we'll see when she gets up. The timing is not good since we leave for ABQ/Santa Fe on Thursday morning.

Ella is so busy and talking so well. Her vocabulary has really exploded. I know that most people can't understand much without a little help in translation, but to me, she sounds amazing. She's stringing together little sentences and has a pretty good understanding of several verbs. We've been working a lot on her manners and she's says please and thank you most of the time.

Getting her to sleep has been really hard lately. She's fine once she goes to sleep, but it can be quite a struggle to get her there. I have no idea why or what else to do about it, so we just keep on truckin' along hoping it'll improve. And also reminding ourselves how grateful we are that we all usually get a good night's sleep. It can't go on forever, right?