Aquarium

Mia and Ella at the Dallas World Aquarium. For those who haven't been there, it's more like an aquatic zoo than an aquarium. There are no whales or dolphins or anything like that, but there are monkeys, lots of birds, penguins, alligators, turtles, sharks, flamingos, and lots and lots of fish.

And also this guy, a sloth. We got a private viewing with him and his care taker (not on purpose, there was just no one else around). He was very cute and I learned more than I ever wanted to know about sloths!

More Ella and Mia. Can you tell Ella only left Mia's side reluctantly?

Ella playing with Mia's sunglasses. Unfortunately she broke them shortly after this picture...

This was our last day with Michelle and Mia, they left early the next morning. We had such a nice visit with them. Ella bonded so quickly with both of them. I can't wait for them to come back to visit or for us to go visit them!

Zoo and Mellow Mushroom

In a continuation of our tour of DFW, we took Mia and Michelle to the zoo while they were here. I've been dying to take Ella, so I was excited for this opportunity. Ella seemed to have a good time, but she was mainly just following Mia around. We were kind of trying to hurry to give them a chance to see everything, so Ella missed a lot. A few things, like the meerkats, she was mesmerized by. We went a head and got season passes, so we'll be back to continue checking it all out.

Without meaning to, Mia taught Ella to cross her arms. I was holding her and noticed she had her arms crossed and looked over to see that Mia did too. We laughed and made a big deal about getting her to do it. Now if we ask her to cross her arms, she makes this big deliberate production about it and expects a reaction out of us. Such a ham!

Botanical Gardens

When Michelle and Mia were visiting we made a trip to the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens to see the butterflies. It was the first time I'd been to the butterfly conservatory and it was pretty neat. Ella was more interested in the water features than the butterflies, but she can now identify a butterfly, or fly as she says.

Gingerman Cook-off

All decked out and ready to party!

Jeff's cousin Michelle and her daughter Mia came to visit us. (All the good pictures are Michelle's!)

Not sure who the other little girl is, but Ella and Avery seemed to enjoy playing with her.

Ella dancing to the music. She was in her element at the cook-off!

If you told Ella that everyone was actually there to see her Daddy and not her, I don't think she would believe you.

Ella and Mia at Benito's after the cook-off. In case you can't tell, Ella LOVES Mia and Mia was so good with her.

Yes, Ella is eating butter... We don't usually let her do stuff like that, but it made her happy, so whatever.

Mia sure did get a work out on her vacation! Ella wanted her to hold her all the time and Mia was very obliging.

Ella and Daddy

Music Class

We signed Ella up to take music classes at our local Mansfield Activity Center on Saturday mornings. I work Saturday mornings, so we thought it would be a fun thing for Ella and Jeff to do together. Her first class ended up falling on the same day as Jeff's Gingerman cook-off competition, so Grandma and Grandpa took her instead.

17 Months

Ella and Maggie last Saturday morning. I was at work and Carrie was taking a test, so Jeff had both girls and made cupcakes. It was very Betty Crocker of him.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We went to a St. Patty's Day dinner at our friends' Mikki, Brian, and Vera's house. The girls had a great time playing together.

Tickle Bugs!

Silly girls :-)

More monkey pjs. Very appropriate for my little monkey.

Outside in her crazy outfit. I like to think of her as a baby Punky Brewster.

Erin brought some lentil soup over the other day that she shared with Ella. I think Ella liked it...

Ella LOVES dipping her food. She comes up with some odd combos sometimes, like cheese and honey, and it makes a big mess, but at least she's eating.

Happy tummy

Love that big girl! Where did my baby go...?

Since I wrote last week's post with the list of words Ella knows, I'm constantly hearing ones I left off. I won't list them, but I will add that she's learning her colors. She's pretty good at pointing out red, blue, green, and yellow. Purple and orange are hit or miss. She will also answer correctly if you ask her what color something blue or red is. I'm pretty sure she's a genius.