2.5 Years Old

Little miss Ella is 2 and a half years old!  I wanted to document some of the things we love about Ella at this age, especially before the craziness of a newborn is upon us.  I feel like I've been on a blogging roll lately - must be the nesting kicking in and trying to get it all in while there's still time!  This is more for my memory's sake than anything else about our spirited little girl. 

I really wish I did a better job writing down all the funny things Ella says on a daily basis.  She is so expressive and funny in the things she comes up with and constantly makes us laugh.  She plays funny games with us that she makes up on her own and laughs hysterically at her own games.  Cody and I constantly look at each other and wonder where she comes up with this stuff!  

She is very verbal and we love having "real" conversations with her.  I love that she sits with us at the dinner table and contributes to our conversation, asks LOTS of questions, and recounts her day to her daddy and me.  I love picking her up after a day at work and listening to her retell her day in detail on the way home.  I know Cody loves taking her on little daddy-daughter dates (I love that they spend most Saturday mornings together at Starbucks these days when they let me sleep in!), and I love our special little dinner dates, especially when daddy is out of town.  She is truly my little buddy - my shopping companion, errand runner, Starbucks date, lunch buddy, and more. We love the pretend phone calls she makes on her plastic cell phone to her friends - usually she leaves a "message" that goes something like this: "Hi, Sophie? It's me Ella.  Can you come over and play with me?  Okay, I miss you! Talk to you soon!  Bye!"

She continues to be friendly and outgoing, even to strangers.  She makes everyone laugh at our co-op preschool when she walks in and makes the rounds saying hi to all her little friends and their moms.  She leads the preschool group in singing and dancing and loves to shout out answers and participate when the teachers read a book or have an activity for the kids to participate in.  When we're at the grocery store or out doing errands, she will say "hi" to anyone who will make eye contact with her and she gets really excited about any other kids around her age.  I'll catch her waving across a store to another little person trying to get their attention.  People are one thing, however animals and new experiences, are a different story.  She's become pretty timid lately when approaching animals at the zoo or doing things like going on big slides at the park.

She loves dancing and music these days.  She often requests her "oosic" (music) CD in the car and loves to sing and clap along to all the songs.  We love that she usually asks for some music to dance to before bed in her room and she dances with her princess dolls.  She makes up silly little songs about anything we are doing and constantly requests for her dad and me to sing to her about whatever topic she is thinking of. She loves singing songs to her sister in my belly.  I think her little toddler voice singing is one of my favorite sounds in the whole world.

She loves all things princesses.  While she's never actually seen a Disney princess movie, she has one DVD that has all the princess songs with clips from the classic movies that she loves (have to admit I love it too as it takes me back to my childhood - Cody's pretty impressed I still remember most of the words to the songs).  Her princess castle that she got from Santa is her favorite toy and she usually requests for her daddy to play princess castle with her when he gets home from work.  One of my former students had outgrown her princess dresses, and she sweetly wanted Ella to have them, knowing how much she loves princesses.  Ella loves wearing them around the house and playing dress up.

She is also obsessed with all things babies...real life babies, baby dolls, etc.  She has affectionately named her sister "Fluffy" and is so excited to meet her!  She thinks she has a baby in her tummy and will often tell us she feels her sister kicking in there.  I love watching her on the monitor when she wakes up in the morning as she talks to one of her baby dolls saying, "Oh baby sister!  You came out today!" and then will smother the baby with hugs and kisses.

She is miss INDEPENDENT! Part of me loves that she's getting so good at doing things on her own, and part of me struggles with it (mostly me being patient with her) when she insists on doing everything by herself.  This includes getting dressed, putting her shoes on, climbing in and out of her carseat, climbing up into her chair at the table, washing her hands, flushing the toilet, etc.  While sometimes we're in a hurry and I would like to do things for her to move the process along, she usually refuses help and I realize it's a good thing she is wanting to do so much on her own before the baby gets her even if it takes a few extra minutes :).  We usually hear her say, "No, I do it!"  She is such a helper with things these days, from helping to set the dinner table, doing chores like vacuuming or dusting, carrying things to or from the car, getting things from upstairs and bringing them down, etc.  I know she will be such a helper with her little sister!

Is mostly potty-trained!  She is in undies for the most part besides nap time or bed time, in which case she'll wear a pull-up.  Mostly that's because she hasn't figured out she can get out of her big girl bed on her own (and I'm pretty okay with that right now).  It allows us a few extra minutes in the mornings or after she wakes up from her nap as she'll stay in bed until we go get her.  Eventually, we'll need to cross that bridge and let her know it's okay to get up and go potty, but I'm just not there yet! :)  She's even going poop in the potty now on a regular basis (she was terrified to poop in the potty at first).

A few random pics of what our 2.5 year old has been up to lately...

 Having fun with toilet paper while mama was on the phone...

We had a lot of pants-less days around home during initial potty training.  I love her little buns in undies...especially with her Cinderella shoes on!

 

 Her potty chart...
 
 Playing dress up...

My little fashionista...she is very opinionated about what she wants to wear, how she wants her hair, her accessories, etc.  I can only imagine what she'll be like as a teenager...

Not the best angle for a picture, but I love the below picture of Ella holding 6 week old Emma (my friend Jessica's new baby).  Ella was elated that Jessica let her hold her and got the biggest beaming smile on her face.  She covered Emma in hugs and kisses and didn't want to let go...so sweet.

 Looking grown up with her purse and cell phone she insists on taking with us most places...

Love watching her sleep...

A trip to the zoo to see the cute new lion cubs with Nathan...

A special lunch date with Uncle David and Auntie Emily...

A little video of Ella singing some of her favorite songs...