Where does the time go?

And suddenly we are two days into March, just a few weeks away from Ella turning two already! We have been very negligent in 2008 on updates, so here are a bunch of the basics at once.

Mischief is her main hobby these days, and to the left is when I caught her breaking into my "secret" stash of candy hearts. She looks very guilty, as you can see. The kid loves trouble, so we have our work cut out for us.

Ella is talking in incomplete sentences in the past month. From "Milk all gone" to an unprompted "Thank you, Mommy" for tying her shoe - I am constantly astounded at what is coming out of her mouth. Or her nose. Sice Valentine's she has been having sporadic sneezing fits where tiny red hearts come out of her nose. Her Gram likes to have little metallic cut-out hearts fall out of cards, and though we thought we vacuumed them all up after Valentine's, she still had one more come out this past week. Gram's been banned from sending more hearts and we keep explaining to Ella that nothing but Kleenex should be in her nose - no fingers, no hearts, not anything we haven't thought of yet...

Winter camping was last weekend, and check out our little fish jumping right into the water. We are looking at doing some swimming lessons this spring. SHe had a great time with her "big cousins," who are really my cousins. She didn't get sick this time after seeing them, but she did learn the word boogers. Not sure which is worse!




Update for Ella's baby book:

Size: About 24 lbs, 31 inches tall, using up the Size 3 diapers so she can move into 4's, size 6 shoes, finally outgrowing 18 month pants/pajamas and really fitting well in the 18-24 month clothes and some 2Ts.

Favorite Dining Spot: Any Mexican restuarant, since she dives into the salsa (even if its spicy) and eats black beans like they are candy.

Favorite Friends: Rotates every couple days since Christmas. Could be Pink Bunny, Snowflake (her first Webkinz, which is a terrier), two little stuffed cats named Bruno (both of them), a purple Care Bear, or her doll, Baby.

Time Outs: She is most likely to get them when she is sleep-deprived. She gets them most often for abusing cats or climbing on the back of the sofa. And she seems to enjoy them, so we are still working on perfecting disciplinary actions.

Potty training success: None. She likes sitting on her chair, but doesn't seem to get what it's used for.

Counting: Ella can get to 10 with 90% accuracy, which is due to her forgetting the number five on most attempts. Try to listen to "three, four, six, seven" without cracking a smile.

Sleeping habits: Stalling is the name of the game these days. Repeated requests for more singing, more milk, more rocking, Daddy instead of Mommy, now Mommy instead of Daddy, more books, two boppies of a particular color, have all turned bedtime into a drawn out affair.

Colors of the Rainbow: She likes to announce what color everything is, from the cars on the road to the "gray" hair she thinks she has on her head.

Nicknames: Ella Bella, Sweetheart, Sweedle Dumpling, Sweedle-D, Lovely Dovely, and I know there are more...