Ellie at 14 months

Ellie, as always, is an ever a growing girl. It is hard to keep up with everything new that she is doing from day to day. It is hard to think that I can't call her my baby any more. She is now definitely a toddler. She started walking a few weeks after her first birthday, and now her signature scoot is gone forever. Now the real exercise will begin. We just about lost her a couple of weeks ago at church. She just walked out of Sunday School class without us noticing. She only made it to the foyer so we were lucky. We can't wait for her to be old enough to go to Nursery just so we don't have to chase after her for 3 hours.

Ellie loves to read stories with Mommy and Daddy, especially stories with lots of animals in them. She is so good at making all of the barn animal sounds and a lot of other animals too like elephants, monkeys, and snakes. The library has become a great resource to keep my sanity from the monotony of reading the same board books over and over and over again. Now we read three or four books for about three weeks and then switch when we take a visit to the library. This last bunch of books we got from the library included the book "Opposites" by Sandra Boyton. Ellie loves all the Sandra Boynton books. She loves the rhymes and all the animals in them. Well, earlier this week she kept walking around the housing saying "Ap-a-sit" and for the longest time I couldn't figure out what she was say, maybe A-B-C or something, but then we sat down to read book the Sandra Boynton book, and she she "Ap-a-sit" again. It finally dawned on me what she had been saying all week long. I'm pretty impressed with a 3 syllable word coming from a 14 month old. Unfortunately her new favorite book had to go back to the library today :(

She has become a little parrot when it comes to speaking. Anything we say, she likes to try and repeat at least one word from what we say. Some of the cute ones lately have been "busy" "cook" "pretty"and "messy". I don't really think she knows their meaning completely, but she is definitely on her way.

Ellie also absolutely loves the gift she got from her cousin, Ainsley, for her birthday, an episode of "Baby Signing Time." She is doing a great job learning the signs in the movie. We have to limit this annoying moving to one time a day, more to maintain Brad and my sanity than anything. The songs on that video are just so so catchy. WE CANT GET THEM OUT OF OUR HEAD! We are singing them ALL the time. But if Ellie doesn't get her fix of the show every day, she walks around making the sign for baby while say "baby, baby, baby" over and over again. What a cutie.

Ellie is a great eater. She was introduced to watermelon this summer and now if there is watermelon within her sight, she will not eat or do anything until her appetite has been satiated. We've just learned to use watermelon like a dessert. You don't get to even know that there is watermelon until the end of dinner. She also was introduced to corn on the cob a few weeks ago. I think she likes it better on the cob than off. She has just enough chompers to make it as a viable option for her. She is only picky when it comes to meats. I don't think she likes the texture very much. But if we disguise them with something else, usually we can get her to at least eat some.

So yep. There's a little update on our sweet Ellie. She's as cute as ever, and we love, love, love seeing her grow up.

This is Ellie saying "cheese" to the camera. This is actually a good "cheese" face. Any time she get her picture taken now she squints up her eyes and makes a silly little cheesey smile.