October!

Has it seriously been 2 months since I last updated the blog? Yikes, sorry. We're busy folks, what can I say? Ah, October is just about our favorite month! John and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary on October 11th! Hard to believe its been 6 years. Yesterday Ella was officially 2 1/2 years old. That is so hard to believe as well! I still think of her as my little baby...until we are having conversations back and forth. Then I come to realize I can't really call her a baby anymore.

Too much to try to catch up on, but basically we are pretty much settled in to our new house. Absolutely love it, love the neighbors, love everything about it. Except the Jefferson County sewer bill...I do miss my $25 water bill when we were on a septic tank! It doesn't help that Ella can climb up to the sink and wash her hands all by herself, and she likes to keep that water running. Even after she leaves the bathroom.



So many updates on Ella I don't even know where to begin:

- She is in a big girl bed, and will stay put! Getting her to settle down at night is a huge challenge. She always wants to read another story, wants a drink of water, then wants a drink of juice, then decides she needs to go potty on the big girl potty. Then wants to rock, then read another story. This could potentially be a 3 hour event every night. Her manipulation skills are definitely very good!

- We have started potty training. She went potty in the big girl potty for the first time on Labor Day! We are still working on it, but hopefully won't be in diapers too much longer.

- She LOVES to draw (see pictures below), paint, color, sing (she makes up her own songs), play and listen to music, read stories, play with dolls, swing, play with the dogs (or at least give them lots of hugs and cover them up with blankets). She can sing her alphabet very quickly, can recognize most letters and some of the sounds, count to 15 (and point to things and count them), knows all of her colors and shapes, the list goes on and on. She's actually been doing all of these for quite a while, but I think I forgot to post (bad mommy).

- She LOVES her new school, teachers, and classmates. Words cannot describe how much we love Samford's Child Learning Center. That deserves a whole post on its own (coming soon).

Here are some recent pictures:

Loves her new swing set

Ella and cousin Hayden on the see saw

our wonderful new back yard!!!!

LOTS of leaves and hickory nuts though!

before school one day

our little artist (found her easel at a yard sale for $4!)

they taught her how to draw the hair at school.

She taught herself how to draw the eyes, face and mouth.

She told me this was a funny face.

and John seems to think that says 1:80

Apparently she knows ratios at the ripe age of 2 1/2

:)