21 months

Ellie is 21 months! Good grief time flies. I was meaning to make this post a 20 month post but never got around to it and now she's a month older. Before I know it I'll have TWO kids! I'm not sure how I'm going to handle the toddler AND new born thing. I know it will be chaotic, challenging, fun, sleep deprived, humorous, exhausting, joyful and everything else. Although I know we'll have hard moments I am really looking forward to it. For a long time I was afraid of transitioning from one child to two. I felt like having 2 kids would make me a 'real' mom. I know that may sound weird. I'm definitely a mom now, but with more that one kid I feel like that "mom" qualification grows exponentially!!!

33 weeks along

Ellie is as spunky as ever. She is full of energy and wears me out most days. She goes and goes and goes! She LOVES to be outside.  Sometimes I try to secretly sneak downstairs to let Lilo out to go to the bathroom. If Ellie knows the door is open (for any reason) she slides down the stairs as fast as she can and says "go play". On the occasions she can't go out (ie: the weather doesn't permit, dinner needs to be made, etc.) there are many, MANY tears! I'm sure she would live outside if she could. As hard as it can be sometimes (since we don't have a yard) I LOVE that she is such an outside girl. I hope she is that way all her life. I'd much rather have a child playing outside than a child glued to video games and TV.

She is talking and talking like crazy. I LOVE it! Although she talks all the time and her vocabulary grows daily she still signs and surprises me with random signs she's never done before. Recently she surprised me with the signs for nice, pet, bear, potty and doll.

As she started saying new words I wanted to keep track of them. I created a list on my phone to help me remember. Now I can hardly keep up. Daily she adds 1, 2 or even 3 new words to her vocab. Since her 19 month post she now says outside, cookie, wa wa (water), amen, sun, drink, thank you, pup, ice, stuck, den den (for my sisters dog Denny), Lily (my sisters other dog), "we-lo" for Lilo...our dog, mouse, soup, stop, go, tights, pool, up, down, on, off, cheese, good bye, bus, woo woo (train), vroom vroom (car), again, beep beep, bike, taste, baby, please, honk, bink (binky), sink, sing, sleep, fly, rock, uck (duck), clean, yummy, cup cake, clothes, dance, swing, juice, seat, nice, cook, nana, sad, cry, crawl, loons (balloons), silly, hand, noonles (noodles), day, cereal, pa pa (grandpa), pet, sauce, mimi (money), show, blinds, bed, bounce, bread, sneeze, snack, bark, park, pond, puppy, monkey, cow, sheep, horse, donkey, chicken,"nowmo" for marshmallow, neat, piano, steps, queen, help, blankie, wheels, wagon, hand, leg, back, ...and more. I really can't keep up!

She is also putting words together and forming phrases. 

"Go play outside" is a VERY common one.
"All done"
"All clean"
"Here comes"
"Go, go play"
"See you later"
"Oh wow, neat!" - one of my favs! I love it when she says "neat"
"There it is"
"Go outside, eat" (she loves to eat on our balcony!)
"daddy, work"

She still loves to watch Baby Signing Time, Elmo, Monsters Inc and Barney. She recently discovered Micky Mouse Club House and LOVES it. She says "mimi", "Pete" "Micky", "Pluto" and "toodles". She'll say duck for Donald and Daisy. Did I mention she LOVES Mini? She says "Barney", "momo" for Elmo, "Ike" for Mike and "Boo" from Monsters Inc.

She recognizes the letters E, B, Y, P and T. She knows the colors blue, green, white, red, pink, purple and brown. She has said black before and tried to say yellow. She's Pretty consistent with naming colors but if she's unsure and/or lazy "blue" is always her fall back.

She has a slight obsession with the potty. It's actually become better. She doesn't have to put toilet paper and/or tissues in the toilet and flush them nearly as often as she use to. But she still likes the potty. She knows the potty is for going "peeps". She says "peeps", "poop" and "bum". She has a potty seat and sometimes asks to sit on it and try to "peeps". I'm encouraged by the fact that she recognizes what the potty is and when she's gone in her diaper. I've read about some cues for when they're ready for potty training (ie: being able to take their own clothes off and on, predictable potty habits, etc.) and she has shown some but not all. Most importantly I'm NOT ready to potty train her. Once Raegan joins us and we get into the new born and big sister groove I may get brave and try it out.

Getting ready for Raegan's arrival we did transition Ellie to a BIG GIRL BED!!! IT went much better than I thought...in the beginning. The first 3 nights were easy. She tested her new found freedom and would wander out of her room. I simply took her back to her bed and told her it was time for sleep. Some nights that only happened once and the most 5 or 6 times. THEN we had a stretch of rough nights. Coming out of her room playing the back and forth game A LOT, not going to bed until after 10:00, waking up at 6:30 and not going back to bed. There were a couple of nights I locked her in her room and let her cry it out for a while then dad or mom would go back in. I finally realized as hard as it was to listen to her cry the going back in thing was only reinforcing the 'if I cry someone will come back and snuggle me' thinking. So I got brave. After several rounds of taking her back into her bed I told her it was time to stay in bed and sleep. If she didn't stay in bed I would close the door. I asked her if she wanted me to close the door and she said NO. However when she got out of her bed again the door was closed and NOT opened. It was an hour of off and on crying with the last 10 - 15 minutes being the worst and most heart wrenching screaming. She finally figured the door wasn't going to open, mom meant business and she got in her bed and fell asleep. After that ONE night she has been a champion and is back to her usual schedule of bed around 8:30 or 9:00 and waking up around 7:00 or 7:30. 

She has a stellar memory! We went swimming a couple weeks ago. About a week after that outing I was getting ready to go to water aerobics. She saw me in my swimming suite and said, "go swim". She now says "suite" and she'll say "pool" when she sees the sun screen. She recognizes the way to go to her Grams and Grandpa Carlson's house. If I ever drive past the intersection or drive down the road that leads to their house she says, "Pa pa".  Her grandpa Dewey took her for a "tractor" ride on his riding lawn mower once. It left such an impression on her that whenever she sees a tractor she says "pa pa".

One day in church she randomly looked at me, grabbed my nose and said, "honk" over and over as she squeezed my nose. It was so cute and funny. I had to try really hard not to laugh during the middle of sacrament meeting! I'm sure our fellow ward members got a kick out of her nose honking!

One night while brushing her teeth I said "make sure you get the back" to remind her to brush all around. She immediately took her toothbrush out of her mouth, wrapped her arm around her waist and started brushing her back!

Now for a bunch of random pictures from the last 2 months.

AWESOME post piggy tail hair!

El has a new love for bikes, scooters...anything that makes her go. Her cousin's were nice enough to share their scooters and bikes with her one night. She LOVED them and couldn't get enough.  Funny thing is that she HAD to have the helmet on...she would not ride without it. Good thing she is safety conscience!  

She loves to RUN

One of the many SAD faces when she can't go outside RIGHT when SHE wants! 

Just relaxin' watching a show after a hard day of playing

She loves bubbles!

She LOVES to "fly" with daddy

She loves to feed the ducks. Well, she likes to eat the bread and watch the ducks. Every time we drive past Wheeler Farm she says "pond" and we talk about the "ducks" who live there and the "bread" they eat.

Several Sundays ago I went upstairs for 10 minutes to curl my hair and brush my teeth. I THOUGHT she was watching a show. This is what I came downstairs to find. She was having a GRAND time playing in the powdered sugar until....

She discovered it was ALL over her hands and sticky. She didn't like that at all! 

First time with water color paint! 

She loves her "glasses" and will say "bright" if she ever needs then and doesn't have them. I LOVE the fact that 90% of the time she wears them they are upside down!