2.5

My girl will officially be two and a half in just a few days. Now she won't be lying near as much when she tells people she's "fee" aka "three." We can round up, right?

Ella is loving the change in weather. First thing she says just about every morning is "Go outside now?" She's quite silly though. We'll go play in the backyard but once she gets her hands dirty or dirt in her shoes she wants to "wash all cean." It takes a little coaxing from me but after a bit she'll decide she's ok with being a little dirty while we play outside. Unless she's got friends that she's playing with. Then she's too busy to care about the dirt.

Ella loves making new friends. Our ward has started a mothers group and Ella gets so excited when I tell her we're going to play with some new friends. She's usually a little disappointed since she's the oldest in our ward and the rest are quite a bit younger than her. But she still plays with their toys and enjoys that. For her, their toys are always better than hers. This past weekend we went down to my parents and Ella was able to play with her cousins. She was so excited to play with some girls. All the kids her age around here are boys so girls are a whole new experience for her. Her and Adelaide ran amok all Saturday and got good and dirty. I've never seen so much sand in one diaper before. Ella got to take her first shared bath too. She loved helping Adelaide wash her hair and back. Each girl had a barbie that they also helped clean. I'll have to post pictures some other time because it was so cute. Ella calls Adelaide and any other friend who's name she can't remember "My fend." We did get her to remember Adelaide's name after a little bit but she still liked calling her "my cousin fend."

Ella is such a tease. About a week ago she was being a little stinker all day long. Andrew was out of town and I was starting to lose my patience. At one point in the evening I decided to make some sort of snack (probably brownies) and Ella was "helping" me. She looks up at me at one point and says "Mommy, I don't like you." I of course, am about ready to burst into tears because she'd been so naughty all day and my hormones are running rampant. She then smiles really big and says "I love you!" Made it all better. But what a tease....

Ella really loves talking to Andrew and I. She is always telling us "Baby Mannan, coot! I not coot. I big girl!" Apparently big girls aren't cute. I've tried telling her that she can be big and cute/beautiful/pretty but no. She's just a big girl. Today she did inform me that "daddy not coot. Daddy handsome." She is also always raving about how tiny stuff is. She likes to run a short distance away from me then measures me with her fingers and says "Mommy, you weal tiny!" She also likes "coot tiny ants" (yay she's not scared of ants anymore!) "coot tiny baby Yivia" and anything else cute and tiny.

Ella has started eating a lot better too! Hoorah! She still eats like a bird but lately she'll actually eat more than just fruits and veggies. I don't' have to withhold her broccoli anymore. Now we just gotta work on getting her to drink more water. The girl just really loves her milk and would rather get dehydrated than drink water.