Keeping Busy

Hard to believe it, but our crazy little girl is 18 months old!
Actually, she has been for more than 2 weeks; I'm just slow
with posting. But anyway, at her check-up, I was simply told
that she is tall and heavy... so there's your growth update.
She's actually right around 30 lbs, but I don't know her height.
Tall enough to seem bigger than most the kids her age or
older in nursery... average to tall I guess at this point.
But yes, she has been going to nursery, the full two hours
even. I'm working in primary, so I don't get to see or hear
much of how she does, but Adam says he can hear her yelling
every now and then (just regular yelling, not crying). And
we have great nursery leaders, so it appears she does great
and has fun playing with different toys and doing activities.
Such a big girl.

We didn't really do anything for her 18 month birthday,
so I gave her some balloons to play with. Ellie LOVES balloons.

Ellie also seems to love all batters and doughs. On this night,
she was my bowl clean-up crew for banana bread. But she loves
cookie dough too, and even plain old bread dough for rolls. It's
all good to Ellie.

Aside from occasional rain days, the weather has
been pretty nice and warm most of the last couple
weeks. But sometimes when we try to drive to a cool
park that is farther away, this is all we get... but naps
are good too. I won't complain.

But most the time, we do get to play lots. Ellie and I get
plenty of exercise on all our walks and runs and climbing.

She usually likes to just walk around at the parks and
check things out, climb, or throw rocks and things, but she's
becoming more willing to actually play on the equipment
lately, which has been fun. She LOVES slides now.

We even got to do a picnic with Daddy at the park one evening.
Ellie loved the idea of having a blanket out in the park. She
enjoyed relaxing in her favorite place (OUTSIDE!)...
for a little while at least.

Ellie enjoyed our treats when she wasn't
busy running around.......

.......Or playing rough with Daddy. She has
always loved to wrestle and get tossed around.
I guess it's because Adam taught her from a very
young age... they have a lot of fun together.

Hiking the field.

Hugging the picnic blanket.

Along with the sunshine and park trips, of course
there is a lot of backyard time on the trampoline. Ellie
loves it out there. She jumps around and watches the
dogs wrestle on the yard below.

Ellie thought it was hilarious that Tex was sleeping in a
laundry basket one morning... so I told her he was going
night-night, and she gave him a kiss. She can be so sweet
when she wants to be.

So Ellie doesn't sleep in her crib.... she prefers the big bed all
to herself. But she does like to play in her crib with her babies.
They always have to be lined up just right, next to her in the
crib, then every blanket in sight has to be placed perfectly
over them all, while they watch movies and she reads them a
Twilight book... that's my girl.