Christmas Morning's Finest...

  

Merry Christmas!!

We had a great Christmas! We traveled up to Moorhead and spent time with Jared's family, then back home for santa and a fun Christmas day with the Lettmanns!! Ella sure got some nice toys--- TMX Elmo, Dora's cash register, Leapster, stroller, books, clothes, Leapster games, and a lot of new neat board games (Zingo, marble run, Cariboo, puzzles). It was fun to watch her imitate Elmo!! I am trying to learn how to load video into You Tube, so hopefully I'll have the Elmo moves up here soon!

Ella is now behind the camera!

Tonight Ella decided that she needed to line up all her bears against the wall. The big ones are mommy bear, daddy bear, pom pom, grandma, and Casey. The smaller ones are the babies who are snuggling. She then decided that we needed to go get the camera and take pictures! So she got the camera and took a whole bunch of pics of me and the bear line up. She tried to get Tia, but "mommy, she's so fast!" Here's one she did get of Tia's tail:

I don't know what the heck they are going to teach her in kindergarten. When we went to look at the pics on the computer she basically navigated the whole thing by using the mouse to point and click.

State Fair's Finest 06

Here I am at the fair and my parents (for some bizarre reason) decided to take tons of photos of me with my milk and pronto pup. I really don't see what the big deal is.

More party pics

I am Three!!!

  

Ella really does have artist genes

Here she is one day just doodling on her sketchpad, when Jared noticed that she drew a head and eyes. On her more detailed drawings, she is doing eyes and pupils.

Lake Marion

Summer Love

Being with Ella in the summer is what it is really all about. She loves to BE in the moment, swinging, sliding, swimming. Here is a pic from our trip to the lake a few weekends ago. Ella enjoyed looking for little fossil-like snail shells and having them all collected together in my pocket.
Here are a few Ella catch phrases: "What you said?" "Yesterday when..." (ella has no concept of time in the past and yesterday refers to everything from "remember yesterday when I was in your stomach?" to "remember yesterday when we went to maggie moos?"
She is such a little conversationalist. I overheard her and Jared talking the other day and she was asking him all sorts of great questions like, "why do we need toes?" "what is hair for?" She pretty much went through every body part and Jared loved it, a budding curious little scientist on our hands.

2 1/2 is better than 2 because....

1) Ella can actually have a real life, Q and A conversation with you
2) Ella can sense when you need a lift and spontaneously says, "I love you."
3) Ella has entered the "why" question phase ("why can't the paper plate go into the dishwasher, mommy?"

These are my top 3 reasons why 2 1/2 is better than 2 and why I still can't get enough of that little bee.

I am an artist!

  

Fun in the sun!

  

On the way to the ocean!

  

Pool Beauty

  

We've arrived in Sanibel!

Well, it sure felt like forever, but we made it to Sanibel safe and sound. The plane was delayed, so we spent much of Thursday afternoon trying to keep Ella entertained in the terminal. We landed here in Florida about 11pm and the little trooper did great! She slpet a little bit on the plane, but with no nap and hardly any good food, was finally able to rest on the drive to the island.
We have had great weather so far.. sunny and in the 80s every day. The first day we stayed around the condo and I tried my best to get Ella into the pool. She was afraid of a lot of things... bugs, leaves in the pool, the pool drains. She pretty much stayed on the steps of the pool. She said to me while I was in the pool, "Stay in the middle of the pool, okay mommy? Just be careful, okay?" or she'd say, "see, nothing happened to mommy when she went swimming." She did, however, discover the geckos and loves to go looking for them. She said, "I want to go outside" then Jared says, "Why don't you go out on the porch?" and then Ella says, "no, I want to go gegkoside!"
Yesterday we went to the ocean. It took some time to actually get to the ocean, becuase Ella stopped every few minutes and complained about the sand in her shoe. I asked Jared where these types of genes come from and he said from him. He remembered being a little boy and staying beind the rest, commenting that he was stubborn. Once we made it to the beach, Ella had a blast. Jared actually got her to go out in the ocean with him and they swam around for a really long time. Ella liked playing with the seashells and creating sand castles.
Today we went to Tarpon Bay and rented a kayak. Ellz was a little scared at first, but she soon learned that we wouldn't tip over. She liked to run her fingers through the water and look for birds in the mangroves. She also liked trying to catch leaves as they floated by. After kayaking, we went to eat lunch at the Island Cow! That's all for now.. more adventures to come!

From grandma Vick!

I'm thrilled to hear more updates on the Ella Diaries! Ella is doing
and saying so many funny things lately that I hope we can catch as many
as possible and record them since she is changing rapidly. Thanks, Susan and Jared! I just read the latest and sit here laughing
outloud!
Grandma Vickkk

Swiper

Ella loves Dora and especially how she can learn to set limits with the crazy fox, Swiper. Here's the latest from this morining per Jared:
Ell said this morning while eating cereal, "Swiper! no swiping! Its OK Dada swiper is just pretend. He's not real. OK?"

Christmas Day -- building frosty