Ella at 14 Months

Its been a while since I've posted and Ella is a walking girl now! And it makes her look so much bigger, my baby is officially a toddler! She's learning and growing and understanding and doing new things every day! It's amazing what she now comprehends (and all the behaviors she mimics!:o) Also, Galveston recently opened a Children's Museum and its just a few minutes from our apartment, so we got a pass and I've been taking Ella at least once a week, she loves it!

AND Ella sleeps through the night now!! Hooray! Over Christmas Break me and Kyle decided that we had had it with middles of the night feedings, and so while we were at my parent's big house we put Ella in the bedroom furthest away from ours (where it would be easier to ignore her) and put her to bed that night and decided we would not go back in until 7am. The first night she pretty much cried from 2-6:45, when I finally gave in and went and got her--poor girl! The second night wasn't much better, but by the fourth night she was getting it down and I think on the fifth night she didn't cry at all! So its been over 6 weeks, since we trained her and she does pretty good, she'll still wake up and cry fairly regularly but most of the time only for a couple mins and she'll put herself to back to sleep. But probably 1-2x a week she'll wake up between 5 and 5;30 and will just cry hysterically and will just keep screaming until we eventually give up and go get her:(  And she never sleeps in very late, on a typical morning she wakes up between 6 and 6:30. BUT it is so much better than it used to be and we're all feeling much more rested over here:)

At 14 Months Ella:

- walks! and is getting faster and faster every day!

- says mama, dada, baby, hi, ya, no, go, Ella, I see, meow, poopy and will sometimes say bye, outside

- knows several body parts, mouth, head, tummy, belly button, eye, hair and will point to them/touch    them when asked (and usually gets them right haha)

- loves playing ring a round the rosie

- understands simple directions

- loves giving high 5s

- loves toilet paper and toilets, if the door is ever left open that's where you'll find her, splashing around in the toilet water

- loves to hand me stuff and to "help" will hand me silverware from the dishwasher, clothes from the dryer, etc

- her greastest joy and desire is to be free to wander some exciting place such as: the grocery store, anywhere outside, church, and Target

- is a sensitive child, if we're around other children, like at the park or somewhere and they start yelling, or crying even if it has nothing to do with Ella, Ella will get really upset and cry and run to me, sometimes even if an adult yells or gets mad at a child nowhere near Ella that will set her off too. Sometimes if I had to give her a really stern "no!" after playing in the trash or something she'll get really sad and go and sit and just say "no, no, no, no, no" to herself over and over--its actually really sad:(

- loves to be chased and tickled

- loves watching other children and if she sees other children will just follow them around to see what they do

- still really loves books, and will sometimes sit with me and read 5-6 books in a row

- loves to "jump", looks more like bouncing but she gets really excited about it

- still loves songs and me singing to her

- still drinks her formula from a bottle 4 times a day, but has gotten so much better about eating real foods

- fav foods are still eggs and strawberries, but she also loves black beans, corn, fish, chicken grapes, drinking from sippy cups and real cups, and saltine crackers

playing at the children's museum with Clementine

I love the little curls behind her ears:)

=

A lady at Kroger gave Ella that balloon, she was pretty into for a little while

It's so fun seeing these 2 girls interact more and more,
Clementine says Ella's name now and its so cute!
And they're always so excited to see each other, even if 30 seconds later they're fighting over the same toy:)