The Latest and Greatest (aka: a lot of random pictures and stories and even a rant)

First things first, guys, have you voted?!

If you haven't then you NEED to!

I know you've heard this a gajillion times, but we are so incredibly lucky to get to vote for who the leader of our country is and we should not be so silly as to take that right for granted and not vote.

People have died so that we can choose our own leaders because it was that important to them.

So who are we to disregard those lives and not take advantage of what they helped give us the right to do?

And these leaders are going to influence the world we live in, so surely you will want to have a say on who is leading this country.

Okay, the end of that rant. 

Go vote.

Now onto what basically this whole blog has become dedicated to: Ella.

You guys, we are making major progress over here in the Ella-liking-books department.

I caught her several times this past week by herself in the living room, sitting still and turning the pages of a book for more than 5 seconds.

Um, whoa.

So I decided to try and see if she'd sit in my lap and listen to a book besides Brown Bear Brown Bear.

I found several books that deal completely with animals and I turned the pages and said things like, "Frog. Ribbit. Sheep. Baaaah." 

She sat in my lap for 2.5 entire books! 

And would imitate the sounds of the animals after me, especially the elephant (which I probably need to catch on tape because it's kind of way cute). 

Then she pulled the book out of my hands, wiggled off my lap and turned the pages by herself (we are very independent over here) and would making funny squeaking noises with each page turn to imitate the noises I had made earlier, except she made the same noise for each animal. 

That's okay because at least she is looking at books now!

Also, she waves at every single person that passes us in the grocery store and says "hi" in this very high pitched voice, which is funny because her voice is naturally pretty low, but maybe because I always talk to her in this high pitched voice when I say "hi" to her in the mornings, she just thinks that you're supposed to talk like that. 

Anyway, pretty much no one notices her waving at them in the grocery store (probably because she waves at herself so they don't realize she means to be waving at them) and those that do just stare at her like they aren't quite sure what she's doing. 

But when someone smiles and waves back at her it makes my heart so happy that they would respond!

Imagine you can hear a high pitched "Eye! Eye!" as she waves.

We saw these boots at the store in Ella's size.

I was torn between thinking how cute it was to have a boot in such a tiny size and wondering who in their right mind would put a heeled shoe on a one-year-old? 

 E and E and some ice cream.

I made this white dress!

I think this is the first big thing that I've sewn without my mom's help so I'm fairly certain that that almost makes me an official adult.

Adam is about to blink but I love her little cheese-grinner face in this picture.

We have to time out her naps just right on Sundays so that she'll be a good mood for most of church.

Obviously we timed things well this Sunday because she appears to be insanely happy.

My dad sent me this picture of myself (on the left) at Ella's age and I showed it to Adam and his response was, "What? That's you? Are you kidding me? No. That's Ella. That's not you."

I had to point out that Ella doesn't own that dress or that toy to prove that it was me.

Adam pulled out the picture on the right (of Ella) to prove that Ella and I look crazily alike.

If I didn't see pictures of myself at Ella's age I would assume that Ella looks more like Adam so it's funny to see how similar she looks to me at this age.

Kewpie doll baby with her all-time favorite bath toy.

She sucks the water out of that thing until it's dry.

I'm trying to decide how unhygienic that is (do you think that ball is all moldy inside from having soaked up water and then sat out so many times?) but she loves it so much I just don't think about it.

Unfortunately, this walker seems to have little influence on helping her learn walking skills.

Fortunately, it's still warm enough to wear shorts outside on most days (or be nakey, which Ella prefers).

The end.