The Loveliness of Life Lately

Here's the latest:

 The days before Christmas included an ugly sweater party (which is a wonderful and necessary party of any holiday season).

I especially loved the golfing sweater that Adam was sporting and I can't get over how much I love Ella's car and truck cardigan.

You can't really see the ugliness of my fur-collared sweater and the dangling ornament buttons, but it was smashing, let me tell you.

Speaking of sweaters, I also love this one that we snagged from the Old Navy clearance section.

I have been dressing her in lots of boy-ish looking clothes lately.

A miracle happened at church yesterday: Ella fell asleep in Adam's arms.

This girl refuses to fall asleep anywhere outside of her bed.

But I guess church was especially tiring yesterday (after having us chase her down the aisles over and over and over again during Sacrament meeting) and she finally gave into sleep.

Chasing a super speedy crawling baby while in heels and a skirt is not an easy thing to do, fyi.

Ella's cousins are still here and like I said before, she thinks it's the best thing that has ever happened to her.

When I get Ella out of bed and we walk into the main part of the house each morning she positively squeals and screams in delight to see her cousins running around.

Having cousins also means having friends to chat with during meal times.

It also means sharing toys (or stealing them, same thing).

And it means lining up three car seats in a row in the backseat of the van to go places.

 But sometimes she still has to hang out with her parents.

When the parents aren't around this is the ideal time to pull out all the clothes from the drawers and to pull all the toilet paper off the roll and to wipe the walls and floors with it.

And life has been even more exciting now that she toddles around so much!

She half crawls, half walks, maybe a little more crawling than walking, but she's almost a full-fledge walker!

And seeing the fish in the aquarium was a highlight of this past weekend.

She kept saying "Oooh!" as they swam by.

I realized after a while that the people around us were paying more attention to Ella's awe than to the fish in the tank.

Ella decided that this would be an ideal moment to flash her charm smile and wave her little fingers at everyone around us with her little high pitched, "hi!" and little shy tilt of her head.

That did it, everyone was smitten.

We never fail to make friends wherever we go.

 And bath time never seems to get old.

(Doesn't she look so grown up in that picture on the left? Bah! Stop growing already, baby girl!)

 It's especially fun with cousins.

The End.