We can finally walk outside without shriveling up and dying

See the clenched hands and teeth?

That is a regular expression on her face when in the presence of Fenton.

I'm still trying to decide if it is because she loves him so much she can hardly handle her feelings or if it's her restraining herself from attacking the boy who turned her world upside-down.

Or maybe a little of both.

Those identical mouths!

This picture!

So much wonderfulness captured in it between those two!

You know how the holidays are such a magical time when you're a kid?

And then as you grow up it's still such a fun time of year but it doesn't have the magic that it once had?

Now that we have a little girl it's like the magic is back, only this time I'm the one creating the magic for her and it's so fun!

We have been dancing around to "The Nightmare Before Christmas" for the past couple of weeks and it's the cutest to hear Ella's little voice sing "This is Halloween" or "Halloweenie," as she calls it.

We go up and down the Halloween aisles and push the buttons to get the animated witches to cackle over and over again and point out all the skeletons and pumpkins.

And we've been teaching her how to cheer for BYU football and when she sees it on TV she throws her arms up in the air and hollers, "Touchdown!"

At Costco we went up and down the Christmas tree aisle over and over again and Ella just stared in awe at all the beautiful sparkling lights.

I can't wait until she sees snow for the first time!

But until then, it feels like summer has just begun here because we can finally do outdoor activities now that it's cooled down enough to go outside and we are going outside as often as possible to soak in that beautiful sun! 

We've been having picnic dinners and just basking in the grass at the park, it's so lovely!

A little something about Ella:

When she gets upset she throws up.

Once, I was been in the store with her (and my mom) and she fell and got upset and was crying and screaming and the next thing I knew there was barf on the check-out counter and I had no idea what to even do and neither did any of the employees behind the counter.

And once in the middle of the night she started screaming her head off because somehow Gerard ended up on the outside of her bed and that's a tragedy so was shaking and screaming and I rushed in there, trying to calm her down and the next thing I knew her dinner was everywhere (although that time I rushed her into the bathroom in the nick of time!)

And long car rides make her pretty upset so that results in barf all over the backseat, which is awesome.

But there is nothing we can do except avoid car trips as much as possible because you can't just stop half way through the drive and be done when she's upset.

She barfed tonight right after dinner and we had to completely re-feed her dinner.

It is so stressful to have a little girl who is already throwing a tantrum and creating chaos and I'll be trying to discipline her and then add barf to the equation and it's just craziness!

If this continues into the terrible twos it will be amazing (lots of sarcasm there, in case that didn't translate).

But at the same time, I get the feeling that we will one day look back and find that it was kind of funny because, you know, the worse a (non-life-threatening) situation is, the funnier the story is later (I remind myself of this on the worst of days).

Another thing about her, but this one makes me laugh: 

When she wants to get into something that she is not allowed to get into she will turn to me and say "Bye! Bye! Bye!" and wave until I go away so that she can get into whatever it is without me telling her "no."

It's kind of hilarious!

Also, after we've gone and played with her friends or at the park she pretty routinely will tell me, "Fun!" as I strap her into her carseat.

"Yeah? That was fun?" I'll ask her.

"Yeah!" Nodding vigorously,  "Fun!"

Oh, I love it!