Ella's 2nd Birthday

Ella's birthday is Christmas Eve. Poor kid. I guess the good part is that she has a few different birthdays: one for friends before everyone heads home for winter break, one for extended family whenever we see them, and one on her actual birthday. These are all followed immediately by Christmas. December 26 will be a real let down when she realizes that getting presents everyday isn't something to get used to.

Our friends Ali and Spencer got Ella the baby with the stroller.

Note the hat (Drake and Renee) and Elmo balloon (Aunt Riss).

Blowing out the candles. 

What you can't see because it won't let me upload for some reason, is Ella being sung to more than once because she liked the singing/blowing out candles more than the cake. 

She's two. This is weird. She's an energetic and opinionated little person that is constantly making us laugh. A few of her favorite things right now: bouncing, milk, cheese, books, turtles, babies, playing the piano, stars and singing every song she knows. It feels like yesterday she was having her first birthday. While I'm excited to see what next year will bring, I can't help but feel like she's growing up way too fast.

Happy Birthday Ella Bella!

Choo Choo Trains

Ella's newest things is taking all her penguin bath toys (she has ten), and lining them up on the edge of the bath. She calls this a choo choo train, and gets extremely upset if anyone moves them a fraction of an inch.

A completed choo choo

Fixing the choo choo

What you miss in this one is Ella getting mad at Kota for licking the blue one on the end.
I suppose this is our official welcome into toddler hood.

No, this is not a darling series of Ella helping to decorate the tree (We forgot to document that. Oops!)

This is Ella removing every ornament within reach and turning them into a...

Choo choo! 

She was so proud of herself :)

Fall Festivities :)

Get ready for a dump of pictures!

The Saturday before Halloween, the bookstore was putting on a fall party. Basically they were reading stories, decorating pumpkins and did a parade for the kids in costume. Needless to say, we took Ella and she had a lot of fun!

Costume parade action shot

this one's out of order, but it's here gutting a pumpkin.

She didn't like it, said it was "yucky."

Decorating the pumpkin at the bookstore

This was one of those halloween crafts.

Left side is the package, right is Ella's cat

She did it all by herself!

Sunday the 28th was Great-grandma Stella's birthday, so the whole family met at the zoo in ABQ.

Definitely too long of a drive to do too often, but we sure had a fun filled day!

Big chair

Happy birthday GG!

With Grandma Donna

Walking with dad

She learned how to buckle herself in her car seat this week.

It's a really great game

And Halloween day!

She's Elmo

Or as we called her, Ella-mo

Here we are about to leave for the mall, they do a trick or treat thing inside.

Ella and Xavier.

He's a scarecrow, it was freaking adorable.

All the dressed up people in our group.

Kyle and I were not so Halloween spirited

Her first house!

They had limes and very little candy... Ella wasn't sure what to think of that

Grandma Donna came down

Going to another house.

P.S. trick or treating makes for excellent practice of please and thank you!

This is the pumpkin she was gutting a million pictures ago

In other news, Ella now bites her nails

She also really likes the baby she sees in the mirror

Giving the baby in the mirror kisses

And the last picture from this week....

Books and Sock Buns

As most of you who are reading this know, Ella loves books! I mean LOVES them! It's getting to the point where I don't even read anymore, we sit together and she tells me the stories from memory. It's pretty adorable. So I took some pictures of her reading her new favorite, King Bidgoods in the bathtub.

Saturday morning tv time. Trust me, it's a big deal.

I learned how to do a sock bun.

So I that's how I did my and ella's hair this morning.

She's such a little hipster

Me trying to get her to kiss my cheek.

Didn't work, but the bun angles turned out nicely!

Halloween is quickly approaching. After Wednesday, get ready for some Elmo!!

This week...

Ella was sick. But she got really good at taking her own temperature!

Meet Kota! He's our new dog. He's a chorkie, which means he's part chihuahua and part yorkie.

Ella LOVES Kota. They chase each other around. It's great!

Going to the park!

Action shot with Ella and Kota.

Whenever Ella hangs from a bar like this at the park, we call her muscle baby.

She loves to play muscle baby!

She can now go down the slide all by herself!

Here she's telling Kota to stay.

Here she's telling him he's a good boy for staying.