17 Months: Ellie

I've been pretty terrible at updating about Ellie as she gets older, but here's to hoping I will do better now that we're a bit more settled in!

Ellie turned 17 months old on the 1st! I can't believe she's that big, yet sometimes she acts like she's so much older!

This is the ONLY picture I have of her this month so far...

 She loves to wear headbands, and take them off...also she loves to run around in just a diaper :P

Here are some notable things about Ellie at 17 months old:

• She LOVES to draw with crayons, pens, pencils, ANYTHING...and she loves to draw on anything, too! We bought her a coloring book, but she prefers the coffee table, random papers she finds around or things she's not supposed to draw on!

• She's got 6 teeth! Woo hoo! 

• She weighs between 22 and 23 lbs

• She wears 18 month size clothes, the tallest setting of her cloth diapers :) but size 3 of disposables, and size 4 shoes. 

• She's a great sleeper, sleeping 12-13 hours at night and takes a 2-3 hour nap every afternoon.

• Outside is where she loves to be most, it's just unfortunate that we don't really have a place for her to play here, and the grass is just full of weeds. And it's also unfortunate that her pregnant mama has a hard time being outside in the heat for more that 5 minutes!

• She loves to run around our living room, especially with a blanket on top of her head (no idea where she got this idea...)

• She's become a picky eater lately and only wants to eat "papa" (pasta) "ish" (fish-goldfish) apples, bananas, "chsss" (cheese), peas, sometimes steamed broccoli and carrots and any kind of cereal. Occasionally, I can get her to eat chicken, if it's mixed in with other things. 

• She says quite the variety of words but her new ones are, Lemonade, birds and more. I can't think of any but those 3 right now but she also says lots of names, like "Hay Hay" (our neighbor Harrison back in Utah) "essca" (Jessica, also a neighbor in Utah) "NorNor" (Friend Norris) "Nena" (Friend Brenna), "Mama", "dada", "Papa" (Grandpa. Grandma is always Papa, too...)

• She loves to sing and dance and listen to my iPod when she gets her little hands on it!

• Whenever she makes messes or does something she knows she isn't supposed to, she says, "No No No No No!" It's funny, but not all at the same time!

• She goes to Nursery now, which is SO nice and she totally loves it! The only problem is that we have church at 1, and she usually doesn't take a nap before church, so by the time church is over at 4, she is SO ornery and worn out that the second we put her in the car to go home, she's out. She usually stays asleep when we bring her in though, and will sleep until we wake her up!

• She loves to play with anything and everything, especially bowls and cake pans from my kitchen cabinets! 

• She will watch ANYTHING on TV. Seriously, anything. It's no good. Though we only let her watch for up to 60 minutes a day. That may seem like a lot, but sometimes when I feel like dying or falling asleep, I can lie down on the couch, turn Netflix on, and she'll be a good little girl and sit with me while we watch Shaun the Sheep or Curious George.

We love her SO much and she's such a joy in our lives. I don't know what we would do without her...life would probably be much more quiet and not nearly as much fun!