21 Months Old!

I can't believe that my baby is 21 months old today.  How did this happen?  She is sure growing up fast these days.  I feel like I say this every month, but Ella is so busy.  During her waking hours, she is just everywhere and into everything.  I cannot even count how many times I am cleaning a room or picking up after the kids with her buzzing around me.  When I am done, I look behind me to find the previous room all messed up due to Ella's "help."  She has a knack of "undoing" things after I have done them.  Oh that girl.  She also continues to use my white, desk chair in the kitchen to get into anything up high.  She slides that thing all over the kitchen and quickly climbs up on it to access any counter top in the room.  Ugh.  Ella also continues to love doing whatever her siblings are doing and copies them all them time.  Whenever it is time to leave the house, she immediately figures this out and runs to the laundry room to get her shoes to follow the rest of us out of the house.  However, it is a major problem when she isn't going with the group.  A sobbing and heartbroken baby is always left behind to be soothed by the other parent.  Ella loves running from place to place which always makes me smile because it is so cute.  She also can be found shouting, "Weeeee," as she runs around the house if she is super excited.  Ella loves dancing and will start busting a move whenever she hears music on the TV or in the car or anywhere else.  I just love it.  She loves shoes and puts them on all the time.  Her current favorites are the snow boots I recently pulled out for our Priest Lake trip.  She wears those boots everywhere!  She also is very girly and loves wearing jewelry or carrying a purse around the house.  Also, whenever we ask her where someone or something is that she doesn't know, she holds out her hands in the upturned way that we all do when we don't know the answer.  It's so funny!  Ella is still a picky eater after being the best eater ever.  She refuses most meats and vegetables at dinner and other random food items for breakfast and lunch that differ from day to day.  She still sleeps well at night and takes a 2 hour nap every afternoon.  Ella LOVES her ya-ya (pacifier) and her soft, pink blanket and talks about them nonstop during the day.  In fact, she still regularily sneaks up to her room to get a ya-ya from her crib and will suddenly appear back downstairs with it in her mouth.  Oh, that sneaky girl.  Ella continues to learn new words and her favorite these days is "toot."  She loves to say it whenever someone toots in our house and points to that person's bottom.  We think this is so funny!  Ella's new words for the past month are:  gummies, cars, bubbles, bowl, broke, shoes, hair, wa-wa (for water), ca-ca (for bird), baby, eat, more, hot, shoes, cookies, cheese, amen, ocks (for socks), Logan, woof woof, the sound a lion, bear, and sheep/goat make, book, choo choo, juice, help you, ball, and back (for backpack).  We sure love our Ella Avalon!