17 Months

Once again, I can't believe how the time is flying by. Ellie is 17 months today and is growing like crazy. She is learning so much each day and seriously shocks me by the things she can do. Here are some things she has been doing lately

• We started thinking of all the words she is saying and there are over 50 and new ones each day. She mimics a lot of what we say. The new thing that she has really started doing is saying more than one word at a time. This morning she said socks on. One of my favorite words that she says right now is hello. It comes out olLO?? And she will say it into any phone and really anything that she is pretending is a phone. Her little tongue will come out on the L's and it is so cute.
• She understands so much. She will go and get her boots if you ask, or go right over to her highchair when it's time to eat. One of my very favorite things is during her bedtime routine, we will say, "lets say prayer now" and she will run to the foot of the bed and fold her hands. Last night she even knelt down. It doesn't last threw the whole prayer, but at least she does it. She will also say Amen at the end. October 30, 2011.
• She is always jabbering. She will talk and talk and sing and sing. She gets especially loud if you are trying to have a conversation with someone else that is in the room. She sings during church and is hardly ever quiet. I love hearing her little voice when she wakes up in the morning or from naps. She will just sit and talk. Many times it is monkey noises, since her room is decorated with monkeys.
• She will point to different parts of her body and is obsessed with eyes and eyebrows right now. She loves to say and point to anybody's eye-even toys. In the morning while she is drink her milk, she usually lays in bed with us. She will play with either Patrick or my eyebrows the whole time.
• She still loves animal noises but won't do them on command most of the time. We usually hear them coming from her room, or she will bring an animal over and say its noise. Her doggy noise has change from a slurred rufrufruf to a deep and very concentrated on RRRUFFF. She loves doing a gorilla noise. This is one that we can usually get her to do on demand as long as we do it first. She will pound her fists on her chest like Tarzan. Pretty funny. She finally does a sheep noise too, and I didn't even realize she could do it, she just brought me her stuffed lamb and said baaa the other day. She also does a really great monkey face and will pull her ears our and puff her cheeks and then say oooo ooo aaaahh. October 26, 2011.
• She LOVES massages, just like her mommy:) The other day when Patrick was putting her to bed(he often gives her little massages while rocking her) she looked at him and threw her hand into the air to be massaged. After he was done, she conveniently turned over and threw her other hand toward him. The next night she grabbed my hands and put them on her head to be massaged. She is a silly little girl, and knows what she wants.
• She makes tons of goofy faces still. She gets this from Patrick:)
• She will try to do somersaults. She is so close to doing them too. She can get her head all the way under and then will either roll to the side, or just stay standing on her head until we help her finish her somersault. October 27, 2011 October 31, 2011
• She always wants to help with everything and is pretty good at putting away toys as long as you are helping and singing the clean up song. She loves to do everything that we are doing. While I make dinner, she is playing in the sink full of bubbles.
• She is still very social, but has really started to back off a little. She has been more and more clingy and apprehensive with new people, which I guess is good so she won't just go to anybody, but kind of sad too, when it's a family member....She loves playing with little friends and we have a little play group in our ward that we do quite a bit with. I don't have many pictures, but one little boy, Peter she absolutely loves. She says his name Peee Errr. It's really funny and is always, always yelled at the top of her lungs. The other day we were over at his house helping make wonder cookers(bean bag cookers) and Peter was napping. She kept yelling his name and I'm sure ended up waking him up....but they had fun together. Here is a pic of them on the wonder cookers eating popcorn and watching fox and the hound. November 4, 2011. And another one of them from a couple months ago on a walk. September 13, 2011. Big helpers, really this is the only way we can get them to leave the park happily... September 23, 2011.
• Eating has been hit and miss lately. She is not a big eater, but will eat when she's hungry. She doesn't like hardly any vegi's-or at least won't eat them. She loves crackers and pretzels. She also really likes breakfast foods, pancakes, french toast. She likes peanut butter and almost all fruit. She still loves yogurt and cottage cheese and will usually eat what we are eating, just not very much of it. We've really been working on not throwing our food on the floor and she does really good with this now. If she sees food on the floor or drops it, she says, "No, no."
• We have also been working on having her say excuse me, when it's needed:) Patrick or I will usually say excuse you....so this morning she said excuse you after she burped. Progress!!!
• She loves tickling and gets super ticklish when she is tired. Almost every night Patrick and her have a tickle session before bed. She laughs and laughs. She loves to tickle also and will come up and say, "tickle, tickle, tickle." October 31, 2011 This is her tickling herself...
• She is still taking 2 naps a day. One at 9:30am and another around 3pm. This is not going to last much longer, but I'm dragging it out because she is super ornery if she only has one nap. She usually doesn't nap longer than an hour and a half, but still sleeps great at night. From 7:30ish at night to 6:30ish in the morning.
• She loves climbing or standing on things....her wipe box, toys, remote controls, the back of the couch.....she can climb onto the couch or chair and is great and getting off of almost everything.
• She is a girly girl and loves shoes. She is always bringing me shoes to put on her and trying on everyone else's shoes. Love this picture of her in only a diaper and boots:) November 7, 2011. Sorry it's sideways....

I love having her in our family and love watching her learn and grow. Happy 17 months:)