Just for my recollection....

A few things I want to remember about Ella as a new 2 year old:

• She loves to sing songs to herself to the tune of "twinkle twinkle little star" and makes up different lyrics.



• The three real songs she sings the most are "Twinkle Twinkle little Star", "Jesus Loves Me", and "Where is Thumbkins".



• She loves to pretend to read books to herself or to her Lamb but the words are always the same, "Ride the horse up and down, don't fall down" or "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the bible tells me so". Always ending with "Amen".
  


• Every now and then Ella wakes up early but if we pull her into bed with us, she'll sleep another hour or more.
  


• She loves for me to sing her a silly song each night before bed or before nap and will give me a topic or person to sing about. Michelle Young, I think you actually did this for Gavin too! Funny....


• Ella has LOTS of opinions on things, like what she wears or how things are done, and she communicates her opinions clearly. She especially wants you to acknowledge things that she says, and will repeat something over and over again until you acknowledge it.


• One of Ella's favorite games it to play "Push". This means that she pushes us over on the floor and we wrestle and play "ride the pony" and "airplane" on our feet and tickle each other. We do that every day.


• She loves to play hide and seek and counts to 5 hiding her eyes and then says, "ready or not here she comes!" She desperately wants to be found and will actually pretend cough to get you to go to where she is. :)


• Ella is very cuddly still. She loves to be held and still sucks her thumb when she is tired or going to sleep...thumb in mouth, first finger on nose.


• Her frequent use of the words "love it" when we do or see something she likes. And she says it very matter of factly. Cute.
  


• Ella loves to pretend play, especially when it involves taking care of her babies, or lamb, or cooking, or cleaning.

For example one day, I was upstairs drying my hair and I came down to see she had been cooking....

And was feeding her baby some "Potato Soup"...


Then she cleaned her dishes.

And just a few cute poses to end....

I think the previous list may seem somewhat insignificant to anyone else, but to Jason and I they are sweet things to treasure. They help us to remember the little joys of each stage, because there certainly are challenges mixed in too. (As I'm typing this, I hear Ella upstairs trying to negotiate her way out of bedtime!)