This picture probably goes better with the one of Ellie's namesake from my last post.
See?
And this last one is her telling me no more pictures once she realized I was taking pictures of her hair. (She saw my last post.) It had been standing completely on end, every last hair on her head, but she brushed her hands over it when we laughed and I didn't get a picture of it in all its glory in time. I guess she is starting to get a little self-conscious. So no more crazy hair posts after this without Ellie's permission. I always thought any daughter of mine would have crazy hair problems, I just thought they would be the same crazy hair problems I have. But Ellie has always marched to her own beat.
She loves the trampoline. Did I ruin the illusion? Should I have let you believe her hair does that on it's own? It practically does most days.
This picture got cut off, but she just looks too happy in it not to post.
It dawned on me looking at these pictures that Ellie has a Disney doppelganger.
I had forgotten until we watched Up again with her that this little girl was also named Ellie. It's funny to me how much these Ellies are alike, hairstyles aside. Our Ellie is a non-stop talker, always wanting to go on "bentures" [adventures]. She creates adventures for her "guys" all the time, narrating their precarious falls from the couch, dangerous slides down the toy box, and arduous treks across the kitchen table during lunch. Everything is an adventure with Ellie. If we need to get her to go somewhere, we just tell her it's time to go on an adventure and she's game--the library, the bank, the rhino store (not as exciting as it sounds; it's just Costco, but she was really into rhinos for a while, so we called it the rhino store and she was all for going. Wal-Mart is the donkey store, and I forget what some of the others are, but she remembers them all . . .). Sometimes it's exciting just going over speed bumps in the parking lot with her.
Sometimes it can be a little nerve wracking to have such a little girl willing to try anything.Now it's funny to tell the story about the time she climbed all the way up to very top of toys at the indoor McDonald's playground and got stuck when she was about 20 mos. old, but at the time seeing my little baby up there, excitedly waving down, "Hi, Mommy!" was a little more terrifying. I thought we were going to have to live there.
Now we just embrace this daredevil side of her. And really, really hope she doesn't do too much of it while we're not there to catch her.
And run to grab the camera quick when we are.
Yesterday was Charlie's half birthday.
He was pretty excited, even though he wasn't feeling great.
Goal for this month: keep him in pants that are long enough. I cannot keep up with this kid!
This past month he has developed a few more tricks to add to his repertoire. He now rolls over and is really working on sitting up.
He has also developed more of an interest in toys. He loves this Kermit puppet I picked up at a consignment sale. Ellie is kind of afraid of it unless it is across the room.
(Note the long enough pants here--even too long.)
(Sidenote: Ellie got new shoes that she loves to show off. My mom got them for her while visiting Chinatown while on vacation in San Francisco. Ellie loves to wear her "China shoes" with her "Fancy Nancy" socks.)
Another new adventure for Charlie this month is solid foods. You can see how much he loves it. He really hates this. We have been taking it slow and trying lots of different things with him. Hopefully he'll get the hang of it soon. Eating has been such a challenge for him already, we don't want him to hate it altogether. It is such a triumph just getting him to finish a small container of sweet potatoes.I will have to remind myself of this when he is a teenager and eating us out of house an home. Yesterday we worked on peas. I promised him better fare for his real birthday.
He really seems to respond to music and spends some good guitar time with Daddy.
And of course Ellie has to get in on whatever Charlie is doing these days.
He is also getting dragged into Ellie's capers more and more now. This tub was alternately her nest and car, and she insisted on Charlie joining her.
You can tell he's super excited about this order of power. I love his expression here.
Charlie's other favorite thing this month is outside. We have been spending more and more time outside as the weather has gotten to that nice in-between of not-too-wet but not unbearably hot yet.
Below is a little poorly edited montage of Ellie and Charlie outside. Sometimes when Ellie gets really excited her speaking is almost unintelligible. She was really excited about pushing Charlie on the swing, and I think she's saying "Charlie's smiling at Ellie." Other points not sure.
So that's a bit of a catch-up on the back-log of pictures I've been collecting. I'll have to get more Ellie stories and kid pictures down soon before I can't keep up. Sometimes I just want to tell them all to hold still a minute so I can catch up, but I'm lucky to even get them still enough for a picture now and then, right?
