Hello footy pajamas, I missed you!

These are her "duck ducks" that she LOVES!

She is such a climber!

And I blame him.  :)

She was born giving the stink eye.  ;)

I love this video of Cooper reading to Ella...

Messy Ella = No Love From Cooper

Tonight after an interesting supper of pizza and yogurt, Ella was a disgusting mess.  Clearly she has not yet mastered eating with a spoon.  :P  

So when Cooper walked by (note the pizza on his shirt as well), she tried to give him a hug.

 I like to mess with him, so I said, "Oh come on Cooper, give your sister a hug."  Note the terrified perma-smile on his face, and the slightly evil grin on hers.

Then, in usual Ella style, she decided to try force.  He managed to escape, but just barely.

Cooper goes back to school!

Cooper started back to preschool this Tuesday.  He is at the same preschool he went to last year, but this year he is in the four year class.  He is in the fortunate position of knowing most of the kids in his class already.  He was beyond thrilled to see his friends from last year, Miss Carly and Miss Janet from last year, and to get to know Miss Michelle and Miss Paulette!  I was so happy to see him excited about going back to school.  He walked right in, unpacked his book bag, found his name to put on the check-in chart, and headed over to his friend Abi to start playing.  He could hardly be bothered to tell us bye.  :)

Wow. School starting back + spending every second with my babies = bye bye blog. :P

Since Tuesday will be Cooper's first day of preschool, and I am hoping (surely!) I will post all about that soon, I am making this post all about Miss Ella K!  She is so funny!  She is so sweet and loving, but then she can get mad in a second - sometimes for absolutely no reason at all.  If she is whiny or just grouchy in general, she is either hungry or tired.  Even though she likes to pitch fits, run away and hide her face when you don't do something she wants, or as fast as she thinks you should, she is usually such a sweetie!  She gives kisses and hugs all the time, would walk across hot coals just to be near her brother, and can melt you with her precious smile.

She still points and grunts, and talks a lot of gibberish, but she will surprise you by saying a word you never would have thought she knew.  So far she can consistently say: mama, dada, bubba (brother), Nana, Pop, Papaw, Mimi (Grammy), Mamaw (for Mamaw and Grandma), Anna, Unc (Uncle Will), dog, ball, up, shoes, nose, toes, mouf (mouth), bow, bye bye, no (of course haha), nuk-nuk (milk - she used to say nak for snack and after 100 million times of us saying "milk?" she now says nuk-nuk :P), nak (snack), duce (juice which she doesn't even drink, hers is water, but since Cooper's is juice I guess she just assumes hers is too haha), tookie (cookie), mm-hm and uh-huh (for yes and no), duck, moo (cow), neigh neigh (horse), bock bock (chicken), baa baa (sheep), book, uh-oh, baby, hello (sounds like ha-wo), and night night.

If you spend five minutes with her you will think I am telling tales, but she really does use all of those words consistently at home.  Around people she doesn't see often she is very quiet, and she still, even at home, will point and grunt for things she wants.  She uses words a lot when she's looking at books.  She will also say next to nothing one day and you'll think she's lost all of those words, then she'll talk all day long the next day.  Her talking is very different from Cooper's was, but as our pediatrician says, not many children talk like Cooper.  He also said he would be pleased if she had 10 words at 18 months.  Now that she does have so many words, and I can see how much she understands, I am pretty relaxed about her talking.  I'm pretty sure she just can't get a word in with Cooper, Chris and me around all the time!

She can point to the following body parts: nose, eyes, mouth, ears, hair, bow (not a body part but it does go along with hair), fingers, hands, arm, leg, foot, toes, and belly.  She has no clue where her neck, back, chin, cheek, knee, or bottom are, but hey she's only 16 months old.  ;)

She has recently decided that she loves to read, and will bring books to you constantly to read saying, "book book".  She loves anything that plays music and will dance to any music at all, even if it's just Cooper singing to her (which by the way may be the sweetest thing I've seen in my life).  She loves to carry around her "baby", sort of throwing it over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes.  She will carry around a phone and say, "Ha-wo.  Gibber gibber gibber.  Bye bye."  She loves ride-on toys, her little farm animals, and whatever toy Cooper happens to be playing with at the time.  She still sleeps with her taggie blankie and lambie at night.  She lives lives lives for shoes!  She loves to wear shoes, even in the house, and will throw a fit if you try to take them off.  She will spend several minutes picking out just the ones she wants from her shoe drawer (it's the bottom drawer so she can see and pull out whichever pair(s) she wants).  I think she will definitely be a shoe lover when she grows up!