Trying to Pull Up

I won't lie...Ella needed a little help getting all the way up, but she did most of the work! She does something new everyday, so it's hard to keep everything documented. She is actually saying, "da da da da da da," now. Of course Brent is proud of her, but at this point it's just a sound, not an official beckoning of her "Dada."

Almost On The Go

One minute Ella will be sitting like a big girl, just playing away and the next minute...

she gets a mischievous look in her eyes. She has a strong desire to move around like big sis.

She will get down and start to be in position, but one foot is usually in her way.
Finally, it looked so promising, but the next picture I could have taken was Ella's face smashing into the ground as she realized she's not strong enough to crawl yet. I rescued her instead of taking a picture of her whimpering. It won't be long until she has mastered all of the fundamentals necessary to crawl. Then, watch out world...her she comes.

More Fun With Kalyn

Cousin Kalyn got to come back today for more fun with Gracie. Luckily it wasn't raining this time, so we got to play outdoors some of the time. They had a good time riding their bikes.
Kalyn had a good time riding on one of Gracie's bikes. It was just her size!
Gracie tried to ride her Dora Hot Wheel car, but informed me it was too small for her. Notice that the safety fair we went to really did help though, because she wanted to wear her helmet...in our driveway! I guess you can never be too careful.

The bathing beauties had a good time in the bathtub. Practically every bath toy we own went in the water for a bathtime adventure.
As is common in most homes with small children, around 8 p.m. they get a little loopy! I told the girls they could take one picture making silly faces, and this is what they came up with.

More Gracie Quotes

I think I have posted before about Gracie telling me that she loves to look at Ella's face, because it's "so cute." Well, she took it a step farther today and said, "Mommy, when I look at Ella's face I just want to cry because (long pause) it's just so cute. It just makes me so happy that she is so cute." What a doll. Some day they will be slamming doors in each others faces and screaming about how much they dislike each other, but for now, my girls are buds!

A Saturday Good For Splashing

About all this Saturday has been good for is splashing in puddles. Gracie was playing on the computer this morning when I got home from walking Molly. I told Gracie to get her boots on because there were tons of puddles. The rain water was just gushing down our hills, so she was thrilled.
I promise I don't tell her to pose...she just does it on her own. If she sees the camera aimed at her, she quickly strikes whatever pose she feels like.

This afternoon Grandpa and Nana called and asked if they could come over, so that was a nice surprise. Gracie loved to play with them and told them everything she had been up to lately. She's quite the talker these days and has stories that practically never end. We enjoy those stories though.

Hurricane Talk

Gracie has been very depressed by all of the rain we have been getting. She wakes up, looks out her window and then comes out to report what the weather is like. This morning she asked in a very whiny voice why it has to rain everyday. I tried to explain that we were lucky because some people in Texas were having bad storms called hurricanes, and those storms were pushing rain up our way in Missouri. She said, "Well, if it keeps raining in Texas I am going to be sad. I am going to get mad if it keeps raining." This afternoon we got out Gracie's Noah's Ark toy that she has had for a long time, and had practically forgotten about. We had a little talk about floods. She had a good time preparing her ark for the numerous pretend floods we had in our basement this afternoon, but it still made her sad to look outside and see the rain.

Ella the One-Man Band

Like mother like daughter. Ella likes the keyboard that she swiped from Gracie's room!

Ella got a big kick out of making the drum light up when she hit it. It was good for quite a few grins. Now she just needs a cowbell! Right, Bruce?