New pictures

All snuggled up

After Ella gets out of the bathtub, Charles always wraps her all up in a towel. She giggles and then works her way out of it.

Ella & Logan

Here's Ella & Logan last weekend at our house eating pizza. Logan is our nephew and Ella truly adores him, pointing to his picture on the fridge on an almost daily basis!

New hair-do

Ella's hair is getting thick now. Not a lot of length yet. At any rate, enough now to mess it up. She did have a mo-hawk in the bathtub, but we couldn't get a good picture of it, so you'll have to settle for this.

She is learning many new works at daycare; milk, juice, hi, bye, cheese, please, just to name a few. It's funny because we'll encourage her to name the food or thing and she won't say it and then we'll give up or walk away and then she'll say it. Daycare told us yesterday that she was taking a nap in her crib and woke up and said "Juice" - her new favorite word.

I love to slide

Ella's favorite part of the park is the slide. She wouldn't go on this twisty one and then once she did, we couldn't get her off it. Everytime she went down, she's wave and say "Bye".

Smiley

We went to the park last night. As you can see, Ella really likes the park.

New Sport: Basketball

Ella isn't going to win any scholarships playing like this, but boy is she having fun. Thanks Brian & Sarah for the basketball hoop!

Allison & Kenny

So here's my friend Allison from work with Kenny Chesney last Friday night at his concert in Des Moines. Her friend won tickets and got back stage passes. What a lucky duck!

Easter Egg Hunt

Here is Ella collecting Easter eggs on Sunday. Thanks to my sister in law Heather for getting a lot of easter eggs ready for Ella and her cousin Paige. Ella did pretty good until she'd stick her hand through the handle of the basket and drop the egg on the ground again.

Grandma Eleanor and Nae

After Easter Mass on Sunday, we had breakfast with my grandparents. Here is Ella with her Great Grandma Eleanor and her Great Aunt Renae, who is also my Godmother. Ella just loves these two (once she warms up). Grandma and Nae are teaching her how to drive in this picture.

Playing with my cousin Laura

Laura is taking piano lessons and played for us at Easter time. Ella thought she'd better get in on that deal. Thanks Laura for letting Ella play with you.

Ella is slowly starting to warm up to strangers. For a while there, it would take hours before she would go to someone she didn't know, or didn't spend a lot of time with. Now, she's getting older and is getting less shy with her aunts, uncles, and cousins.

Her cheeks really turn rosy red when she gets warm, which happens pretty often anymore since she runs non-stop. She's getting to be a pretty wild little girl and is starting to talk more. She's really good at nana (for banana) which she loves! It's amazing how much she has changed in just the past month.

She moved up to an older kids room at daycare and we think that is also helping her vocabulary development. She's getting better at telling us and showing us what she wants and needs.

She's just getting over an ear infection. The first one since her tubes fell out and the ENT removed them from her ears. She's on the 2nd round of antibiotics, so we're keeping our fingers crossed that we don't have to have tubes in again.

Playing with Colten and Laura

Here's Ella throwing a fabric ball back and forth with her cousin's Colten and Laura.

Fun Easter Dress

Here is Ella in her fun Easter dress that I got from a friend. It also has a cute hat that matches it, but of course, Ella wouldn't wear it. She does love Grandma Helen's rocking chair though!

Wheee!

Boy, did Ella and I ever have fun with this motorized wheelchair. A friend of my dad's bought it (must have been cheap) and so this friend stores it at my dad and his brother's body shop.

Ella was so scared of it when I first got on it. Shortly there after, she was running the control and having a good time doing it!