Not sure why but for the past weeek Claire has been saying "Don't get mad at Daddy. I love my daddy and you can't get mad at him".. Now she likes to say it often and has a smile on her face. Well just now at dinner Claire said it again and then Ella says "Yeah mom don't get mad at daddy - don't get mad at him....don't step on him and hurt him.....because if you do you will have to sit in the chair (black chair I put her in when she does something really bad). Then she says we don't hit, we don't hit anyone, we don't hit Claire, we don't hit Ella, we don't hit anyone." Very funny.

This morning Ella was woken up by me in order to get Claire to pre-school. She was very tired and her eyes were too. I put her on the changing table and she says "My eyes are not working mom - they are broken!". I told her that happens sometimes when you first wake up. I said give it some time and you will be able to see. About 30 seconds later she screams "I CAN SEEE NOW!!!! I CAN SEE THEY ARE WORKING NOW!!". Oh that was sooooo funny. Nice start to the day.

Today we converted Ella's crib into a toddler bed. I would have held off longer (since I like to sleep in the morning) but at the end of May we are taking a 2 week trip and she will be sleeping in a bed not a crib. We wanted to give her the 2 months to get used to it so that we don't have to worry about her falling out when we are in hotels or on a boat.

We took the crib apart and both Grandma and Grammie watched over the web cam. The girls were so excited. They were jumping in the bed and singing and giggling. They were jumping off bed onto floor - mattress real close to floor. Well this was the first night sleeping in her big girl bed. We will see how she does. I put pillows on the floor just in case she falls out. I also put a gate at her door and locked the bathroom door to Claire's room. The hope is that she will wake up and just play in her room until we get there. Hoping she will not open door and cry because gate is there. We will see.

Ella just ran into the kitchen saying "Mommy I got poopie on my finger!!" And she did. Yuck. She is on antibiotics since her nose has been running with green snot for 6 months. You know what happens - pretty messy diapers and this one was green. I ran her to the bathroom to wash her hands hoping she would not touch her self or me :)

Yesterday Ella did her first poopy on the toilet. She was happy when she flushed since the poopy was saying weeeeeee and going to play with his friends in poopyland.

Ella had her 2 year checkup yesterday and she is doing great. She weighed in at 23pounds 14 ounce (10-25 percentile) and 33 3/4 inches tall (50 percentile). If you compare her to Claire at the same age she is 1 pound heavier and 1 inch taller. Kind of interesting. So she will be a slightly bigger kid :) I laugh since they are both tiny ones.

Ella continues to amaze us with her speech. The sentence structures she is using now is more a 2 1/2 - 3 year old. We have to remind ourselves she is only just 2.

She is so full of life and active in everything she does. She usually always happy - except when she is tired.

She continues to do pee pee on the toilet here and there throughout the day. We had a better routine before the family came for the holidays. Trying to get back to that now.

She had seemed to be dropping her nap for about 2 months here. Just before xmas she went 7 days without a nap and seemed OK. Just after that she has been taking naps everyday and sleeping a lot. Not sure what happened. I was kind of looking forward to the no nap thing so that I was free to be out with the girls for the day. Oh well. We will see what happens.

Ella has been doing very well with using the potty. She goes anywhere from 2-5 a day. She loves to sit and hear her pee tinkle in the water. Best of all she loves to flush. She says "I have to go the bathroom". I say OK. She then proceeds to run as fast as she can (panting like a dog)to the toilet. She opens the door, runs in, lifts the seat, puts on her potty seat, drags the stool and is on the potty. She pee's with a big smile on her face. I wipe her. She gets off toilet and flushes with a huge giggle and then runs to the sink to wash her hands. Not sure if this is a just a phase but it is pretty cool that she is starting so early.

A few weeks ago we took out the floor potty for Ella since she was asking to go potty. She would ask to go and we would put her on. She would sit for a total of maybe 5-6 second and then get off. So that is that. Yesterday at like 1:30PM after only have one diaper change in the AM she had a dry diaper. I was like that is odd since she drank a lot in that time frame. She says mom I want to go to the bathroom. I said OK. I put her on the potty. I made sure she stayed on the toilet and held onto the handles and then she went. She did her first pee pee on the toilet. She was so excited. She was gigging through the whole thing. We will see where this goes. Claire started this at the same time and was in undies till age 3.

We just returned from Ella's 19 (supposed to be 18mth) month checkup. She is doing well. Her weight is 22-8 pounds and her height is 32 inches and head 18 1/2. For weight she is in the 25% and her height in the 50%. She is a little bigger then Claire was at this age but not by much.

I feel like such a slacker since I have not posted much about Ella. They say that happens with the second one but I don't feel great about it. So I finally have stopped to do it now.

Ella is a awesome. OK done. See you later. Kidding :)

Ella has grown up so fast. It feels like yesterday when I was on bedrest and she was kicking around in my belly. She just turned 19 mths yesterday. She is such a funny girl. Always laughing and talking. Oh does she talk so much. At about 16-16.5 mths she was using over 50 words. At this point I have stopped counting. She is now speaking in 3-4 word sentences and can say words with 3 syllables. She has also worked out how to properly add "ing" to the endings on words. At the airport a few weeks ago she says "Mommy airplane is flying". Or she might say I want to "run" and then say "Claire is running". Very excited to have a second child who can communicate so well. I never expected that after Claire. I guess she has Claire to teach her. She repeats everything.

She also loves to sing. I am amazed at how much she picks up. She sings Twinkle Twinkle, Ba Ba Black Sheep, Tender Shepard (from Peter Pan), Happy Birthday, Rain Rain go away and Rock-a-bye Baby. She sings almost the entire song.

She is also very active. She likes to climb, walk down the steps (holding on of course). Starting to do some good jumping. Actually getting both feet off ground.

She also loves to read. That is pretty much the only time you can get her to sit still and focus. We have a bunch a books near her crib that she can reach. When she wakes up from a nap or in the morning the first thing she does is grab a book and start reading.

That is it for now. Have her 19th mth (late for 18th) next week so we will see how much she ways. I know she is tiny for her age.

I was driving yesterday and came to a quick stop at a light. I then hear from Claire "Woh that was close - GIRL!!" Pretty funny. Not sure where the GIRL part came from :)

Today the girls and I had a nice morning out playing at the park and shopping at Target. When we got home I was unstrapping Claire from her car seat and felt this overwhelming need to just kiss her and hug her. She did not want me to do it. So I said OK and I walked around Van to unstrap Ella and said "Ella would you like some love?" and I gave Ella a kiss and a hug. Claire got upset and started slapping Ella in the face (not too hard but enough). I got very stern with her and told her to get out of the car and get in the house. She was crying because she knew she did something wrong. I put Ella down for nap and came down to have a discussion. I asked her if she knew why I got upset with her. She says "because I hit Ella". I said yes. I then asked her why she did it then she says "Because I wanted to get the love out of her heart". I almost fell over with laughter. I had to hold it in since we were having a serious conversation. Oh this child comes up with the most adult like language.

Is is not about 14.5 months and has finally decided it was time to walk. She has been taking 5-6 steps at a time since her 1st birthday but never seemed interested in walking more. During that time her speech has grown tremendously. She is talking so much. They say kids only work on one at a time. So I figured once she felt good enough with the speech she would want to walk. I was right. She is now walking. The past 1.5 weeks she has been taking the initiative to walks. Now she is almost there. She walks everywhere and is enjoying it. She still will crawl but is walking 85% of the time. Still getting used to turning around and having her walking toward me saying "MaMa MaMa". Very exciting.

Ella had her 1 year checkup about 2 weeks ago. She is 18 pounds 6 ounces and 27 3/4 in height. She again dropped down in percentile. At her 9mth appt she was in the 25-50% but now she is in the 10-25th%. I was like what is happening? He said we will just watch it. Makes you feel a little worried as a parent - wondering if I am feeding her enough. I am slowly weening her now (which is hard) but needs to be done. The funny thing about her stats is that she is 1 inch shorter then Claire was at this age and 4 oz lighter. Does not seem possible since Ella fits very well in the 18 month clothing and Claire was still wearing the 12th close at 1 year. Who knows.

She has slowed down in the walking department. She will only take 2-4 steps at a time and that is it. Has stopped taking the initiative to let go and walk on her own. But her speech as started up again. It is said that they will only work on one or the other not both. So I guess once her speech gets to a certain point she will finish up the walking thing. Also doing well in the climbing area. She climbs and stands up on her chair (yikes!!).

As far as her speech she does a handful of animal sounds, mom and dad of course, she said "Inge" last night. As far as sign's she is doing light, done and milk. She is getting good at identifying things. I will ask where's the "sun" and she will point to it in a book. Obsessed with balloons. She says "BA BA". She also is very focused on pointing out "eyes". She points to them in books, on her toys and on me and says "eyes". She almost took my eye out the other night :)

Yesterday morning I was making Claire her breakfast. She convinced me to buy strawberries at the store the day before and wanted some in her cereal. Unfortunately when I opened the container they were moldy and nasty. I told he I am sorry that she could not have them because they were moldy and nasty. She looked at me for a second and this unbelievable sadness came over her. She made me almost cry. Tears started building up in her eyes. I asked her what was the matter. When she finally mustered up the words to express her feeling she says "Mommy get something to smack them!". I was very confused and asked her what she meant. She said it again. I asked "smack what?". She replied "the mold. Get something to smack the mold out of the strawberries". I pretty much lost it. Where does she come up with this stuff? :) :)