Amy's Adventures: Ella {18 Months}

How is our little baby Gabriella Marie a year and a half already?! It has been a whirlwind. I feel like just a few weeks ago she was a tiny little baby. Wrong! She's growing so fast, and she continues to learn funny new things nearly every day.

We just had her 18 month checkup, and she's still got Mike's height! The doctor is happy with all her measurements, and says that everything is healthy & consistent.
She weighs 25 lbs 4 oz, which is the 80th percentile
She is 2 ft 10.5 inches, which is the 99th percentile for height
Her head is 46.4 cm around, which is the 52nd percentile

I may have said this before, but Ella is saying SO many words. It seems like every day or two, she learns a new word. She connects the word to the object, too, which is funny. When she sees that object, she gets really excited and shouts the word. A recent one was Clock. When she sees a clock on the wall she gets really excited, points to it, and shouts "Clock!" Some other new ones are Swing (although it sounds like Weee) and Slide (which sounds like Fries). Even though she doesn't pronounce all the words correctly, Mike and I can tell what she's saying most of the time.

One of her new favorite things is singing the alphabet. She can get to E correctly, then she stumbles through.. but she does get some of them right! She obviously has no idea what she's singing, but she loves the song. She also likes counting songs. She has one that's 1 to 5 and one that's 1 to 10, and she likes to sing them randomly... but I try to correlate it with counting objects. When we go down the stairs, we count them--things like that.

Early in the month was March Madness. If you know Mike, you know that means nothing exists on our television except college basketball for a full month. (oh joy.) In order to keep Ella entertained and involved, we had her fill out a bracket. We wrote each team on a slip of paper (using crayon, of course), then we laid down the matchup, and she picked one slip of paper for each matchup. For the first couple of rounds, she actually did really well! She had a few upsets, and her Final Four was quite impressive. She even had a major favorite (Kentucky) winning it all. In addition to filling out her bracket, she requested basketball for weeks on end. Seriously, she would say "Ba-ball" anytime she either saw a basketball clip, game, or commercial, or if there was something else on tv she would say "ba-ball" and once we'd change it to a game, she would get excited. Mike has officially created a monster.

At the very beginning of the month, Grandma Marie and Grandpa Dennis (Mike's mom and dad) came to visit. They were both here for a weekend, and Marie stayed for a week. It actually worked out really well, because she came when Mike was out of town for several days. It was great to have an extra pair of hands to help (and entertain!). I'm not sure who enjoyed it more-- Ella or Marie!

Ella and Grandma Marie at the last home hockey game of the year

ice cream at the hockey game!

playing with a shaker at the game. she had enough hockey for one season.. she just wanted to play!

Ella and I at the game

She has officially figured out how to get to Mike during the games!

Ella's first donut, compliments of Grandma Marie & Grandpa Dennis

a lunch date to Chick-Fil-A while Marie was here. Ella loved the play area!

first-ever kids meal. yum!

Since the weather has finally been nice, we've been playing outside a lot! Sidewalk chalk, bubbles, walks and parks. Even a sandbox at daycare! Ella really never wants to go inside; if it was up to her, she would play outside all day. Last week she even took off toward the park on her own twice. It's not far from our house, but far enough that she's too little to go alone. I have a feeling it won't be the last time she wanders over there alone!

As far as food, she's eating more "regular" foods. She is tolerating more spices and more meat, so she's eating dinner with us a little more often. She still has things like tortellini or ravioli if we're having something that really isn't too kid-friendly, but that's happening less often (which is nice). She still LOVES fruit and enjoys some veggies. She's using a fork and spoon a little better each week, and she definitely likes her independence.

starting to eat things like a big girl!

As you can tell, it's been a really fun month around here. We're really looking forward to summer-- a couple trips planned, and lots of fun outings around town. Ella is a blast, and she entertains us each and every day. Here are a few pictures of our fun over the last month.