Ellie's Second Birthday: Part 2

So about a week after Ellie's actual birthday, we drove out to Virginia to celebrate a combined birthday with her cousin, Ashlynne, whose birthday is 2 weeks after Ellie's.

Ashlynne's mom, Jenni, did most of the planning and decorating, since she lived closer. It was a rainbow theme.

Helping decorate. Jenni's sister was visiting, so she helped too.

So, my camera is having a focusing issue. It will be noticeable in most of the pictures. My apologies.

The balloons are filled with candy. 

I can't believe Ethan is almost 6 months old!

Jenny is sad because Ethan looked at her and cried. We understand.

Do you think we have enough people? This is only about half of them.

The birthday girls! They had leis and tutus.

The wonderful table decorations.

So, about the cake. I was given one job, and that was to make the cake. We were going to do a rainbow tiered cake and... I killed it. Not in a good way. As in, it died. A horrible and painful death. So the morning of the party we went out and bought a white cake and I decorated it.

Ignore the part where it looks like it's bleeding. That wasn't really my fault.

The girls loved their presents. The main problem was that they wanted to play with their presents right after they opened them, instead of opening new ones.

Giant Dora coloring book. What more could a 2 year-old want?

Ignore me and look at Ellie with that Elmo backpack. Best $5 I've ever spent at Walmart.

This might have been her favorite. All her toys get fed, washed and put to bed every single day.

Plus it's a great place to hide things.

Then we popped the balloons to get some candy! The little kids used pins, but the big kids threw darts.

Collecting the candy.

Outside party. It was right at this point that Ellie had to take a nap because she was absolutely exhausted. So the rest of us had lunch and ate cake while she slept.

This girl is hilarious!

So that was the party. As always, it was fun and crazy. And very colorful.

Oh, and here's another picture from that weekend:

Brook made a lego toilet. It was realistic enough that Ellie insisted on sitting on it until it broke.

Anyway, since Ellie is now 2, here's quick update on how she's growing:

Favorite movie: Elmo's potty time.

Favorite show: Sesame Street, Dora the Explorer, Curious George.

Favorite color: depends on the day.

Favorite toy: pretty much every toy she happens to be playing with.

Favorite song: ABCs, the Dora theme song.

Favorite food: fruit snacks, mac & cheese, yogurt and pizza.

She also loves picnics, bubbles, jumping, swings, slides, pretending to talk on the phone, emptying the dishwasher, sweeping, looking at pictures of herself and playing hide and seek with Daddy.

She is currently wearing 3T shirts and is starting to grow out of 2T pants. She's wearing size 7 shoes. She's about 27 pounds and is pretty tall for her age.

Her vocabulary gets bigger every day. It's funny when she says things and I realize that they are things that I say. For instance, the other day I took away some crayons she found and she got mad. She cried a bit and then came up to me and said, "Ellie so so upset."

She also likes to say:

"Sorry, *shakes head* mean to." (head shakes negate whatever she is saying.)

"So so happy see you!"

"Fruit snacks fruit snacks fruit snacks!" (or pizza or snack)

"Ellie do it!"

"Ellie help." or "So so big helper."

"Grandma's house?"

"___ sleeping."

"Bye! See later!"

As far as potty training goes, she's mostly got it figured out. Naps and going out are still a problem, but she rarely has accidents at home and we've moved from the little potty to the normal potty. She refuses to poop in the potty though. She will wait until she has a diaper on, even if she has to wait all day. She has also figured out how to use the toilet to her advantage. She's figured out that if she asks to go potty during church, she gets out of church for a while. A few weeks ago, she informed us she was going to poop in nursery, which is where she spends the rest of our time at church. She used to really like it, but now she has figured out that if she has a poopy diaper, she gets to get out. All they do is play and eat snacks, so I don't know why she wants out. Anyway, we were in the car on the way to church and she looked at me and said, "Ellie poop nursery."

The little stink.

Anyway, she's growing and growing. She's starting to lose some of her chubbiness and is not looking like a little girl more than a baby. It will be interesting to see how much she grows up in the next year.