Ella and Lexi

Ella has a friend named Lexi Smithson. They play together a lot and are SO cute together. Lexi was on vacation for over 2 weeks and EVERY day Ella looked at me with sad eyes and said "Lexi?" when I told her what we were doing that day. I had to tell her "no, lexi won't be there today." It was the saddest thing ever! I don't know what I'll do if she actually has a friend who moves away! Anyway, Lexi is back and they're back to being adorable together.

4th of July

For the 4th of July we got to go to the Towson parade with a lot of Chris' family (Nancy, Amy and the kids, Drew, Ping, and the 3 of us). Uncle Lou went down at 5am and saved us AWESOME seats so all we did was arrive a little bit before it started and enjoy. With all of the things that can go wrong with such an endeavor (traffic, sick or whiny kids, bad parking, a long walk, bad seats, too hot etc.) it went pretty much perfectly! Ella is mesmerized by any type of "spectacle" so a parad definitely fit the bill and she loved it!

From Left to Right Amy, Christopher, Nancy, Ping, Drew, Hannah, me, Ella, Auny Jenny, Louie, Emily, Uncle Lou

Music Class

For the last few months, thanks to Grandpa Phil, Ella and I have been going to a toddler music class with Aunt Amy, Christopher (2yrs old) and Hannah (10 mo). It's been a lot of fun and Ella has progressed a lot. When we started she couldn't even walk let a lone participate much but now she can shake an egg and bang on a tambourine with the best of 'em. The main thing that is so great about the class is that we get CD's to take home and we only sing the songs from the CD's so Ella always recognizes them and can "sing" along (usually only at home not in class). She loves doing the motions and "dancing" to the songs. Some of here favorites were "Everybody loves Saturday Night," "John the Rabbit," "Hello Everybody," and "Robin Red Breast." I would recommend Olenka School of Music for sure. Oh, and Ella is surprsingly good at the castanettes.

The Evolution of Sink Time

Ella gets to stand on a chair and play in the sink at Nana's house and she LOVES it. She can't reach the water in our kitchen sink because it's too far back so she usually plays with water outside. However, Aunt Marissa was here and decided that if Ella wanted to play in the sink she should just get in the sink and it evolved from there.





Standing in the water, playing with her tootbrush, very tame








Drinking the water, very clean, going well so far...






Then, she sat in the water, we took off her onesie, and she spotted Daddy finishing off the brownie batter and wanted in on that...

Getting into it...

Getting REALLY into it.


Then we decided it was a good time for her to try a popsicle since she was already messy.


Chris, Marissa, and I laughed for a LONG time watching her and Ella had a (very messy, sugary) blast.

June extras

I have a TON of pictures and lots of stories and very little time so here's a quick wrap up of June...

We finally figured out that "GG" for great-grandma is the best thing for Ella to call Mama on this visit to Mama's hospital room (she had congestive heart failure and a bad bruise from falling but went home the next day!)

Chris got some new shoes and Ella tried on his size 15s before he did.

Ella disappeared and was very quiet. I found her almost in her closet, sitting in this box reading to herself, I watched and took pictures very quietly and she kept reading for at least 5 minutes (a LONG time in toddler world).

Last but not least for this post is Ella and baby Hope. She definitely has a maternal instinct and loves "babying" Hope and playing with Aunt Holly :-)