Ellie Grace-- 2 years old

(April 2018) Our Ellie girl is just two months shy of TWO YEARS old and I am in complete denial! I've been meaning to make a blog post all about her since she turned one and a half and, well, here we are.
All things Ellie.....

• Still obsessed with dogs! She likes to crawl around the house and pant like a dog. She loves Coco (my parents dog) more than just about anything else in this world. Every time we get in the car the first thing she says is, "Coco?" Randomly throughout the day she'll often ask me, too, "Mom, Coco?" When we do get to see Coco, Ellie knows exactly where her treats and leash are and puts them both to good use :)
• Loves other animals, too! Some of her favorites are birdies (burr or burr burr) and bunnies (hop hops or haw haws). She loves hearing birds chirping when we're outside but gets really frustrated that they fly away every time she walks up to one-- even if she "nees nees" (sneak sneaks). And she's been on a bunny kick since we started talking about them around Easter. Grandma Lexie let her take home three little bunny figurines. Two are a set--one is a girl and one a boy. Ellie has named them mama and dad. The third is smaller than the other two and Ellie named her Coco-- surprise of all surprises :) When she's talking about bunnies she says haw haw (hop hop) and then sniffs (like a bunny) and it's adorable :)
• Her favorite phrases right now are, "Mom, no" and "Dad, no." I asked Ben the other day how many times he thinks we'll here those phrases in our lives ;)  Ellie is becoming very independent and strong willed and likes to (try and) do things for herself. If she wants to do something she'll point to herself with both hands and say, "Me!"
• Loves makeup and lipstick! She has a sixth sense for knowing when I'm putting makeup on and will plop herself right down in my lap and try to get her hands on anything and everything in my makeup bag. She has given her baby dolls all makeovers when she's escaped with products! She has her own chapstick and she likes to put it on her chin rather than her lips. I'm pretty sure every toy in our house has had chapstick applied to it at least once. 
• Currently, her favorite food is popcorn (pop pop). She goes through about a bag (big pre-popped bag from Wal Mart) of it a week. If she's asking for it and we're not understanding her, she'll do the hand motions for popping from Pop Corn Popping on the Apricot Tree :)
• LOVES singing and dancing. She likes to stand on the couch/tables/chairs and sing while swaying back and forth. She requests "muse" (music) at least once a day and isn't content until the whole family is on the dance floor. She has some pretty good moves, too :) She also likes when I sing to her. I often have to sing to her while she's eating. Her most requested songs during meal time are Book of Mormon Stories, the Itsy Bitsy Spider, Popcorn Popping, I'm a little Teapot, and the Wheels on the Bus (her favorite part is the baby's on the bus and the mamas on the bus). She can do almost all of the actions to all of these songs. She also likes me to sing to her while we're rocking before bed. If I stop singing while we're rocking she'll say, "Mom, la la la (make a singing sound)." 
• Loves to color (CO). She likes to go to the printer and get out a piece of paper for each of us, even though she has her own coloring books and papers in our entertainment center. She'll scribble a bit but mostly she likes to instruct me on what to draw. Currently it's Minnie Mouse (with a bow bow, purse, and shoes), babies, a mama and dada-- all in a bath tub with fishies. Haha. Before this phase it twas balloons (ball balls), a birthday cake with candles (she just makes a blowing noise for this like she's blowing out candles), and presents (press). 
• Is obsessed with Boss Baby. I literally can't even count how many times she's watched it. She requests Baby multiple times a day (and we make her say Boss because she says it like Bosh and it's adorable) and I divert her attention multiple times a day. I'm pretty sure I could recite the entire movie and I'm just a little  really, really over it!
• Loves babies! (Hence her obsession with Boss Baby). Anytime she sees a baby, or a kid who looks close to her age or younger, she points and shouts "Baby!!" She loves taking care of her baby dolls and is a very good little mommy to them. The other day I peaked in on her playing in her room and she had picked her baby up out of it's bed, given it it's binky, and was swaying back and forth holding it like she was trying to comfort/calm it down. My heart just about melted! Then at a mission fireside we went to last weekend there was a baby sleeping in its careseat just ahead of us. She went over and gave him all of her toys one by one and just couldn't help her self from staring at him/reading to him/sitting by him. It made me so excited for her to be a big sister in just a couple of months!
• Ellie loves giving her toys baths. She'll get a towel out of the hall closet. have me get some bowls down and fill them up with water and bubbles (bubosh) and then get a couple measuring spoons out for us to use in the water. She knows how to get all of this set up at Grandma's too and taught grandma how to do it the other night! I'm pretty sure her plastic Minnie doll and princesses are the cleanest toys in the country.
• Recently learned how to ride a scooter! She hasn't quite caught on to riding a tricycle yet, but she loves riding on the kid scooter at grandma's. She has also gotten really brave at the park recently and can do a lot of it on her own now! She loves going down slides, through tunnels, swinging, and climbing ladders (with a little help from mom). 

Continued, July 2018 (25 months old) I never want to forget the way she... 

• Continues to be obsessed with all things Minnie Mouse. She had a Minnie birthday party and got a Minnie swimming suit that she's pretty smitten with. Ellie insists on wearing a "mimmy dess (minnie dress)" every single day. Luckily, she thinks that shirts are also dresses and I can usually convince her that anything pink or purple or with polka dots or a bow is a Minnie dress!
• Loves her baby brother, "Baby Be." She isn't interested in holding him yet but whenever I'm holding him or nursing him she has to be right next to us so she can stroke is his hair and hold his hands and piggies (feet). She also loves to turn on his rock n play for him, give him his binky, turn on his swing music, swing his swing, and watch him get diaper changes. Whenever she hears him cry or wimper, no matter how far away in the house he is, she stops whatever she's doing and says, "Oh no! Baby cry! Wa wa" 
• Loves twirling! She also loves dancing and will get a little smile and start dancing whenever she hears music. The hot dog dance is her favorite part of Mickey Mouse clubhouse and she gets up and starts dancing with them every time.
• Says "hep me, mama!" when she needs help.
• Says, "Pweeeeeeeeeeeeease!" to get basically anything she wants, haha!
• Talks in her scary voice. She says "monsers!" (monsters) and tilts her little head down and looks at me from the top of her eyes
• Loves to hold hands! Whenever we're driving somewhere or on a walk in her stroller she says, "mama, hode hands? pwease?" It's not very comfy for me to hold her hand from the front seat but how do I say no to that?!
• is slightly obsessed with YouTube videos of people playing with toys. She calls them "moo shishies (fishies)" because the first ones she watched were of animals. She requests them multiple times a day! 
• Says stop-- "GOS!" and holds her hand up
• Lifts her hands up in the air and excitedly says, "Ahhhhhh!" (in a sing songy voice) when she finds something she's looking for
• Says, "awwww" (in a singing voice) when we're cuddling and she wants me to sing to her
• Says, "hurry hurry, hide!!" and then runs to hide somewhere which usually entails standing against a wall :)
• Calls herself "princess e-yee" after her bath when she puts on her hooded towel 
• Can't sleep unless her water bottle is sitting on her changing table-- even if she's not thirsty, she just has to know that it's there
• Loves horses and calls them nee-haws (I think she puts neigh and yee-haw together :) ) 
• Cups her hand around her ear when she hears something and says, "noise!" or "what's dat?" or "I hear my ear!" (I hear with my ear)
• Is a great counter. Even though she skips #1 every time, haha. She can count to 10, but she'll usually start with a random number when she's counting something-- "3, 4, 5!" (when there's 3)
• Has an awesome imagination and is becoming a lot more independent when playing. I love to just sit and watch her when she's playing because she makes her toys have the funniest, most clever conversations. Sometimes I don't where she gets the stuff and sometimes I realize how much I say certain things to her! The other day she was carrying her baby doll and her doll was asking if she could walk but Ellie kept telling her, "No, I hode you." (something her and I had just done earlier in the day)
• Says, "me walk my feet!" when I'm holding her or she's in the stroller but she wants to walk 
• Knows all of the (basic) colors and loves to point out the colors of things. Her favorite color is purple! She also loves when she notices things that are the same color. She'll point it out and say, "Oh! Match match!" 
• Says "see (sit) bum bum" and will point to the spot where she wants you to sit
• Loves reading! She has some of her favorite books memorized and will "read" them to us and it's adorable
• Is talking in full, very animated (choppy) sentences and seems to add new words to her vocabulary every day. She can fully communicate with us and it's crazy but so nice haha. She seriously grows up more every day and I can't decide if I love it or if it breaks my heart!