Ellie is 23 months old!

Little Ellie is 23 months old today!! :-) I know I missed when she turned 22 months... life has been crazy busy here with Eliot's summer courses and starting a new job. I've also started a mom's group at our church and, of course, been preparing for our upcoming Alaskan cruise, so blogging has made it to the bottom of the list sadly with all the sewing, crafting, cleaning, prepping, and packing I've been doing! Ellie is very busy getting into everything. Her word for anything she wants (and that she can't say yet) is "Buckle!!" because she loves buckles! Ellie has also started stringing words together, even saying, "I got it!" "Car Go" and "Bye Bye Ducks." A very industrious girl who loves trains, necklaces, Callie's Wild West, shoes, climbing, and anything her brother is doing. Often I will see Ellie pick up a book and "read" to herself. She also has gotten into duplo legos and the train set James got for his birthday. Pretty soon she will be moving into her own toddler bed (sniff!) and doing even more big-girl things (like the kind of training every parent dreads doing and yet it must be done). Ellie is also doing pretend play... she will feed her stuffed animals tea that she poured and pretend to sip things, etc. She loves dressing up, and has also taken to swimming like a fish (she even takes a breath and puts her face in the water!). Ellie also gives great hugs and kisses, but usually only on her terms. She is such a blessing in our lives, a silly dancing, wiggling, happy girl who loves to laugh! James has been a busy bee this summer, with swimming lessons and making new friends. We've explored many new parks and he's gotten really good at his bike (with training wheels still). I often go for walks with Ellie in the stroller and James riding his bike. James is also getting pretty good at writing his name, we are just starting to work on the last name and some sight words. He seems to enjoy numbers naturally. He also watched Wall-E for the first time recently so we've been talking a lot about robots, space, and some of the bigger words in the movie (like Directive, which has been fun for encouraging him to stay on task). He also loves the show Octonauts, which is about Ocean creatures. He and I made a lego Gupp-E today (a little underwater submarine used to rescue marine animals). James also has completed his summer study of Alaska and nautical terms, and he knows we will be going to see Salmon, which side of the ship is port/starboard, what is a glacier, how you pan for gold, etc. It's been a true joy to learn all about it right along with my kids. Homeschooling is hard at times but rewarding all around!