Another long overdue update post

I swear I'll be a better blogger!!! (yeah right.)

Anyway - Ellery will be 17 months old next week and is such a delight (most of the time - LOL)

our troubles of late are mostly her "testing" - knowing she's doing something that's a "no no" and doing it anyway - while looking at us like "i know i'm not supposed to be doing this. . but . .i'm going to anyway so THERE". We're also dealing with some biting and hitting - which i'm NOT loving and i haven't figured out A. where she "learned" it and B. how to effectively stop it. SO - those are the current battles we're waging.

We have been having SUCH fun now that the weather is warm - Ellery just LOVES blowing bubbles and with her SUPER huge wand that Nanny bought her she can wave it around and do it all by herself :)

Over Memorial Day weekend we played outside a ton and also got to go to the zoo with Tabitha, Tom and Max - that was so fun! The kids had a great time looking at all the animals.

Ellery is still over the moon in love with Belle - and I *think* after 17 months Belle just might be getting used to the "newcomer" **eyeroll**

The little monkey's vocabulary is expanding too. . she says a bunch of stuff but nothing really regularly except a few.

She has said:

Mama (and variations - Mom etc)
Dada
Nana
Belle
kitty
pretty
book
key
tivo (!!!)
monkey
hi
okay
uh oh

she's also said "things" - the other day i KNOW she said "what are you doing" while john was at the computer - obviously it wasn't as clear as if you or I had said it. . but you could just TELL that's what she meant :)

She's also able to use a spoon correctly and we're working on a fork - she feeds herself oatmeal, applesauce and yogurt with the spoon - pretty neatly too!!!

I'm going to do a separate picture post because I have a TON