16 months

Sixteen months tomorrow -- our baby is definitely not a baby anymore! Ella can say:

Hi and Hello
Bye-bye
No
Mine
Thank you
All done
Moo

Her favorite bath toys are two little dalmatians. She loves animals -- birds, dogs, cats, horses, goats -- and loves petting zoos. She is almost ready for her first haircut, only 8 months behind her brother. Ella never met a pair of shoes that she didn't want to try on. She loves to "talk" on her toy phone and tries to swipe my phone any chance she gets. She has been accidentally breaking it little by little for a couple of months now and tonight I think she killed it for good.

She doesn't want to drink out of sippy cups any more and eating is still one of her favorite things to do. Right now she's a big fan of craisens, pasta, and cheese. She also has a sixth sense if anyone around her is eating a dessert and not sharing with her. If you try to pick her up when she doesn't want to be held, she will scream dramatically and throw herself backwards.

Ella follows directions now, like "go get your baby doll" or "sit down here." Sometimes you'll tell her to go get something and she'll bring something else instead that is obviously wrong, like a shirt instead of shoes, then she'll laugh hysterically when she gives it to you. She is quite the dramatic little clown!

Brownies

We love making butterscotch brownies at our house. Rand loves licking out the bowl and the other night Ella decided to see what all of the fuss was about. To put it mildly -- she loved it!

Forget the spoon, that takes too long!

And boy did she ever scream when I picked her up.

Pumpkin Patch!

One of our favorite traditions: visiting the pumpkin patch! We saw some piglets....

Rand ground up enough chicken feed to last them until Christmas.

Rand rode trikes....

We buried ourselves in corn....

...and visited the houses of the three little pigs.

We climbed hay bales...

...and made our way through a maze many, many times.

We attempted a cute sibling pumpkin patch photo.

Rand loved the duck races even more than last year.

Noble aspirations

Rand: "Mom, do you know what my job is? To fight bad guys and to teach babies."

Bedtime Prayer

Rand's bedtime prayer tonight:

"Dear Jesus, bless this food.....um....bless this food.....um....bless this food tomorrow. Amen."

Candy

Rand loves his Halloween candy. When he is allowed to have a piece, it is a ten minute ordeal where he carefully examines each item of candy, weighing the pros and cons of each choice.

At long last, he proclaimed a Hershey's kiss to be his final choice. I asked if he knew what it was called, and he said no. I told him that it was a chocolate kiss, and he said, "No. It's a delicious chocolate raindrop."