Conversations.

Me: Where do you think Daddy works?
E: Um...um...Target.
Me: Daddy doesn't work at Target!  Where does he work?
E: Shopping.
Me: That doesn't even make sense!  You know where Daddy works.
E: (With conviction) Little Gym!

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E: (Urgently) Need to sing A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P.  (She then proceeds to start singing, having gotten through the full title of the song appropriately.)

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Me: Careful, don't lay on Wilbur and squish him.
E: Squish him into food!
Me: That is not a great idea. We shouldn't eat the cat.
E: No....
Me: Probably a little stringy.
E: Yeah...

28 months!

I stopped doing Ella's monthly update posts once she turned two, but I figured maybe a quarterly check-in might not be a bad thing.  She's changing *so* much these days, it's just crazy.

• She can sing her ABCs (as evidenced by the video I posted awhile back -- she's much clearer and faster now), and LOVES to do so.  Many times a day.  She's starting to recognize some of the letters as well.  
• In addition to the ABCs, she's a big fan of singing in general.  Other popular songs: "Wheels on the Bus", "If You're Happy and You Know It", "Old MacDonald", and "Rock A Bye Baby", and several different ones that they sing at school.  She's also been known to make up her own tunes from time to time.
• She can count to 12, and sometimes will try and throw some random "-teens" in afterward, including the newly discovered "forty-teen".  She doesn't quite get the actual concept of counting THINGS yet, though.  I'll ask her to count a group of whatever, and she'll just start reeling off the whole list.
• Within the past week or so, she's just barely become tall enough to hit most of the light switches in our house, if she REALLY reaches.  Since she's found out she can do this, turning the lights on (and sometimes off) has become her life's work.  Seriously, the child cannot pass a light switch without trying to flip it, and if she can't reach, I have to heft her up.  I shudder to think of our future light bills.
• She has an independent streak a mile wide.  (I simply can't imagine where she gets that.)  She does not want your help, so don't bother asking,  or heaven forbid, TRYING to help.  That only gets you a looped chorus of "No-no-no-no-no-no-no."  As a result, everything takes forEVER to accomplish, and it sometimes, as I told Jon the other night, feels like you are trying to nail Jell-O to a tree.  
• School continues to be a big hit.  She talks about going all the time, and she knows the days of the weeks that she goes on now as well.  She also loves to go to Little Gym, and is starting to get braver and try more things there. 
• Potty-training was surprisingly easily, and aside from the random accident, she's pretty much 100% daytime trained now.  She's even using the BIG potty these days.  I have yet to tackle night-time training, and quite frankly, am not even sure how to go about it.  For now, I'm quite content having her in a diaper overnight and during nap time.

So that's pretty much where we are these days!  I'll try to add a couple-three photos later on.

Here are a couple-three photos:

Happy Halloween (a few days late).

This was the first year that Ella actually got into Halloween.  She was definitely excited to dress up ("Need dress up like Awice!"), and the idea of candy in a bucket -- well, that was just about the best thing anyone could have suggested to her.

Jon and I decided she's still a little young for actual trick-or-treating, but she did have a couple of parties -- we went to one the Thursday before Halloween at the Natural Science Center, and on Friday, her preschool had a party as well.   It didn't take her long at all to

catch on to the idea of playing games and getting candy.

She went as Alice in Wonderland, and I was happy with her costume.  We'd tried to find one that was a slightly different style when we were in FL, but it wasn't available in a XXS.  As it was, her costume kept wanting to slip off her shoulders, so I'm glad we didn't buy the other one in a bigger size.    She'll be able to wear it when we take her to WDW in January as well, so that's a nice bonus.

WDW Trip Report Day 2 - Epcot

On Wednesday, Jon and I headed over (not too early in the morning, though) to Epcot.  We had major plans for the Food and Wine festival, which unfortunately, didn't really come to fruition -- more on that later.

We started out going on the "new" Nemo ride at The Seas -- new to us, I should say.  We've visited several times since the ride was added, but had just never made it over there before.  It was pretty impressive.  The technology used apparently took a really long time to develop, and having seen it, I can understand why.   Very cool stuff.  The ride drops you off in the aquarium portion that was there before the ride existed, and we spent some time looking at the manatees and sharks and whatnot.

Since we got to the park sort of late-morning, and had to wait a while to exchange our vouchers for our annual passes, we were coming up on our lunch reservation.  We decided to head back to the World Showcase and start the trek to Italy, stopping in a couple of shops along the way in Canada and the UK.  

Lunch was at Via Napoli in the Italy pavilion, which had just opened a couple of months or so ahead of our visit.  The restaurant was lovely on the inside -- a nice big open space, gorgeous wooden beamed ceilings, and three fantastic wood-burning ovens.  We were seated on the back wall, so we had a good view of everything.  

The dining plan worked a little differently here, so we wound up each getting an appetizer (calamari for Jon and the arancini for me), and then we shared our two entrees -- the shrimp Caesar salad and the quattro formaggi pizza.  

Jon and I both were pretty excited about eating here, and I think we both were pretty underwhelmed.  The food was good -- don't get me wrong.  But it wasn't great, and if we hadn't been on the dining plan, I think we would have felt really ripped off.   Jon did really enjoy his dessert, though, which was the gelato frizzante (and Italian ice cream soda).  And I will say, the service was outstanding.  We were taken care of by about three different people, and our main waiter, Andrea, clearly knew how to earn a good tip with the ladies -- he was chatty and flirty, and very easy on the eyes.  (Sorry, Jon.)

After lunch, we wandered through the rest of the World Showcase.  Jon grumbled about Disney's newest moneymaker, Duffy the Bear, whenever he saw any of his merchandise.  My threat to make him have his picture taken with Duffy and wear the "I Hugged Duffy" sticker, sadly, did not come to fruition.  We also made our one and only Food and Wine stop at the Poland kiosk.  We were just too stuffed from lunch to do much damage otherwise.  We shared (although Jon drank most of it) a Belvedere Strawberry Balsamic Chiller, which was as odd as it sounds.  

After a ride (at my request) through Spaceship Earth (which for some odd reason was the ride I had been thinking about the most before our trip), we headed back to the hotel to relax for a bit.  I should mention here that it was HOT while we were down there -- we had planned for a bit cooler weather than we actually had.  So we wound up going back to the hotel and taking showers each day before dinner.  

Full moon over the Boardwalk

We headed back to the Boardwalk and hung out there a little while before heading to dinner on the other side of the lake at the Yachtsman Steakhouse.  We'd eaten there once before, were very impressed, and were looking forward to our return visit.  

We were seated in a small alcove off the main dining room with only three other tables, which was nice and cozy.  Only one other table in our room even had kids, and they were very well-behaved!  

On a quest to be somewhat adventurous with my food on this trip, I decided to branch out and try the escargot to start.  I'd only ever ordered escargot once before, and when it arrived to the table, I was unable to eat it.  However, that was a number of years ago, and I've branched out a lot since then, culinarily speaking, so I was excited to give it another shot.  I have to admit, they were not what I was expecting at all, but the flavor grew on me, and they were pretty dang tasty!  (I expect that the very liberal dousing they got in the garlic-herb butter helped out with that.)  Jon started out with the charcuterie board, and I can't find a listing for the components online, but I recall some sort of venison sausage, maybe?  From the looks of my picture, there was also some proscuitto and a cheese with some manner of jam.  He seemed happy with the whole spread.  And yes, it really was brought out on a board -- good thing, as we both would have been disappointed otherwise :)

For entrees, we had -- you guessed it -- steak.  Jon went with the New York strip, and I chose the filet mignon.  Both good, but not the sort of knock-your-socks-off steaks that we remembered having the first time we were there.  

When dessert came around, we ordered the same thing again (two times in two meals!), which was the trio of Valrhona  chocolate.  We were both tempted by the description of "salted caramel".  Yum.  

All in all, lovely, if very hot day.  For Day 3, we planned to head over to the park we visit the least: Animal Kingdom.