And Now, a Word from Our Ela

I changed the title on our blog recently to reflect the fact that 90% of everything I write about includes the adventures of our little girl, and will also be including the next baby more and more as time goes on. It's still our adventures, just there's too many names to include everyone. :-)
Anyway, Ela is getting more and more talkative lately, and more of what she says is actually English. She narrates nearly everything that goes on around her, and it's great to finally start to understand some of it. I've been enjoying listening to her growing vocabulary, and she's reaching a point where she says some really funny stuff.
Lately, Ela's two favorite words have been "happy" and "sad." When we're driving around, she'll be babbling in the back of the car and I'll hear "Happy!" pause "Oh, sad." pause "Happy!" pause... you get the idea. When I can hold back the giggles no longer, I join in, repeating whatever emotion she's just named in my most dramatic happy or sad voice. I have been wondering for awhile, though, whether she really has any idea what these things mean, or if she's just quoting from one of her favorite books, which has lots of baby faces in it and emotions.
So one morning, Ela pulls her door open and comes toodling down the hall. We've been working on the idea that she sleeps in her own bed, not Mommy and Daddy's, but in the morning when she gets up, I often let her crawl in with me for a few minutes. She wandered up, and waited for permission to crawl in. I held out my arms, and when she'd gotten snuggled in, she turned, grinned at me, and said "Happy!" It was precious!
Then, a few days ago, I was changing a wet diaper. Ela was not enjoying this process, as she was suffering from a little bit of diaper rash, so she was making lots of displeased noises, and wiggling around to avoid the wipes and what not. When I finally told her that she was "All clean!" (another favorite phrase), she settled down a bit, and when the crying had ceased, she announced, "Oh Sad." I had to laugh a little. Then I gave her a hug and all was forgiven.
Clearly, she's got the meanings down.

A Thanksgiving post with No Food Pictures

Over Thanksgiving, we took a trip out to Illinois to visit Zack's family.
Ela, who has taken a special interest in boxes lately, enjoyed the packing process.

She did really well in the car for the 13ish hours it took to get there. (We did it in two days, not one.) Then she got to play with her second cousins!

She also met her great grandpa, and some aunts and uncles. I didn't get the big family picture we took, but I'm sure someone will e-mail me a copy eventually... right? :-)

And when no one else was looking, she even managed to find a book to read and comfy place to read it.

We had a delicious Thanksgiving dinner, but I was too busy enjoying the fact that I can eat a little again to take any pictures of it. We had a great time catching up with everyone and visiting in general. I'm really glad we could make the trip.