Welcome to Fall

This crazy little girl of mine gets bigger every day! She’s definitely all toddler now, both in size and in actions.

Ellie had a growth spurt last week, which you can tell because she ate non-stop for a couple days and then was visibly larger when she came home from daycare and then again after sleeping overnight. During this growth spurt, in a 2 hour period between the time we got home from work and she went to bed, she ate a banana, a cup of dry cereal, 2 hot dogs, 6 strawberries, some yogurt and 12 oz in a bottle (we had to make more because she kept crying after her normal 8 oz.) I was a little worried her tiny tummy would explode, but she was ok 🙂

Ellie keeps adding new adorable things as well. She pretty consistently waves hi and bye (at least to her Dad and I and animals) and she’ll say hi and bye while she does it. I’ve also heard her say hat, pretty and uh oh in the last week. She’s also started blowing kisses, which is just the cutest. Ellie has also discovered my jewelry and likes to pull my bracelets out of the drawer and wear them.

Our little monkey keeps finding new ways to be more adventurous. She can climb up and sit on the chairs in the kitchen now. She climbs over and through her larger toys – including her cozy coupe, which she now prefers to ride on, instead of in.

Last weekend we got to start our new fall tradition of going to the Cider Mill!

There’s a cider mill/orchard/general fun place 15 minutes from our house so we headed over. First, they have amazing doughnuts and Ellie got to try one (and she loved it of course.) We also took a ‘train’ ride and saw some animals. She had her serious/observing face on most of the time we were there.

They also had a big play area which she thoroughly enjoyed:

We stayed long enough that she needed lunch before taking her nap (which I knew she would start on the car ride home) so thankfully the food vendors there sold her one of her favorite meals – hot dogs and corn on the cob.

We’re also giving up bottles this weekend (going cold turkey) so we’ll see how that goes. In the meantime, here’s some more adorable pictures: