More Elli-isms

"I want to wear a dress with not a shirt, and not a jacket, and not tights, and not leggings, and not shoes."... A really long way of saying she wants to basically wear her summer dresses. Heard all winter long.

"Oh, I wish, I wish, I wish for more feathers!" After completing a really cool story about a guardian angel that Uncle Josh, Aunt Andrea, and her cousins got her last year (we never got all the way through it before); at the very end a feather was stuck in the last page by the author. It was so cool to be surprised with it, and a very sweet conversation ensued about angels. She kept a death grip on that feather, and asked if there would be more feathers on her pillow from her guardian angel. She had to sleep with it on her pillow that night, and as I was tucking her in I told her it was okay if it got lost in her covers in the night and that we would find it in the morning. She chose to hold it tight in her little fist as she fell asleep.

She's all about the Disney princesses. After finally getting to see some of the movies (some of them repeatedly by request): Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Snow White, etc., she suddenly didn't want to watch them anymore. She said they are too scary, and frankly, I couldn't agree more. She still loves the princesses though, and anything with their pictures.

"Thanks, Mom. I'm sorry I am acting that way."... After taking a moment to think about her actions when she had been spunking that she didn't get the shoes she really wanted at the store (never mind that she got 2 other pairs), and I began lecturing her about getting too spoiled and being thankful for all that I did buy her. She actually says this phrase fairly frequently after getting reprimanded now.

Very excitedly, talking a mile a minute, complete with hand and facial expressions: "I saw Wubbzy and Walden, and they come to the door and Wubbzy had big red eyes, and he was running... I saw that behind my eyes!"... Her first recognition of having a dream after taking a nap.

Our favorite pasttime when in the car or just talking is to play "I spy with my little eye..." or what we call "The Silly Game". The Silly Game either starts off, "Have you ever seen... [insert something like, "an alligator riding a bike on a roof while licking a popsicle?], or we describe what our silly meals consisted of, for example: "For breakfast I ate a chair, and I drank some mud, then for lunch I had some leaves and lightbulbs, and for dessert I ate some stickers topped with glue". We go back and forth for the longest time coming up with silly things, and she loves it.

Ellison covers up my eyes and asks me not to look whenever there is a romantic part in one of her princess movies. She gets totally embarrassed. I also have to "go out and shut the door" when she has to do #2 on the potty. If we're in public I have to at least "turn around" since I won't leave her alone in some of the potty stalls.

She loves pretending she's getting married. She will have me rig up some blankets to wrap around her that will form a train, then she'll walk slowly while humming the Wedding March (which I'm not sure where she learned). If her train gets all messed up and isn't spread out she has a fit.

Whenever we go to Garden Ridge, she collects all the little fake flowers that fall off the stems and lay next to all of the baskets of flowers. She creates a bouquet with them either for "married" or to give some to Mommy.

She will pick a little dandelion or other flowering weed, and say, "Here, Mommy. I picked this for you." My heart is always so melted - I have a very hard time parting with it after it's wilted. How do you throw away a "flower" your little one picked for you?! What if she saw? Ugh. Tissue, please...

Ell's favorite toys are definitely her Polly Pockets. She's amassing quite a little collection of the Disney princess Pollies and the regular Pollies. She also loves her Barbies.

Thanks to a suggestion from her little friend, Ella (and after amazingly seeing a 2 year old rattle off the sound every letter makes), Ellison now knows the sounds of all the letters, too. No, I was not pushing my child to learn them at the age of 3, but Ella was in love with the Leap Frog "Letter Factory" DVD, so I thought it might be fun, and bought it. Ellison was obsessed with it for weeks, and still LOVES watching it, and learned the sounds in no time. She's starting to actually sound out simple words now, like "stop", "up", "bat", etc. when we come upon them when reading stories or seeing them on signs.