"While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about."

Its been quite awhile since we have given an update on here of things Ella is able to do. We have our reasons for that but decided with all the amazing things she has learned over the last 21 months, its time for an update. There are WAY too many things to include if I were to name all she has learned in the last 21 months so Ill just name some of the things she is currently able to do or working on.
She is working on small puzzles as seen below as well as small board/peg puzzles...










She uses please, thank you, and excuse me at appropriate times and without being asked to do so. She can answer almost all questions and express all her wants and needs in complete and grammatically correct sentences. She even puts ing and ed on the end of words for present and past tense. To date her longest complete sentence is eight words long.
She has been able to count to thirteen and sing the entire alphabet for quite awhile now. Most recently we noticed that she is able to count objects if asked how many. For example on vacation there were dogs on the beach. When asked how many dogs? She was able to say 1,2...2 dogs.
She is able to identify blue and orange on a consistent basis as well as consistently identifies/labels Q, X, and A. (not sure why?)
She also is able to verbally identify a star, circle, and heart.
She can also draw a circle.
She knows the difference between little girl, little boy, man, and woman and quite frequently yells out little girl or little boy or baby when in a store. She also is able to identify verbally a group of men, women, children etc as "people" (she likes to throw an s on there as in peoples :)
She is literally able to verbally identify pretty much anything you ask her. Whether its out and about, at home, or in a book.
Each week at school she has lessons. Last weeks lessons were color identification by verbally identifying as well as matching color to color as well as big vs little. After just two days, Ella was not only able to verbally identify big vs little on 2D picture cards but also was able to sort the pictures in big vs little piles.

Our little girl also has quite the sense of humor. There's not a chance in the world that you wont have a little chuckle when you're in her presence.
On vacation she started saying HUH? when you say something she didn't hear or understand which I think is too funny coming from such a little girl. We also heard an "oh my gosh" and a "shoot" all used within context, so obviously she's taking in everything we are saying.
She also hears me call Tom Tom so quite frequently she refers to him as that. She will say Tom where you going or Tom what are you doing or Tom come here.
I will admit I have a serious Starbucks problem, which I'm working on. But to let you know how bad my problem is and how Ive involved my daughter in this...I order a decaf, nonfat mocha. I've never formally told her that I order a decaf nonfat. Well one day, about ten minutes after we left Starbucks she belts out DECAF NONFAT! Hilarious. And still to this day out of nowhere she will yell it out. Tonight as we pull up to the drive through of Sonic for a milkshake (another problem of mine)she yells out decaf nonfat!
I know I'm rambling and I know I am forgetting many of the things she is doing as of late. None of this is meant to brag as Im sure all of you in some way or another share in these amazing joys and moments of awe with your children.
Ill leave you with last Ella story that makes me chuckle.
Last week her and I were in the kitchen and she was looking at some birthday stickers I had received (thanks reba!). Noone told Ella they were birthday stickers and frankly I was not really even paying much attention. Next thing I know she takes a sticker of a birthday hat, places it center on her head, right where you would wear a birthday hat, and yells at the top of her lungs "HAPPY BIRTHDAY"!