I can't believe my little Ellie is 18 months old!  I have totally slacked on her updates and need to get something written down before I forget what she is like at this age. 

Ellie is so much fun right now.  She is at such a sweet age where she really wants to still just please you, but now she is understanding so much and can do so much.  Sometimes I can forget that she is only a year and a half old.  She really does a great job keeping up with her brothers and doesn't want to be left behind. 

SLEEP

Ellie sleeps through the night consistently.  This was a huge game changer and really didn't start until she was about 14 months old.  She currently sleeps in what was our guest room and is now her room.  (We only have 3 bedrooms in this house).  She goes to bed around 6:45 and sleeps until time between 7 or 8 in the morning.

Ellie takes one nap a day usually going down around 1:00-1:30 depending on what we have been doing that day but I can move it an hour earlier or later if we have specific plans and usually she still naps pretty well.  Her naps usually last about 2 hours. 

EAT

Ellie will eat most anything and everything and it always surprises me at how much she can eat.  If she is really enjoying something she can out eat her brother which I find to be impressive. 

I think fruit, especially berries, and cheese are probably her favorite foods right now.  I rarely make her a sandwich or toast because she does not seem to be a big fan of bread.  She is still a good eater when it comes to eating most veggies and meats and hasn't become too picky.  She discovered chocolate on Easter and while she doesn't get it very often she definitely has a love for it and learned the word "chocolate" very quickly.  

Ellie still nurses before nap and bedtime for a short amount of time and at least at this time does not seem ready to give up her "nu nu" as she calls it.  

COMMUNICATION/UNDERSTANDING

Ellie is very talkative and will jargon away even though I have no idea what she is saying.  She does have a lot of words that she will use and will occasionally combine 2 words to make a short phrase.  Right now that words Ellie has are:

Sit/Sitting, Hi, Ball, Baby, Bubble, Pop, Happy, Chilly, Eat, Cheese, Wawa (water), Mama/Mommy, Daddy, Bubbie (brother), Tweet, Night night, Nu nu, Hop, Moo, Eye, Nose, Ear, Mouth, Knee, Backpack, Choo choo, Dog/doggie, Cat/Kitty, Stuck, Hot, Poop, Pee pee, Stinky, Balloon, Trash truck, Snack, Chocolate

She also is repeating a lot of words as well.  She has recently started to try and repeat her brothers names: Will and James.  The other night she tried repeating “naughty".

Her understanding of what is said to her amazes me at times.  The other day while visiting some people she asked for a sheet of baby pictures she has and I told her they were in my backpack (which was in another room)  She went to the other room, found my backpack, unzipped it and found the sheet of baby pictures she wanted and then brought them back to show me.  She can follow simple multi-step directions.  

PLAY/LIKES  

Right now Ellie loves: babies (baby dolls, looking at baby pictures on my phone, in a book, to the point that I printed out a sheet of pictures of her, her brothers and cousins as babies so she can carry it around), balls, bubbles, balloons, jumping/hanging on things and riding her bike.