Happy 17 month birthday, Ellie-Kate!!

Hi Everyone--

Just a quick post b/c Ellie-Kate is enjoying her 17 month birthday so much that she just woke back up!! She's in the kitchen, laughing at our "kitty cats" as Britti tries to give her a midnight snack.

At 17 months, Ellie-Kate is doing great. She absolutely LOVES the outdoors, and, now that she can walk, she yearns to be out in the yard with a ball or on the playground as much as she can. Tonight, she walked over to her shoes, pointed, and said "shoe, shoe." We slid them on, and she walked over to Roger's shoes, picked them up, and dropped them at the door. Reaching up toward the door knob, she said "outside? outside?" Although we can certainly take a hint, we had to break the news to her that we couldn't go outside b/c we just had a rainstorm, and the ground was just too wet. After three repeated efforts to communicate with us (by dragging shoes to the door, reaching for the doorknob, and saying "outside? outside?"), we finally managed to distract her with the little slide that we have in our living room-- our own makeshift playground but not nearly like being "outside!!"

Her vocabulary has exploded over the past few weeks as well, and she recognizes much of what we say to her, even if she hasn't uttered some of those words yet. She's also walking much of the time without any assistance at all. (Yes, we're going to post new video very soon to document those steps.)

She's tremendously social, and she really loves all of us, ESPECIALLY Daddy. Tonight, we told her that it was time to say good night, and she walked to each of us around the room, said "nighty night," and waved her little fingers. (Daddy took her up to bed as the rest of us girls stayed up to watch the Disney premiere of "Princess Protection Program.")

It was nice to kick back and watch tv b/c it has been a very busy week. Chelsea was at the College of Wooster for tennis camp. (Thus, I had to drive her up on Sunday and pick her up yesterday-- seven hours on the road each day!!) Emmy had Girl Scout day camp in Nelsonville (25 minutes away) so we were in the car each morning and afternoon to provide transportation. Britti taught at a dance camp this week, but, fortunately, she could drive herself. Ellie-Kate got to stay home, play with whichever parent wasn't driving one of her sisters, and hone those walking and talking skills.

We'll work on uploading more pictures and video tomorrow or Sunday. In the meantime, I'd best check on our little night owl and take care of a few things before heading off to bed.

Hope that all is well and that everyone is enjoying the official start of summer!!

Christie