ALL the colors

On Friday Ella and I fit in a few last color games/activities to help her get familiar with all the colors. 

Ella found the paint chips and started sorting, totally unprompted by me. 

Naming the colors, she is definitely getting better! 

Matching animals to colors: 

I was painting my nails before heading out on a girls weekend, and Ella jumped up laid out her hands and said "hand". 

So she got 1 finger on each hand. She sat really well and waited patiently while it dried, it was precious!

ALL the colors day #4

Today we added a few new activities to our effort to learn the colors. 

I used my laminated fish bowls for a color sorting activity. Luckily as I've never given her goldfish before - she didn't try and eat the goldfish until I told her she could at the end. 

The only hiccup being that the yellow and orange are really close in color and she had issues sorting those. She nailed the red and green ones!! 

Her favorite part: "Can you find a red one and eat it?" Oh boy - did she get yellow and orange straight for that! :)

We worked on colors with this awesome ($1) yardsale find. Ella wasn't a huge fan of this - but after all - nothing was edible. 

Ella found a new hiding place in the kitchen. She took her coloring in there. Honestly, I'm surprised it took us 22 months!

One more eating/sorting activity. I used M&Ms and paint sample chips. When I laid out the colors, she correctly answered red, I got so excited she also called orange "red". She then got yellow and blue correct as well. 

I only let her have 3 of each color and at the end, I ate 1 of each, so only a total of 10 for Ella. She barely made it through the first few before she tried to start eating. I was able to get her to hold off until the end. By the end of me asking her to eat a specific color - she shoved them in two-by-two. 

My favorite was when she started flipping over the M&Ms so the "M"s were showing. 

Current Cuteness

Aside from all the "learning" Ella's been doing about her colors - insert hilarious laughter - she has started a few new precious habits. 

Whenever she sneezes, we say, "God bless you." Ella has started saying it back to us when we sneeze. Yesterday, she was in the other room when she sneezed and I didn't say anything. Then I heard, "Momma, Bless you", guess I wasn't responsive enough for her.  :)

Ella has started to pray before meals, and she loves it. She folds her hands with a huge smile and says, "Jesus. I love you. Amen." Melt.my.heart. 

She has also started saying "thank-you". 95% of the time she is using it correctly, but the other 5% is just hilarious. 

- just now we are playing outside. I'm sitting on the deck and she climbed up next to me and puts a pile of dirt on the stair. She looks up and says "thank-you!"

- she runs to get us towels after we wash our hands. When she hands you the towel she says "thank-you", not sure yet if she is reminding us to have better manners. :) 

- "Go get your animals, El, it's time for bed." "Thank-you" :) 

We have a Spanish/English memory game that we have started to play with. It has two pictures of each item, one description in Spanish, the other in English. She does really well finding the matches. However, whenever she finds the daddy or the mommy, she puts them together as a pair rather than two mommies or two daddies! My the way we live our lives teach her more about Godly principles than just this! 

ALL the colors days #2&3

I have to say I've been pretty bad at color week this week - I am still sick, but I've been lame. 

We have had gorgeous weather, so we have been playing with chalk and talking about the colors. No new pictures - because how many pictures of a kid playing with chalk can you take? 

On Tuesday, I hung up 2 more paint chip rainbows in the house. The more she sees it, maybe the more it will stick? 

I'll give her objects and ask her to match them against the paint chips and she will run over and place the object up against the correct color. 

We pulled out the rest of the color flash cards I laminated a few weeks back. She loves them and will gather all 6 of each color up when I ask her. 

On Tuesday we also went to the fabric store to buy backing, binding, and stuffing for Evelyn's quilt. We talked about fabric colors as well as paper colors. I found the perfect paper for my "waves" I want to put on the nursery wall. [Ocean theme]

On Wednesday we went back to story time at the Cranberry library. Once again it was packed! Ella stood up twice when the teacher asked the kids to (and sat down 10 seconds later) and then two other times unprompted - progress!

No less than 30% of the little girls are named "Ella"...ugg! 

The craft this week was a fall wreath. Something I definitely would not do at home; too much prep/clean up AND glue! Ella loved the glue stick - which caused the tissue paper to stick to her hands, not the wreath. :)

Final product: 

We got some new library books - helping to work on our colors: 

And these two about Ella the elephant, we obviously had to grab! 

There-is-more-to-life-than-just-blue week

Due to Ella's tendency to answer the question "What color is this?" with a simple and heartbreaking "blue", I decided she maybe didn't understand what colors are. 

She knows the names of colors and you will hear her say yellow, orange, and purple admits her rambling but I'm not sure she understands they are names of colors. 

So - a broader focus this week. But first, let's destroy mommy's kitchen. Don't worry, we wash all Tupperware before we use it: 

Then I tackled Ella's bedroom closet. I've been terrible about keeping Ella's clothes organized as she has outgrown them, so I went through and pulled out newborn, 0-3 months clothes, and swaddling blankets, etc. 

Now to wash it all. 

Ella's finished closet: 

Ella destroyed her room while I cleaned: 

Now onto school! 

Find the correct colored button on the guitar: 

Playing with our (free) colorful abucus: 

Building colorful towers. I started building each tower but would ask her to go get green blocks and add them to the green tower. She nailed it for each color!!! 

Thanks Madi & Aubrey for sharing your toys! 

More block play. I was asking the colors of the blocks, starting with red. I asked her what color it was, cringe already forming on my face as I prepaired to hear "blue". However, with great confidence, and frankly some sass, she said "red"! Yippeee!!!! 

Chevron Quilt Front

The front of the quilt is complete!!! 

I finished sewing all the rows together, and then completed another 1/2-quilt triangle. Today I sewed the two halves together and cut off the points along the edges to square it off. 

Yippee! Now onto the backing and binding... 

Red Week Days #4 and kinda #5

Red week has definitely been fun, engaging, and a change of pace for me. However, it's also been discouraging. 99.9% of the time if you ask Ella "What color is this?" she will answer "Blue". So I started asking "What color is the red crab?" she still answered "blue"...

She will however, with great accuracy, go and get a red block, crayon, car, etc. 

Reading our color books:

Racing red cars (with red-haired drivers): 

Bowling for army men, or rather, firemen: 

Making red towers: 

On Friday, I was sick, so we just laid low. 

Wearing our last piece of red clothing: 

Perced on top of mom while she tries to rest: 

Ella's first braid: