Ellie Rose Doyle

This year on Mother’s Day we got to see both sides of the family. We started the day with the Doyles. Mom went to Megan’s house and helped cook up a feast of a brunch and then Ellie, Dad and Grandma and Grandpa joined us.

After we ate the feast of Bird’s Nest, bacon and stuffed french toast, Ellie ran around in Aunt Megan and Uncle Kevin’s front yard. This including getting soaked in the neighbor’s sprinklers.

After finishing brunch, we packed Ellie for a nap in the car and drove to San Rafael to hang with the cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents and Great Grandma and Great Grandpa too.

Ellie played with Jack and the water table:

Met the Ahlemeyer’s new dog Rowan:

Rode a bike for the first time.

And all in all had a great day with my two favorite boys.

Oh, and mom had a great day too. The perfect Mother’s Day.

Dear Ellie,

Its been awhile since I wrote you a letter. You continue to change and amaze us every day, week and month. But this letter is not a letter about how amazing you are becoming, its about some big changes coming your way in the next few weeks and months. Pretty soon, we will be packing up our little house in Curtis Park and moving to San Jose. We will be leaving behind your neighborhood, your friends and playmates and your school. Your bed, all your toys, and books, even Boba, and of course Mama and Dada will be coming with you. But we will be living in a new house and you’ll be starting at a new school with new friends and teachers.

So why the big change?

Its all about family.

Its about Papa Guido and Grandma Anne, and Papa Bear and Grandma Nancy

All your aunts and uncles

All your cousins

Your Godparents

The fact is, we drive to San Jose or have visitors from San Jose so often that you probably think these people live down the street. But, they don’t, at least not yet. When Grandma Nancy and Aunt Megan came to help out when you had a stomach virus, they got in the car and drove 2 hours each way to save us all. When mom and dad plan date nights and you stay at home with Boba and Grandma Anne and Papa Guido, its because they battled weekend traffic to hang out with you. And we pack you up and drive you to San Jose and have you sleep in a strange bed quite often, for holidays and birthdays, and when we can, spur of the moment barbecues.

Its about being close to all the people in our lives that DO drop their lives to help make our lives easier. Its about having all your favorite people see you on stage at your first dance recital, or cheering you along as you make you debut in a swim meet, or watching you compete in the spelling bee. Its about weekday dinner dates with your grandparents, seeing your cousins on Thursdays, and a new generation of Doyle cousin dinners. Late night swimming with papa Guido and Jack and Charlie, hanging out with Max and Cole, quick drives to Boulder Creek to explore the forest.

We are so sad to leave Sacramento, but when you have a family like this, its hard to ignore the desire to live close.

I only wish and hope that when you grow up, you want to live close to us too.

Love,

Mom and Dad.

Picture from a recent visit to Grandpa Frank’s

Some more words we’ve noticed Ellie using with consistency and in correct context (5/15/12):
“stuck” - by far her favorite word of the moment.
“boot” - and she would prefer to wear her boots than any other shoes.
“milk”

After Memorial Day Weekend we have added:
“poop” (and she is using this word to try and get out of naptime and bedtime. sneaky little girl)
“cupcake” (luckily, she also thinks muffins are cupcakes. we may have had a few too many celebrations this weekend)
“blueberry”
“strawberry”
“fishies”
“thank you”
“weee” - for swings, slides, anything fun.
“bag” - she loves bags
“balloon” - don’t even get me started on Nordstroms and her shoe balloon.
“pop” - like a bubble
“bear” (she likes to read us Cordory, which is all about a Bear. But it almost sounds like beer when she says bear)
“chair”

Basically, this kid is going through a vocabulary explosion. Suddenly, when we say a word a few times to her, she can repeat it and it sticks. Crazy. We can finally say “use your words” and mean it!

I’m behind, such is my life, but here are some snapshots from Easter this year:

It started Saturday with some egg decorating at Grandma Anne and Grandpa Guido’s house:

Learning from Dad:

Easter started with mass, and then we headed to the Doyle’s for the usual Easter Brunch. This was the first year an egg hunt took place for the 5 munchkins in the new generation. Jack and Ellie got to search in the backyard and Jack, Cole and Max had the front yard as their domain. We tried to snatch a photo of the 5 kiddos:

Ellie was tired and slept through the egg toss (and so was mom so there are no photos of that part of the day)

After brunch, we headed to the DiPalermos for another egg hunt and some more fun with cousins.

Ellie is NOT a fan of sitting on the grass:

And, an attempt at a family picture.

It was a good Easter.

Some evenings just beg for ice cream.

So on Tuesday, after a dinnertime where we all sat down together to eat early enough to enjoy each other afterwards, we braved the almost bedtime toddler who seemed to be happy enough, strapped her into her carseat and drove the short distance to Gunther’s Ice Cream. Normally, we walk but sometimes when I can sense a cranky toddler creeping on, driving wins.

We stood in line at a Sacramento legend, picked our flavors and waited for the treats. And then we sat outside in the warm Sacramento evening. We watched Ellie eat her ice cream cone, watched it drip down her arms and face and cover her legs as it melted. We watched her bite into the bottom of the cone and discover that ice cream cones don’t do so well upside down. We wondered if the late evening ice cream would mean a toddler up all night. But we agreed that at that moment, the sticky and happy summer baby was worth it.

She slept the whole night that night, so I suppose more of our evenings will be filled with ice cream cones on the corner of 3rd and Franklin.

Today started with the usual Ellie chatting to her stuffed animals in bed.
This morning Ellie happily ate breakfast and drank milk while we got ready for the day.
She laughed at me when I tried to feed yogurt to “Snowflake”
She brought me her shoes and brought shoes to her dad.
And then the moment became the kind you want to bottle and remember forever.
Ellie ran down the long hallway from the living room where we were sitting, straight to her dad getting ready in the bathroom, and asked for a kiss. (he obliged, of course)
Then it was my turn, she scurried down the hallway back towards me and gave me a kiss.
Then it was daddy’s turn again,
And then my turn again,
And suddenly she was running a Kiss Relay. Back and forth, back and forth. Saying “mwah” the whole way. Laughing, toddling. Making our morning a memory.

(excuse the quality of this photo. but I love how it captures her running)

Ellie still loves to read. More so because she is beginning to realize that when we are done reading books in her room, its time to sleep. But she has a few favorites that she wants us to read over and over and over again. In the last few weeks, we’ve each read the following books at least twice per day:

Ellie says, “Duck” and we know she wants to read the following:

She “reads” each page and picks out the animals she knows.

Ellie says “Monk” and she wants to read:

While reading this book, Ellie says “uh-oh” when she sees the monkeys falling off the bed and shakes her hand in the air when the doctor says “no more monkeys jumping on the bed”

Ellie is a fan of accessorizing. She loves hats. When she sees Dad’s hats lying around, she says ‘hat’, brings Dad his hat and then asks for one for herself. Here she is last week wearing a hat that was too warm for what the weather dictated, but you can’t deny this cute face.

Ellie’s current favorite foods include ‘buberries’ (strawberries), ‘nanans’, hummus (she eats it off a spoon), plain Greek yogurt, French toast (thank you TJs for the frozen variety), ice cream (because duh! who doesn’t love ice cream), quinoa and beans continues to be a favorite for Ellie.

We continue to decipher Ellie language. She now says “milk” although it sounds like “book”, but we know its milk because she says it while pointing to the fridge or a cup. She says “spoon” and “fork” and “wawa” (for water - comes in handy for both the drink and also when she wants to play with her water table in the backyard). “blocks” and she has a word for sticker but I haven’t quite deciphered it yet.

Bath times have become a bit of a struggle, but suddenly Ellie has discovered the joys of helping put her bath toys away at the end of bathtime. Its pretty adorable.

Ellie has 2 favorite words she says quite often:
“bye-bye”. She says this when she is leaving, but also when she is or wants to be done with something. Loud truck or plane within ear shot? Ellie says ‘bye-bye’ hoping for its quick departure. Done with dinner or the bath? “bye-bye”.
“uh-oh” - she says this in context but also says it just before dropping something over bored or knocking down a tower of blocks.