A Mind of Her Own

This post must start with a little bit of back story...
In October, we celebrated Ella's 3rd Birthday with a big family bash at my parents' house in Moroni. At the time, Ella's favorite movie was "Princess and the Frog" and she loved Princess Tiana. So, we decided to have a classic Princess Party. The party was complete with a princess cake, plastic jewelry and all of the girls dressed like princesses. Grandma really got into the spirit of it all, and dressed up in Marianne's old prom dress--crazy woman! She also made Ella a fancy new gold princess dress to wear along with slippers, fingerless gloves and a headband--every little girl's dream. Well, let's just say that the dress, the party and all of the commotion and attention that a birthday party brings was more of a nightmare for Ella than a dream come true. She threw a fit when she saw Grandma looking so silly, she didn't like wearing the gold dress and she cried when anyone talked too loudly or laughed at her. Needless to say, her party was not a huge success, and I felt really bad about it all.
Since then, I have had Ella's fancy gold dress hanging up in her room, kind of like a decoration, in hopes that she would decide to put it on again. Low and behold, this morning she pulled the dress down, brought it downstairs to me and signed "open" (her way of asking, "Put it on"). We put it right on over her jammies and she twirled around to show me how cute she looked. It made my day (and it made Grandma happy, too). It may have taken 3 1/2 months to come around, but I always knew she would in her own time. Story of Ella's life: Everything on her time.

Then...

And now!