Here she is, helping Mommy make cookies (of which I was the prime beneficiary!)

And again:

How cute is that? And the cookies were incredibly yummy, thank you very much.

With Ella, in a mid-meal prayer (explained below) I just prayed the following (or something close to it):

"Father God, thank you for yogurt, it is soooooo yummy, especially with cheerios on top! We pray this in Jesus' name, AMEN!"

We've always prayed with Ella before meals, and she caught on early and now folds her hands to tell us it's time to pray. Any time new food is brought out, she folds her hands. When I have the pleasure of feeding her breakfast (which I did this morning), I usually start with the cheerios and bring out the yogurt later so she's not distracted by it. Well, when the yogurt comes out ... the hands are folded ... and it is time to pray again.

It's been too long, so here are some recent pictures of Ella. The first was taken in June; the last two on July 4. Enjoy!

Amy and I moved from one house to another in late October. Since then, it has seemed that whenever I want a particular book I'm doomed to find that it is in an inaccessible box in the spare bedroom.

Today we finally got the office together, and books out of the inaccessible spots and onto shelves. Ella loved being around all the books, and she quickly dug into a pile of mine. I had to get a camera and record the event. She actually chose this book out of the pile, though I'm guessing it was because it was the biggest ... not because she had a question about how Philo might've used a particular word.

Amy took Ella in for portraits yesterday. We didn't get prints of this one made, but it is hysterical! It is not staged, it is not posed, it is not photoshopped. This is the picture as it was taken.

It is a photo in need of a caption. So please, use the comments to leave your caption suggestions. Any inappropriate comments will be deleted.

After a few days, if there are enough comments, I'll aggregate them and we can vote on 'em (so make sure I can identify you from the comment; if you leave your email it will be submitted to me but not posted on the blog). Then who knows? I may even have a free book for the winner!

Update (2008-04-14): Great responses, keep 'em coming! For those who don't know what Eli is talking about in his comment, you obviously never watched "The Love Boat" in the 70's-80's. He's referring to this picture of Isaac Washington, the chief bartender on the boat, played by Ted Lange:

Update (2008-04-17): OK, I've taken the comments (Chuck Grantham, I'm only allowing one per, so I went with your first one) and created a poll. You can vote once a day (er, one IP address can vote per day). Heck, link to this post and the poll on your own blog and have your own readers vote too. I don't care how you go about such things. I'll let the poll run through sometime this weekend. The caption with the most votes wins. If there is a tie, I'll simply choose the caption I like best (from the ties). The winner gets a book. I'm not sure which one yet. We're in the process of painting the new office, which means most of my books are in boxes. I'll try to have a few options for the winner by the weekend.

So, treat it like a Chicago mayoral election: vote early and vote often!