Happy September!

We were so thankful to welcome September today with such beautiful weather! It was gorgeous outside, and I could feel a hint of Fall creeping in. I love days like this because they just put me in a better mood all together! Here is how we spent our 1st day of September...

First things first, Ella had to feed her babies their milk...

After eating, every baby needs to have their diaper changed! Ella has really gotten into "changing her babies diapers", and even says it all the time. Here is a short video of her doing this...


When everyone was fed and changed we decided to take full advantage of this beautiful weather and head to the park! We called our friends Ashley, Emma, Colt, and Macey and they met us there to play. No pictures were taken, but we thoroughly enjoyed each others company and the wonderful weather!

Then it was off to grab lunch and a yummy drink from Sonic! Once our bellies were full it was nap time. When I put Ella down I told her that we would be doing something special together when she woke up. Since we had some overly ripe bananas, we were going to make daddy's favorite...banana bread!

We gathered all our ingredients and were ready to start!
Ella has her spot and is ready to start baking...
Here she is practicing her stirring technique.

And her licking technique. :)

When it was time to mash the bananas Ella thought she needed to test them out first, so she helped herself to one!

With a little help from mommy, the smashing and stirring began!

Then it was time to add the dry ingredients...

Since the stirring was getting a little harder {and messier}, it was time for Ella to play with her own bowl and spoon while mommy finished the rest. :)

One last look before it goes into the oven...


Now comes the waiting and watching!


The finished product...
It smelled SO good in my house!!!


The best part was tasting it for sure! Ella LOVED her banana bread for snack and even asked for more after dinner.



The 1st day of September was a fantastic one at our house! Bring on the colder weather and many more fun Fall days ahead!!!

***If you would like the recipe, let me know!***

Monday...Rainy Monday

We spent our rainy day indoors playing with babies, reading books, coloring, watching Sesame Street (mainly Elmo), and just enjoying each others company.
***Side note about Elmo: She has learned how to sing the theme song, so once I catch that on camera I will post it!

We started the morning like we always do and ate our breakfast together. Ella is now sitting at the table like a big girl, without using her tray. She loves this, and it makes her seem so much older!

Ella had another chance at using her crayons and she did pretty well for the most part, but she still managed to sneak in a few "licks", so we decided to put those away for another rainy day...when she is a little older. :)

We have also learned how to climb up into the chairs at the kitchen table. I was in the other room and heard her saying"cheese" over and over, but could not figure out why. I walked in the kitchen to see her sitting at the table with my camera...check out the video below.




Along with climbing up into chairs, she has been able to climb onto the couch for a while now. It used to make me a nervous wreck, but I have gotten used to the fact that she is going to get up there whether I like it or not, so let her learn. She is actually very cautious and knows how to get down the proper way. With that said, she has had a few falls though, but has bounced right back up the minute after.

Here is a video of her playing on the couch and showing her "manners". :)



Hope everyone is having a great week!

Afternoon at the Park

The weather was absolutely gorgeous today, so Miss Ella and I went to the park for a stroll. This girl LOVES to be outside whenever possible. It instantly puts her in a good mood! :) She loved watching the other kids run around while she sat in the swing and felt the breeze on her face. As usual she was calling them all "baby"!

I also wanted to share an updated video of Ella walking. She is doing this more everyday and is so proud of herself! She grins from ear to ear the whole time. It it too cute! (..and a little scary too!) :)

Whirlwind Weekend!

We had such a great weekend! It started Friday night with a fun sleepover with the girls. My mom, sisters, niece and I went to the Harbor for dinner and spent the night at the Hilton. Cari is pregnant with her 3rd baby boy and due in March, so we thought it would be fun to have a night to ourselves before baby Clayton arrives. We checked in, dropped off our bags, and headed out to dinner at Gloria's. All we wanted to do after dinner was go back to our room and relax in our pajamas, so that's just what we did! It was SO NICE to just sit on the beds and laugh and have girl talk. We stayed up until 2:00 in the morning! I've been up at that time here recently, but not without having a little sleep before. :)

Our room was beautiful and overlooked the lake.

Saturday night was Cari's baby shower/dinner at the home of one of her friends. She got so many adorable things for Clayton!

The beautiful Mommy-to-be!


Mom and Nanny

We went to church this morning, the grocery store, and finally home to relax. I was able to catch Ella Grace taking a few steps on video too! She got a little excited here and started moving too fast, but you get the idea. :)

Looking forward to keeping Miss Macey tomorrow. Ella is going to be so excited to have a friend over for the day!

NOT looking forward to jury duty on Tuesday!!! :(
***Update*** I was able to claim exempt at the last minute! Woo Hoo!!! Thanks to all of you who informed me that my "job" qualified as an exemption. :)

Hope everyone has a wonderful week!

Ella and her Baby

Ella got a water baby for Christmas, and she is obsessed with loving on it! Since she got it, I have always hugged it and said "sweet baby", so she now tries to say "baby". In her words, baby has a "d" in it most of the time, but she has actually said it a few times before. If she is busy playing with something else, all I have to say is "sweet baby", and she comes crawling over as fast as she can to pick it up. In the video she starts to play with the baby, but gets distracted by the sunlight, then comes back to it. That's when you hear her say her version of "baby". (Ignore my voice!) :)

Conversation with a Curtain

I thought this was too cute when I saw Ella "talking" to the curtain in our living room. She was doing this for a while before I grabbed the camera, but she seemed like she really had a lot to say! This girl is ALWAYS babbling or making some sort of noise. I just love to listen to her sweet little voice and try to figure out what she is saying. I also love how you can see her hand through the curtain in the video. So sweet!

Is she speaking French? :)
(The video is kind of long, but she was focused!)

Also wanted to share some pictures from this past week. We have gotten pretty adventurous with new foods lately. Ella loves turkey, cheese, bananas, green beans, waffles, pancakes, carrots, mashed potatoes (from my plate), and spaghetti (ziti with sauce)!


Which then leads us directly to the bathtub...
She gets a little giddy and silly in the tub!

Mixed Emotions and Hyper Baby!

Tomorrow Zach and I leave to go to Chicago with a group of our close friends. Sounds like fun, right? Tons, but I am so full of mixed emotions right now! I know that we need to get away and have time to ourselves, but leaving Ella for the first time is a strange feeling. Zach's parents are staying with her while we are gone, so she will be in great hands for sure. It's also very comforting to know that she will be with one of the best doctors around! If anything were to go wrong, my father-in-law will know what to do and how to handle it, no doubt. You would think that that would be enough for me to feel comfortable. It's just hard to let go for the FIRST time! I am trying to think happy thoughts, like getting to see one of my favorite shows, Wicked, and going to the Christmas lighting celebration on the Magnificent Mile, and so many fun things that will be memories made with friends. I know that we will have a great time and I will think of Ella all day long, but I have to remember that this is healthy for us as a couple. Wish me luck and say a few prayers too, please! :)

Ella will be 8 months old tomorrow! Where has the time gone? She truly is a blessing and we are so happy to have been given this special gift. She was so funny tonight before bed. After her bath we let her play for a while only wearing her diaper. For some reason she LOVES to be naked and it puts her in the best mood. Tonight was no exception, so I had to catch a little on video. Please pretend my bed has sheets on it and the clothes we are packing are not on there! Thank you so much... :)

Hope everyone is enjoying their week!

Weekend and Today's Happenings

(Long post tonight!)

We had such a relaxing weekend! Zach's parents just bought a house in Hot Springs Village, so we loaded up the car and headed that way to see it. The weather was cold and the trees were beautiful with all the red, orange, and yellow leaves. It is always so nice to go up there and enjoy the simple things. The house was also very nice and it had no furniture yet, so it was great for Ella! She could crawl around the whole thing without us having to worry about her getting into something or pulling up on everything in her path. The guys enjoyed playing golf and us girls went to town to do some shopping. Later that night we ate at a really neat German restaurant that we try to go to each time we are there. Sadly I did not get any good pictures...my camera was dead. I did manage to snap a few shots with my video camera though. Those didn't turn out very clear so I only took about 2 pictures.

Looking out the window at the beautiful trees
with her Moni. (long 0) :)
Crawling across the floor...

Today was also my first day back as being a true stay-at-home mom. It's just Ella and me all day long and we have such a blast! She has been doing some funny things lately that keep us laughing constantly. She has a set of plastic keys that have been one of her favorites since she was able to hold anything, and they are still close by her at all times. A little too close! Her favorite thing to do while she is playing is to hold those keys in her mouth by the ring and continue on as normal. She will play with other toys, or crawl across the room with the keys hanging out of her mouth. It is pretty funny to us! I caught a little bit of her blooming personality on camera today along with her playing (with keys in her mouth). The beginning shows her silly laugh (I was just standing there with the camera) and the end shows her playing at her activity table, while holding her keys in her mouth, AND picking up another toy. I guess she was afraid she wouldn't get ample play time in today with all her toys. :)

Last night before bed...

Today...

One more thing before I go...Ranger has been paying a lot more attention to Ella lately. Well, really since she started eating solid food. He loves to stand at the side of her highchair or lie underneath waiting for a morsel of food to fall in his direction. Today as I was rinsing her veggie bowl I looked over and saw him standing with his head resting ON her highchair tray while she ate her puff snacks. I can already tell that this is going to be a game in the not so distant future!

Catching Up

Wow! We have been so busy lately. I feel like I have been lacking in my blogs! Miss Ella has been a little under the weather this week. She just cut her 4th tooth, so now she has her two top and two bottom teeth. Along with all of this excitement came one fussy little girl and some interesting diapers. (Sorry...I had to be honest!) It really looks like a lot of her teeth want to make their debuts very soon. I am not seeing an end to this in our near future. I will post a picture when I can get all the pearly whites in it.

This past weekend we had our family pictures taken at the Arboretum. Let me tell you, I was completely worn out after that hour and a half session! Our photographer was AWESOME and the setting was beautiful, it was our 7 1/2 month old that wasn't really into the whole posing thing. She did great during her candid shots though where she could just crawl around and be free, but as far as a good family pic, we just kept our fingers crossed that at least one came out where we were all looking at the camera. I guess we can't expect too much from a wiggly, independent baby like her! You can check out a few of our proofs on my photographer friend's blog at http://jallisonandrews.blogspot.com/. The girl who took our pictures is a friend of mine that I taught with my first year, and now she is a full time photographer as well as a designer of invitations, announcements, cards, etc. She is extremely creative, so check out her blog which has a link to her websites.

Lastly, I had to share a short video of Ella Grace clapping. I have been saying "Yay!" and clapping when she does something and she picked it up so fast. She will usually crawl and then sit up and clap and then repeat this over and over. It's pretty cute!

Hope everyone is having a good week!

No More Inchworm!

Okay, so I think Ella has finally gotten the gist of this crawling thing! She has technically been crawling for a little while now, but it was a combo of this thrusting herself forward and a few crawling steps. When she would get in a hurry, or was tired, it was always a fast "worm". :) If she was happy, and content, and close to an object she would take her time and actually crawl, but now she is just crawling all over the place! I caught a little bit on video today, but had to stop because she was already pulling up on her table. It's all happening SO FAST!

Our Little Inchworm

Miss Ella is still trying to perfect her crawling technique these days. Right now it reminds us of a little inchworm moving around the floor, but there are a few "real" crawling moves in there. She is so close!

She is able to go from crawling position to sitting on her own now though. For a while there she would get stuck propped up on her arm and couldn't pull it in. She sure is proud of herself and her accomplishments! (As are we :) )

Hope everyone is having a great weekend! We are excited about going to the fair tomorrow to stuff our faces!!!

Babbling Baby

Ella has had so much to say lately! I have really noticed in the past few weeks that she has started babbling a lot more and making new sounds everyday. Today she was especially chatty, so I caught a few minutes on video. I was really wanting to catch her crawling, but she is still working on moving those arms. Her legs are really moving and even pushing her up into a pyramid type position, but she can't figure out that she has to move her hands forward in order to get anywhere! It is quite frustrating for her and even for me to watch. :) She is also trying to pull up on everything! If Zach or I are sitting on the floor she is climbing on us, or if there is anything big enough to grab onto she has got a hold of it and tries to stand up. We even watched her for a while tonight after we put her to bed, and she was almost standing all the way up in her crib. She was pushing up on the bumper and grabbing onto the rails. Our doctor warned us that we may need to take that bumper out sooner than later with this very active girl. (No pictures...maybe soon though!)

I pieced together two separate clips...that's why it changes mid-video.

This next video is of Ella saying "dada"!!! She just started that today. I know she doesn't connect it with her daddy, but I am just excited that she is copying what we say. I have been working on this for months now! Every time I say something to her she starts to move her mouth without any sound coming out like she wants to say it back to me. I am just so amazed at the things this girl does each new day!

Tuesday Tidbits

I started the day off early today at the dentist office (yuck!) while Ella stayed home and played with her Moni. (Z's mom) When I got home Ella was taking her morning nap, so I peeked my head in her room to check on her and this is what I saw:

Notice anything strange about this picture???

Later, Miss Thing decided to practice her crawling...well sort of. She is still getting up on all 4's and rocking forward and backward building up momentum. It is so frustrating to watch because I know she wants to take off so badly! I just keep begging her to slow down and stay my baby for a while longer. :) Here's some video of the attempt:

I have to tell you that after posting this and watching it over not once, but twice, I got up to answer the phone. When I got there no one was on the line. Then I finally realized that it was on the video!!!