7-16-7-25

A lot has been happening around here in the past two weeks! My computer was being fixed by a good friend, so I haven't been able to blog - but we're back in action now! 

Ellie has decided to limit her naps to mainly 30 minutes at a time - enough to make a quick meal and eat it, but definitely not enough times to wash the dishes from that meal, let alone rest :) But her hours and hours of being awake now have been a lot of fun - she's started to have more fun with us, and more fun playing by herself as well. To help us out at meal times (so that we can eat our meals all together at the table), we sit Ellie in her high chair and dump all of her frozen teether toys on the tray. She LOVES them - and she gets quite animated while she chews :) 

 She has started to become stronger when placed on her tummy. She can last a long time now and enjoys playing with toys and objects given to her. She gets frustrated when something is just a bit too far out of reach, but perhaps she'll be motivated to scoot to it? But who knows - she prefers standing to sitting/tummy time any day! 

 One of the absolute best things that has developed during these past couple of weeks is Ellie's love for her daddy. For the first time ever, she allows him to play with her without crying (she actually smiles constantly at him now!), and miraculously, she's allowed him to rock her to sleep for naps. Last night she even allowed him to rock her to sleep for her bedtime! 

 Ellie LOVES the mirror! She smiles every single time we stand in front of it. Whenever she starts crying about something, we walk her to the bathroom mirror and she forgets why she was sad... 

 She's walking all over the house, the yard, EVERYWHERE! 

 And she's sitting up more. My brother got her a couple of Baby Einstein movies, and she sits here to watch :) 

 My attempts at helping her learn to crawl... 

6 months v 3 weeks...

 We put Ellie into her friend Jaden's walker and she was THRILLED! (until we took a picture of the two of them... :) She can't quite walk herself in it, but she sure loved being pushed around! 

 We really do try hard to prevent Ellie from watching the television... we really do! But here we have her in her bouncer, but where does she look? - not at the toys - but at the tv guide! 

 Looking for mom's favorite icecream! I guess Ellie will be an icecream-aholic too! 

 And perhaps the most precious of all is Ellie's new found love of the dogs - especially Sandy - Sandy is always jumping up to spend time with Ellie... and Ellie definitely doesn't seem to mind! 

Unfortunately, the room was dark when I shot this clip, but these are the sounds Ellie was making when she woke up the other day. She had no idea I was there...