8-30-9-7 - Labor Day & Crawling Adventures

We  brought Clara home with us after Labor Day (Sandy & Clara have been staying at my parents home for awhile) and Ellie has certainly enjoyed playing with her puppy :) Not so sure that Clara loves having her tail pulled all day long though...

Happy Ellie! She sure loves her Daddy! 

And she sure loves her peaches!! 

                                    

 Well, looks like Ellie is set for clothes until she reaches the 18 month size... thanks to Steve Smith, the music teacher at my school, and the one responsible for clothing Ellie for the first 7 months of her life. He brought new more HUGE bagfuls of baby clothes that his daughter has outgrown. Ellie and I had fun looking at all the new outfits. Well, she had a lot of fun crawling through her new clothes!

 With all the crawling she has been doing, I'm surprised it took her until yesterday, September 6, to reach for the books on the shelves in her room... but now that she found them, there's no going back. This morning when she woke up, the books were the first thing she went for after she got dressed! (Well, she's been squirming so much while I dress her lately that she actually grabbed the books WHILE I attempted dressing her!) 

And speaking of crawling, tonight (9/7) Ellie crawled on her knees for the very first time - just before bed time...which means that she'll probably be doing that all weekend long!

 These next pictures were all taken last weekend - Labor Day weekend - we stayed at my mom and dad's home and enjoyed the annual family swim party at Malynda & Alden's home near San Diego.

Ellie really enjoyed her bath in my mom's gigantic kitchen sink - byebye baby bathtub!

 Many family members got to love on Ellie throughout the weekend! She got to spread her light as she smiled, smiled, smiled! 

 

Had to pose in front of the pool where Melissa and her dog Daisy pose behind us!

 Ellie fell asleep in the car, and while mom and I munched on some pita crackers, we thought it would be funny to see if Ellie would hold a cracker while she slept - and she did! 

 The picture above is of Ellie and another girl named Ellie. I've never met anyone else by that before, so I felt pretty excited - and so did she! Ellie on the right is actually short for Eloisa. She is the daughter of a dance instructor in town that I am co-working with. I am helping out with her musical theatre dance class, and she is helping me choreograph the musical that I am directing. Pretty sweet deal! 

And this last picture was sent to me from Lori's cell phone (Ellie's sitter). This is her daughter Rachel sleeping with my precious baby... so nice to know that Ellie is so well loved!!! I enjoy doing this exact thing with Ellie in the afternoons when I'm with her. We both need that nap!