What a wonderful week! Ellie ate watermelon and hummus for the first time, climbed stairs for the first time, and she also sat in a high chair and on top of shopping carts for the first time (without needing her car seat anymore). That means that now we can go out to dinner and we don't have to hold a squirmy Ellie on our laps, and we don't have to worry about keeping her hands from pulling our plates off the table! She can now sit independently and play with her toys or eat a little snack! So much more fun for all of us!!! This brings me to a favorite moment of this week - Jeremiah and I celebrated EIGHT years together (from the day he first said hello to me on October 17, 2004...NOT our wedding anniversary day) and went to the same BBQ restaurant that we celebrated the finishing of his Masters in. Ellie had just as much fun as we did during dinner - and she was so HAPPY (as usual).
Another favorite though - watching her crawl out of her pants... even the new ones that I just bought her - the ones that say 3-6 months on them... she doesn't fit into 9 month ones AT ALL...and she's still crawling out of the 3-6 month ones!!! (and she will be 9 months on Monday :)
All those cute outfits with the matching pants... nope, not going to fit Ellie for a long long time! She can fit into 9 month shirts though... she just doesn't seem to have much of a waist or bottom :)
Another favorite - Ellie hid behind an afghan this week that I hung from her crib - and when I said "Where's Ellie??" - she peeked out from behind it and said "Goo (Boo, maybe?), I said "Peek-a-book", and she would smile and pull the afghan in front of her again... over and over again - I caught some of our game on video - BELOW (my favorite video EVER)
And Another favorite (!) - Ellie has stopped using her pacifier during the day (Hooray!), and Lori (her sitter) told me that she has been HUMMING herself to sleep! I had not heard this before because I usually nurse her to sleep, but yesterday afternoon, while Ellie was in her car seat, I heard the humming! And when we arrived to our destination, she was on her way to sleep! Amazing!
And one last favorite (told you, it's been a WONDERFUL Ellie week) - Clara was running around in circles last night and Ellie found this absolutely HILARIOUS. She's seen Clara do this many times, but for some reason, she just kept laughing and laughing and laughing! One of her new favorite things is chasing Clara around the house. Clara doesn't like it very much (Ellie hasn't discovered the difference between petting and pulling...)
Look how happy she is in her high chair!!!
Here's a new trick - stepping ON TOP of her walker - and bending herself in half as she attempts to get herself inside...
This is a new facial expression of Ellie's (above) - she talks ALL the time - and she seems so passionate about what she is saying - looks like she is giving a speech! Perhaps she is imitating the Presidential debates that we saw this week on television...
And here's her new favorite toy - given to us from our neighbor whose daughter doesn't play with it anymore... a stand-up walker! And Ellie knew EXACTLY what to do with it! When we brought it inside, she was off and running! The part in the front comes off and is a toy for Ellie to play with. She loved it so much that she stayed up an HOUR past her bedtime last night just to play with it!
Here are the two Ellies again (the older Ellie on the left is my friend's daughter - she's 3 1/2). We ran into each other at Dickey's last night and she kept wanting to hug our Ellie. Made dinner an adventure!
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And lastly, the above picture was taken today at Costco when we introduced Ellie to hummus for the first time - she LOVED it... we're thinking we could win some money if we sent this in to Costco - We think it is good advertising for them...
The following videos show:
Ellie crawling up stairs for the first time - my mom is holding out her cell phone for motivation...
Ellie crawling up stairs again
Ellie using her new stand-up walker
Ellie playing Peek-a-boo - this one is my absolute favorite video EVER!
Ellie playing with her new toy.
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