10-28-11-2 - Walking with one hand free!

Favorite memory of Jeremiah's this week: Going trick-or-treating around our neighborhood with Ellie and teaching her to share by giving away candy (instead of taking candy)

My favorite memory (S): Taking naps together on the couch (we do this often in the afternoon... such a beautiful way to share time together!), "walking" in the front and backyard - YUP - Ellie is learning to walk by holding onto only one of my hands now... she's gotten better each day this past week!, sitting in my lap for the first time (well sitting in front of my lap... close enough!), watching her drink from a cup for the first time (she drank in A LOT of water!), LOTS of kissies this week (she likes to suck my cheek), and playing this odd game with cheerios... her new favorite snack - I took a cheerio and put it on my tongue and stuck my tongue out at her saying "AHHHH" (not aaaahhhhh) and after giggling at me, she used her fingers and grabbed the cheerio off of my tongue and put it into her mouth! Ok, that might sound gross, but we played it over and over again - and she kept giggling - and it wasn't gross - it was fun! :) 

I have also been enjoying playing "roll the ball" with Ellie, and today (11-2), Ellie "shared" an object with someone - Donna Stieglieder, the music director of my show. It was quite an exciting moment for sure!

Below are videos from today (11/2) of Ellie giving her speech... she's definitely a talker! Look at her go with just one hand on the window now! 

This week, Ellie got better at petting Clara - not pulling at her fur!

 And she had a lot of fun petting her too :) 

 Ok, I HAD to put this picture in the blog.... Ellie usually smiles in just about every picture... so I HAD to catch this particular face... this is the "I'm tired and I want you to hold me & not take my picture" face. So what happened? Ellie was enjoying eating an apple as I held it for her. Well, I tried to get her to hold it all by herself and she fell apart! She suddenly wanted nothing more to do with this apple...

But about 2 minutes later, the picture below was taken...

 She held the apple herself and seemed to forget why she was crying a minute ago! :)

But literally about 3-5 minutes later, she was asleep in my arms! 

 For the first time, Ellie began crawling around outside and explored our backyard. It was finally a little cooler out - yea!!! We enjoyed our photo-shoot out in the backyard. 

Well, at least I did...

I love the above picture because it really shows just how little itty-bitty Ellie is (most of the time I take close-ups and she doesn't look so small!)

 One of Ellie's favorite habits is to crawl around while something is dangling from her mouth - in this case, it is her hair comb. It has a rubber end and she LOVES to chew on it (with her toothless gums...)

 She found the dirt chips & enjoyed playing with them for a long while... but once she started putting them in her mouth, I decided it was time to go inside! 

 She must have spent about an hour outside. She definitely enjoyed it... glad we got to enjoy our one day of cool weather this fall! 

 Halloween! My zebra is BACK! 

 And off we go trick-or-treating!

 Our neighborhood is almost complete! 

 And lastly, today's photos were so much fun to take - Ellie was delivering a speech while I took pictures... 

10-27 - Family Visit

Last weekend, Cindi, Steve and Ellie's great-grandmother, Barbara came to Porterville to visit with Ellie. We had a wonderful time laughing together, eating some delicious food, picking a pumpkin at the Porterville Pumpkin patch, and watching Ellie entertain us. She was particularly fond of Barbara - perhaps it was the white hair? She kept on doing things to get Barbara's attention - it was hilarious. Perhaps my favorite part of the weekend together was trying to nurse Ellie to sleep for the night on Saturday only to find her wake up again, crawl to the bedroom door, open it, and crawl back out to Barbara who was in the living room... she did this TWICE! It was crazy! She didn't want to miss anything I guess! 

Below are some comical videos of Ellie being Ellie with family :) Above she is wearing a bib that her great-grandmother gave her.

 We ate lunch at OrangeWorks - Cindi had been wanting to try their sandwiches. We took some time to get some family pictures in :)

 Of course Ellie had to enjoy some orange at OrangeWorks!!!

 And of course we couldn't miss getting some single shots of Ellie...

This is a different kind of Ellie smile... her mouth isn't open!

 I enjoy this family portrait of the 3, or is it 4 of us?! We visited the pumpkin patch in Porterville - it's located in the backyard of my school and this was the first time we saw it - all for little Ellie! Out of the 3 pumpkin patches we visited in the last 3 weeks, this one was the best - and closest to home! 

 There's that closed-mouth smile again... 

 Now here's the Ellie-smile we're used to!

 Playing Prince & PrincesseS :) 

 Family portrait - Ellie has a thing for falling asleep at pumpkin patches! 

 Cindi brought Ellie a cat-rattle and a felt pumpkin container so that she could fully participate in this year's Halloween festivities...

 Back at home, Jeremiah and his mom began pulling out all the pumpkin seeds and carving the pumpkins

 This is Ellie's first time seeing a pumpkin so close

 And she decides to eat it! The look on Barbara's face is priceless! 

 Family pumpkin and Ellie's pumpkin!

 We are very glad that we lit the pumpkins that night... unfortunately they were covered in mold on Halloween (just 4 days later!!!) and we had to throw them out... But Jeremiah did such a great job! And they live forever on this blog! 

 Ellie was very excited to see the candle-lit pumpkins

And here is the hilarious way that we spent Saturday night - Barbra was looking at Ellie's scrapbook while Ellie chewed on its pages and stared endlessly at her great-grandmother!