Happy 7 Months, Ellie girl!

Dear Ellie-belly,

You are 7 months old today. I just cannot get over how quickly time flies. You are growing up so fast and sometimes it makes me a little sad. Your Daddy and I went to the movies this weekend and found ourselves surrounded by overly-enthusiastic junior high girls. And I thought to myself, "Soon Ellie will be like them." One day you will scream "I hate you, Mom!" while simultaneously throwing your shoe at my head. And my heart will shatter into a million pieces. But I will know that is just what junior high girls do. And then I will pull out pics of you kissing me and laughing with me and say, "See, you DO love me!" I want to keep you my sweet, innocent little girl forever.

This past month you have really figured out how to get around. If there is a toy half way across the room, you will find a way to roll/scoot your way over there. When you are sitting, if a toy is out of your grasp, you will lean forward, ease onto your tummy, and roll away! You are also "talking" a lot more. Your favorite phrase is "Ah da da da." You also make these growling noises a lot and some high pitched screeches.

Everyone always comments on how happy you are. You really are such a happy baby. Quick to smile and laugh at everyone. You love to play with your cousins and you get so excited when you see them. You have also discovered the dogs. You never used to show them much interest, but now you get really excited when you see them, flapping your arms and kicking your legs in your funny spastic way. I was always so careful to keep the dogs a safe distance from you because they are such big, wild, hyper things. Quick to jump up and slobber anyone who dares pet them. Many a grandkid has been knocked down by our overgrown puppies. But with you they are different. If you are sitting on the ground, they won't go near you (which makes me sad because I do so want a picture of you with them). When I am holding you, they come up and carefully balance on their hind legs so they can give you cautious licks. And you love every minute of it.

Every moment I am away from you, I miss you like crazy. I feel so very, very lucky to have such a great baby. Happy 7 months, Choo-choo!

I love you forever,
Mama

All about the food

Ellie is no longer a vegetarian. This morning we tried out Sweet Potatoes & Turkey and she loved it. She kept banging her hands on her high chair tray for more. Unfortunately, since we have been giving her finger foods, she thinks that she needs to feed herself her baby food as well. She keeps grabbing at the spoon and gets mad if I don’t give it to her. She is good at getting the spoon in her mouth, but inevitably makes a HUGE mess. Oh, she is much better at her veggie puffs now…consistently averaging 4 out of 5 puffs in her mouth. Such a big girl!

Odds and ends

I had to work today (Saturday, ugh) so Ellie stayed home with Tom. They both dressed up in their A&M gear as today is the big A&M/OU football game. I wonder if Ellie will rebel when she is older and discard all her A&M clothes for UT ones. I hope not...her complexion is much more suited for maroon then burnt orange. Of course, she could choose BYU and go blue, but right now when she wears blue she just looks like a boy. Hopefully she will outgrow that problem.

I no longer can just set Ellie on the floor with a bunch of toys and count on her staying there. She can roll from one side of the room to the other in no time flat. However, she seems to only be able to roll in one direction (clockwise). She gets around this limitation by maneuvering herself upside down and rolling back across the floor again. I don't think she will ever learn to crawl because I can't get her to stay on her stomach for more than 2 seconds to practice. Tonight she got caught under the coffee table and I just left her under there for a bit so that she would stay out of trouble. She didn't seem to mind.

About 2 weeks ago, Ellie woke up one morning repeating "da da da da" over and over again. It remains one of her favorite phrases and we like to pretend that she is talking about Tom. She also likes to grab my nose because I will say "honk" everytime she does it. She find that pretty darn funny. I have always been a bit sensitive about my beak of a nose, but I am glad it serves its purpose here.

I am pretty sure Ellie was going through a growth spurt last week as she was eating NONSTOP! She was insatiable. I started her on some finger foods for fun (those veggie puff things that dissolve in the mouth). She loves trying to eat them, but she only gets like 1 in 5 pieces in her mouth. The rest end up stuck to her sleeves or on the floor, much to the dogs' delight.

I can't get over how big Ellie is getting. I was just looking at this pic of her sleeping when she was only 2 weeks old and felt compelled to go take one of her now for comparisons sake. Ordinarily, Ellie sleeping is something I would never, ever, ever take the chance of disrupting but tonight I snuck in and snapped the 2nd pic below...and she didn't even wake up. Yes, I know she is still wearing her "street clothes." That's because I was too busy watching the game and stuffing my face with pizza to bother bathing her and putting her PJs on. I pretty much just told her to put herself to bed and handed her a piece of coal to suck on. I am just that good of a mom.

First Halloween!

I was ridiculously excited for Ellie's first Halloween. I took off from work an hour early and headed out to Mark and Rosie's house for a family Halloween party. Rosie had set out such a fun, creative Halloweeny food spread. We took all the kids trick-or-treating, but a lot of the candy-givers would look at Ellie and say things like "Oh, she is too little for any of this." Hello! Obviously, the candy is for me and I am just using the kid. Ok, not really, I had tons of candy at home...I just wanted the whole trick or treating experience.
Tom, Ellie, and I looked quite the motley crew. Tom was Arnold, I was a pirate, and Ellie a ladybug. We weren't clever enough to coordinate like Kolby, Sabrina, and Daniel who were a lion, witch, and a wardrobe (so cute!).

But overall I'd say Ellie's first Halloween was a success. Good food, good company, and lots of laughs.

My baby is a vegetarian?

Ellie is such a great eater. Every time I have introduced a new food, she has gobbled it down without hesitation. We have pretty much tried all the Stage 1 fruits and veggies and had moved onto Stage 2. Today I decided enough with all these boring old fruits and veggies...my baby needs some MEAT! So, I sat her in her high chair, handed her a sippy cup of water to keep her occupied while I prepared some rice cereal, and got out the 'chicken in chicken gravy.' I also decided to take some pics while doing all of this.

Notice how happy Ellie is about the prospect of food? I opened up the jar of chicken. It smelled like canned dog food. Actually, canned dog food smells a little better. And there is something just wrong about eating liquid meat. With the camera in my right hand and the dog-food chicken in my left, I proceeded to give Ellie her first taste of glorious meat.

I have never seen Ellie respond to food like this! I couldn't stop laughing. I gave up after a few bites and moved on to her rice cereal with bananas. She happily gobbled it all down so I tried to sneak in another bite of chicken. She eagerly bit into it only to recognize it for the devil-food that it was. And I swear she whispered a word that sounded like "yuck." Then, she started opening her moth wide and acting like she was going to throw up, all the while making these "bleeeeaaaahh" noises.