49 Weeks

Ella and her Daddy's cup. She walked around with that thing forever.

Ella and Lucy.

Ella and Daddy.

Ella, Chris and Julie.

Ella walking.

Ella's scrunchy face.

Ella in the tuperware cabinet.

48 Weeks

Ella in her game gear last weekend. I don't think she appreciated us watching the game very much, she walked around screaming for a large portion of the game.

We hosted Maggie's third Birthday Sunday. Ella got her first bite of a cupcake, she was a fan.

Ella loved all the little kids being here for the party. She was taking a nap when everyone arrived, so I think she was a little overwhelmed when she came out and there were so many people here. But she warmed up quickly.

Ella helping Maggie open her Birthday presents.

Ever since Ella was born, we've been given so many baby clothes both as hand-me-downs and gifts, that I've only actually bought a few things for her. We're finally coming to the end of the hand-me-downs though, and I decided to take the opportunity to buy her some fall clothes myself. I learned (kind of late) the hard way NOT to take the baby shopping with me for clothes. She was all over the place. At least twice she got away from me and out of my sight long enough for me to not be sure where she went, which is a terrible feeling. However, I did manage to find lots of cute fall/winter clothes for her. I also got her the pair of shoes pictured above. She loves shoes. Any time we go into her room, she makes a b-line for her shoes to play with. She played with her new shoes and ignored her toys all afternoon.

Ella has started spinning circles when she sits on the ground. She uses her leg to propel herself around.

Ella sharing her chip with Bryan at Joe T. Garcia's Friday afternoon. It was such a nice day out! Ella had a great time exploring the patio area.

Ella is so into books right now. Any time we're playing on the floor at home, she brings me one book after another and sits herself in my lap to be read to. She'll even throw a little temper tantrum if I close a book or put it down before she's finished with it. I think she's trying to say book, but she's not got the k yet, so for now it's "boo". She started being kind of hard on her books too. I think we're going to have put the books with paper pages and anything that pops-up somewhere she can't get to them and only get them out for supervised reading.

47 Weeks

Ella is a walking machine! As of last Friday, she was walking a few steps here and there, but something clicked on Saturday and she took off. Ever since then, she's been walking non-stop. She's gotten so good at it, she bends over and picks things up, carries stuff all over the place. She still falls a lot, especially when she's tired, but it doesn't seem to phase her. I don't know if it's a physical thing, like muscle strenth or balance, or if it's a mental thing like she just decided or realized she could do it, or a combination of the two. Whatever the case, she is up and running!

Check out the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9HETpRO4lg

She still doesn't have much to say though. We still get "mamama" occassionally, but that's about it. She seems to have forgotten dada. When we try to get her to say it, she says mama. I know she understands many words and even a few simple phrases. When we read books, I'll point to something, like a butterfly, for example, and say what it is a few times, then ask her where it is and she points right to it. She seems to only retain this kind of info for a little while unless I repeat it regularly, but still she gets it quickly. So I know she hears and understands a lot of language, she just has no desire to repeat it I guess.

46 Weeks

Ella in her cute little outfit that her Great Grandma Keiss and Aunt Cindy got for her.

Ella and her Grandma. Ella in her game day gear!

Luckily the first weekend of college football, UT and A&M didn't play on the same day. Ella got to wear her UT stuff on Saturday and her A&M stuff on Sunday. While the cape was pretty cute, I still think she looks better in orange.

We went to College Station for a couple of days for the game and to visit family. Ella was in such a great mood the whole time. She loved her Uncle Steve! She had a hard time sleeping in a weird place, but she managed to get all her naps and decent sleep at night. The car rides down and back were ok. It's not an experience I care to repeat frequently, but it's doable.

Ella and her cousin Emily.

Swim lessons started back this week. We got there a little early and the class before us was still going. I had to physically restrain Ella to keep from going into the pool! She was excited to get going.

They changed the time of our lessons so Jeff isn't able to come any more. It's kind of hard to take pictures while holding her at the same time... She did great though and she seemed really happy to be back in the water.

Now when we do the part where we practice swimming to and holding onto the side, she tries to climb out. She cracks me up with that leg. She's constantly trying to climb up on stuff or over stuff and it's always that right leg she's trying to throw over the obstacle.

We went to story time again on Thursday. When we walked in there were a few babies already there so I went and stood her on the carpet. Instead of falling down and crawling like she usually does, she walked instead. She did quite a bit of walking Thursday and again on Friday. I think she's finally realizing how much easier it is to get around on her feet.

Ella's been a little under the weather since we got back from College Station. At first I just noticed that she was sleeping more but still seemed tired. Then Thursday her nose started running and then she started coughing and sneezing and got big dark circles under her eyes. She had a bad night Thursday night, she was all stuffed up and having a hard time breathing through her nose. I'm pretty sure it's just allergies, I'm hoping it doesn't progress to something worse. This is the first time she's been even a little sick and it it no fun. She's been a little cranky and clingy, but otherwise she seems to be in a good mood so far.

Ella figured out how to open cabinets this week. She doesn't have a very high success rate. She tries opening them from the top or wrong side and then gets frustrated and moves to something else. I've tried to not make a big deal out of stopping her since that seems to make her want to do it even more. Fortunately so far she's not really interested in what's in the cabinets, just the opening and closing.

Ella likes to "share" her food and toys. Her version of sharing is pretending to give you the object or expecting you to give it right back if she does actually hand it over. The other day she decided to share her cheerio with LaRoo. She was stunned when LaRoo not only took the cheerio, but ate it. That was the last time she purposely shared with the dog.

45 Weeks

Ella made herself a little tent last weekend. She was very entertained in there.

We went to our first story time at the library this week. Ella loved it, although she didn't quite get the concept of sitting still and listening. The first part of story time is singing songs and reading stories with the babies in laps. Ella didn't really go for the in the lap part. She kept crawling away from me, trying to take the book the lady was reading or the teddy bear in her lap, tackling the other babies and moms, "talking" loudly, etc... After the story part was over, all the moms held onto a big parachute thing while the babies got underneath it. We sang Old McDonald and bounced little stuffed animals on the parachute. Ella liked that part a lot, she kept trying to grab the parachute. After that, they dumped a bunch of soft blocks on the floor and let the babies play. Ella kept kissing all the other babies. I can't get a kiss from her to save my life, but she was giving them to any little baby she could get her hands on!

Aunt Cindy is visiting from Albuquerque this weekend. She brought Ella a cute little outfit and some soft, colorful books which Ella loves.

I know it's my job to think my kid is a genius, but I really am in awe of how much Ella is learning. She's like a little sponge all the sudden. She's really into mimicking gestures. I was brushing her hair earlier this week and she took the brush out of my hand and started brushing her own hair. She also started initiating little games. She was sitting in the highchair next to me while I was on the treadmill and she took her hands and kind of patted her head behind her ears. I laughed and did it back and she did it again. Now she does it all the time. She also learns things that I don't purposely teach her. One day we were playing and Happy and You Know It came on. When it got to the part about "clap your hands" she clapped her hands. I guess she knows the word clap and just put it together. I can't even remember all the little things she has learned lately. It's many new things every day.

One big thing she figured out is "no". She started shaking her head no when I say no a few weeks ago, but now she really know what no means. Not that she always listens to me when I tell her no, but she knows what it means. Even if I don't say no, but use a no voice, she looks at me and shakes her head no. She also shakes her head no when I try to do something she doesn't want me to do, like brush her teeth.

Ella has been playing peek-a-boo for a while, but she just figured out how to cover her own face. When I'm changing her diaper I always give her a clean diaper to play with. Usually I throw it over her face and when she pulls it off, I say peek-a-boo and all that. So this week she figured out how to put the diaper back over her eyes so we do it over and over again.

Ella has eagle eyes and she loves finding little tiny things on the floor to pick up and of course, everything goes in the mouth. I vacuum every day pretty much, but she still manages to find stuff, mostly little pieces of LaRoo's dog food. I guess there are worse things she could eat...

Her random pointing has started to take some direction. If you ask her where the puppy or Daddy or kitty is she'll point to it. She also points when she wants something. She likes to look at pictures of her family and she'll point to Mommy or Daddy (usually correctly) if you ask her to.

I've been Mommy-the-jungle-gym for a while now. She climbs all over me, uses my legs to give her a boost so she can crawl up onto the couch. She also likes to crawls back and forth over my legs if I have them stretched out in front of me. This week she started backing into my lap. She'll walk over by me, turn around and sit down in my lap. She especially does it if she wants me to help her with a book or something like that.