Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! It's Ella's 1st Halloween and we did what we could to make it a good one for her. It all started with pumpkin carving with Aunt Darcy, Uncle Dan and cousin Darren on Tuesday night.





Look at these stellar pumpkins, Dan's is the most impressive, that is the werewolf one....


Ella got all dressed up as Winnie the Pooh. It was a super cute costume, but we had some trouble with the hood staying up. Ella did not have a good napping day so she was very tired and we decided to not go trick-or-treating. We did go visit Ella's godparents, Steph and Nick, and went to see Grandma Jan and Grandpa Dave as well. All in all, it was a pretty good Halloween!

Time for an update

Yesterday I had my first real scare as a mom. Ella is pulling up on everything now, and she has taken a liking to her rolling walker. The walker rolled out from under her and she fell and hit her face on the bottom of it. She takes a lot of spills since she is trying to learn how to walk, so I thought it was like all the other ones, but when I picked her up she was bleeding from the mouth and I freaked out. Turns out, she was fine, and after about 5 min of screaming the bleeding stopped and she was back to her usual self. It took me over an hour to calm myself down though, seeing her bleeding was so scary. I cannot believe how resilient kids are! I never did find the source of the bleeding, but she seems to have made a full recovery.

The past few weeks have been very busy, so I am a little behind on Ella updates. Here are some updated pics, just because they are too cute!

Showing off her teeth....


Our little WI/PACKER fan.....


We started swim classes this week, a mommy and me class at the YMCA. She was a little leary at first, but once she started kicking in the water she was so happy! They have a free play time at the end and she was holding herself up at the wall splashing away. I think this class will be a lot of fun for her and I.

She is learning so much right now, she is almost 11 months and she is learning something new every day! Here are some things she's learning.....

How to put all her rings on.....


How to climb stairs.....


How to climb up the slide (and then of course go down the slide)


And of course she never forgets how to look cute!!


We have also started feeding her food in small chunks instead of grinding everything up. She is doing pretty well so far, and she is a fruit eating machine! I cannot believe that she can feed herself now, she is getting so big so fast. One more month and I will have a one year old.....crazy!

I was away from Ella for 3 days, and it was so hard! I was in a wedding for one of my best girl friends, I left Thurs night and came home on Sunday. While I was gone, mind you this was only for 3 days, Ella got 2 teeth and learned how to climb up stairs at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Who knew that so much could happen in 3 days!! When we came back to get her, she did not want anything to do with me, and she wanted only Grandma. It took her a little while to warm up to me, and that was so hard for me! She is usually such a mommy's girl and I am not used to her not wanting to come by me.

Here are some pics from the wedding, we had such a wonderful time!!!



The sisters Bliven



The happy couple



Me and my hubby



I cannot believe how short I am.....seriously



The girls and our green pashminas, thank you to the lovely bride for those!

Who needs toys?

I bought this toy at a garage sale and I thought it was great! It is an activity table that has a walker attached to it so she can move around on her own since she can't walk yet. She does enjoy it, but I have found that she likes to play with other things rather than her toys.



Such as tupperware that she can push around the floor....



And towels to pull down off the stove.....



And her baby gate to keep her out of the back hall.....



And drawers to pull out....



And of course, lets not forget her favorite non-toy of all, my cell phone. Anytime she sees me with it, that is all she wants. So, we pulled out one of our old disabled cell phones and make sure she has that when we have our phones out. I never thought she would have a cell phone at nine months! :)