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! :)

She's so clever

We have moved Ella's "toy box" aka the pink bin, from her room into the living room so her toys are near her play area. Yesterday, she got bored with the toys we had out for her and crawled over to her toy box. She tried to pull herself up, but the hardwood floors are slippery and she couldnt stay up on her knees, so she pulled the bin over so she could see the toys and get them out herself. She's so clever!









And then she proceeded to spread out all her toys so she was surrounded.



And after all that, she decided she was bored and went back to her original toys, and then mom got to clean up after her!

To cut or not to cut, that is the question

I am having a hard time deciding whether or not I want to cut Ella's hair. It is getting so long and is hanging in her eyes, but I can't bring myself to have it cut. She is only 9 months old, who needs a hair cut at 9 months old???

The sides are not long enough to tuck behind her ears yet, so unless I put barretts in her hair it hangs in her eyes.





The joy of her long hair is that she has the most awesome morning hair!!! She is going to hate me for this one day, but c'mon, how great is her hair in the morning??





So, for now, I am letting it to grow, but I don't know how long I will be able to do that. I can't believe how fast her hair is growing, plus the longer it gets the curlier it gets and those curls are so cute!

Ella's first overnight

Brandon and I had a wedding this weekend, so Ella had her first overnight with Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Terry. She did really good, much better than I did I think! When my parents pulled out of our driveway with her, I cried. It was the first time she was not with one of us overnight, and it was really hard for me to watch her drive away without us. I think I called my parents 3 or 4 times to check in on her, but there was no need. She was just fine! Once I heard that she had gone to bed for the night I found it a bit easier to relax and have fun at the wedding. We have 2 more weddings over the next month, so she will have two more overnights, one with Brandon's parents and one with her god parents. It is so nice to have so many people around who want to spend time with her when we can't!

Here are some pics from out first weekend away.....it was a fun wedding!

We have a crawler.......

Ella crawled last night!! She was playing with her new activity station (thanks Aunt Darcy) and when I moved it over, she got on her hands and knees and crawled to it!! It wasn't very far for her to go, but she crawled! Brandon and I were so excited. She only crawled a little bit today when she was at daycare, so we haven't seen it again yet, but we know it will get more and more frequent. Go Ella!