Splish Splash!

As you probably know, Ellen loves to kick her feet.  This is especially true in the bathtub.

Ellen Turns 10 Months!

 

Our baby girl is 10 months old today!  Ellen just continues to amaze us and make us laugh.  Although she isn't crawling... I'd be surprized if she ever does... she is becoming much more confident with turning around in a circle on her bottom and reaching things almost out of her reach.  Her language skills and understanding amazes us most of all.  We ask her what a cow, monkey, or pig says, and she'll make the sound for each animal... not exactly how you'd expect, but in her own way... but she understands what we ask.  In the past week, she has added "la" sounds to her babbling vocabulary.  Just this morning I asked her at breakfast whether she wanted any more food and she signed that she was finished, without me asking her whether she was finished.  At meals, we have discovered that she will eat much more when I load a spoon with food for herfor her to feed herself than when she just picks up food from her highchair tray.  In fact, this morning she ate a bowl of Shreddies (similar to wheat Chex) for breakfast rather than picking up soggy pieces from her tray.

Pointing has become a new trick; she has learned that we can communicate through one little index finger... actually, it's quite helpful!  She has also become very interested in children (more than babies) and animals.  For instance, when we walk down the baby aisle or past the pet food aisle, she'll point and giggle at the babies on the diaper packages and at the animals on the pet food packages.  It's very cute and entertaining.  Also she loves looking at the babies in my baby magazines. She'll just sit there and thumb through the magazine for ages.

Ellen still isn't sleeping through the night without waking to feed, but we're working on it.  The past week and a half we've been using the "Millpond" method of helping her to sleep through the night, which is basically reducing the time she feeds during the night by 30 seconds each night. I'm still not certain whether or not it'll work, but we're giving it our best efforts.  We may just have to do the "gradual withdrawl" method, which may mean a few sleepless nights, but we must get her to fall back asleep without having to rely on "mommy".

I also returned to work tonight.  I will be working again at Sainsbury's 12 hours a week indefinitely - Tuesday and Wednesday evenings and Saturdays. It's not ideal, but it's what needs to be done.

Wintery Saturday

Happy 2013!  Although we have been back from Ohio for two and a half weeks, I have failed to post any pictures of our time there... but I will.  The past couple of weeks have been spent mainly indoors due to the cold and snowy weather.  It has snowed almost every day for the past week, and of course, that means choas in this part of the world.  Luckily, though, today it rose above freezing and the snow began to melt, so we drove over to Attingham Park for a walk this afternoon.

Daddy and Ellen, who is wearing her "oaknut" (acorn) hat from her grandma

 

 So happy one minute...

 ...and the next, she got very upset when I took her out of the stroller for a picture with me (of course)...I think she was hungry and Mommy = food.

I couldn't help myself this morning when Ellen was spinning around in her crib wearing only her nappy. 

 Ellen is pointing at her lovely clothes hanging in the closet...these have become very interesting this week.

 (I wish this picture wasn't so blurry)

Ellen turns 9 months!

 Ellen turned 9 months old today! Again, it's a month of firsts.  We are in Ohio visiting our family, so it's her first trip to the States. You may have noticed her top teeth have come in, but only since we've been here!  Ellen has started to spin around in circles counter-clockwise while sitting on the floor, which we call "bum shuffling".  I think she'll realise she can move around by pulling herself around very soon. 

Jeff turns 40!

We celebrated Jeff's 40th birthday on Wednesday, the 5th. I wish I could have made it a bit more special, but Jeff was simply happy with a couple of cards, a couple of presents, a cake and his favorite girls.

 Doesn't Ellen look so much like her daddy?

 Ellen gave Daddy a card

Lemon meringue cake

Ellen Turns 8 Months

Ellen turned 8 months today!  You would have thought that I would have felt like a "true mom" 8 months ago when I gave birth to her, but it really hit me a couple weeks ago while I was fixing supper.  Ellen was sitting in the baby walker; I gave her a few Cheerios just to quiten her down (or rather, make her stop whining), and she actually got one in her mouth for the first time!  My baby can pick up Cheerios (among other small foods, like peas) and eat them, too!  Now I'm a true mom... all we need now is a mini van!

A few other things happend this month that made us say, "Did you really just do that?" You can imagine my surprise when I went into her room to check her while she was sleeping and found her lying 180 the other way!  How did she get like that?!  I watched her through the crack in the door after I put her down for a nap a few days later to see what she does; she takes her blanket, shoves it up in her face and rolls around the bed using the sides of the crib to push herself around, then falls asleep in whatever position she happens to fall asleep in.

Now, I know that she probably isn't talking yet, but we're sure she understands what we're saying, at least some words here or there.  A week or so ago, I was climbing into bed with Ellen in my arms getting ready to read her bedtime book, "Good Night Moon".  The book was already on the bed as I was climbing in and she looked at it and said, "a book!" Jeff and I looked at each other in total disbelief.  She said "book" a few days later as she and I were sitting on the couch next to the window where we have some books lined up.  She looked over and said, "book"... of course, I then had to read her every book in the windowsill.  She really loves reading with me.

Since being able to say "da da da da" since last month, she now "speaks" over me when I'm having a conversation, or anyone else, like our pastor as he begins the sermon or Grandma as we're trying to Skype.  Hmmm...I wonder where she gets her chatterbox characteristics from!

Oh, and in case you're interested, she had her first bout of diaper rash a couple weeks ago, too.  Darn teething!  Speaking of which, she hasn't been feeling the best since a couple days ago, so getting these pictures were a bit of a challenge.

 

 

... but Poppy the Penguin (from her great grandma) always makes everything better.

Yay, Ellen!

Just so cute..