10 months

I think 9-10 months is my favorite age so far. Ella is developing so much of a personality, and I am loving getting to know her better. She pretty much smiles all the time - unless she's tired, then you have to work quite hard for just a little smirk. In general, she is a very happy baby. Even when she has refused to take her nap, or is way past her bedtime ... as long as she is entertained she is happy!

Ella is crawling now. She started by 'scootching' (ie pulling with her fingers and pushing with her toes) around 8 months, then it progressed to the army crawl, and now full on crawling. Her favorite motivation is all her daddy's cords, remotes and cell phones! We tried giving her an old remote and cell phone to play with, real ones mind you, but she is too smart for that. She knows which one's we use, and that is what she wants. I can line up three remotes on the floor in front of her and she will go for the one we use.

Music is one of Ella's favorite things. She'll 'dance', bobbing her head and moving her body whenever she hears it. She will turn her head to the TV when music comes on. And when she hear's Nate singing around the house she loves to sing along!

Ella's newest tricks include clapping and giving high fives. Neither of which she likes to do on command. But she is so proud of herself when she claps. She just grins from ear to ear with her new cheesy grin.

Eating is another favorite of Ella's. She is eating just about everything now. Her favorite food is whatever we are eating. Even if she has already eaten supper until she was full, if she sees us eating she wants to try that too! She loves to feed herself the best. The other night she sat in her high chair for 45 minutes feeding herself and was perfectly content. She can drink from a regular cup (if I hold it), and even from a straw! But she is just now learning how to hold her own bottle, and still working on holding a sippy cup.

Still no teeth in sight.

Ella is extremely social. She engages people by smiling and talking everywhere we go. She gets especially excited when she sees other kids and babies. When we are at home, she always wants us within eye sight and will occasionally just look over and grin at us from across the room.

She is loving the freedom that crawling is allowing her to discover new things. But she is also developing a little stubborn streak (which she most definitely gets from me!) She has definitely learned to speak her mind when we don't allow her to do something that she wants to do - like playing with the outlet, or sucking on a cord that is plugged in.

On almost a daily basis, either Nate or I make a comment on how amazing Ella is. We are truly just in awe of her, and completely obsessed with her! I can't believe the gift that God has blessed us with by being her parents. Obviously we are biased, but we definitely think we have the cutest baby in the whole wide world!

our little football fan

Ella got her first taste of live football last weekend! It was an absolutely beautiful day, just a little windy. My company sponsors NDSU athletics, and we tailgate at all the home football games. Saturday was homecoming, and we couldn't find anyone to watch Ella - so we just brought her with!

She LOVED it! She practiced her clapping the entire game. The only part she didn't like was the gun going off every time they made a touch down. She was just enthralled with all the noise and the people and the lights. She even made a new little friend. My coworkers grandson is about 4 months older than Ella, and they had fun making eyes at each other throughout the game. Ella even tried to hold his hand!

She lasted until about half way through the third quarter and then she was ready to go home; we'd barely left the parking lot and she was asleep.

socks

I am sad that summer is almost over. Sad that the nights are getting colder, that lake season is coming to a close. But sad also because it means I'm going to have to start putting socks on Ella again. Her outfits are infinitely cuter without socks. And anyone who has a baby knows the nuisance that baby socks are. It is quite the undertaking to find socks that are cute, fit your baby right, and (gasp) actually stay on. And then as soon as you do, their feet grow. So summer has been fantastic in that I can just send her off to daycare completely barefoot.

Yesterday was a little rainy and a little cool, and Ella has been fighting a cough. So good mother that I am, I decided she needed to wear socks. Ella hasn't worn socks since May - meaning half her life has now gone by without them. So when I put them on her last night to go out for pizza with Nate's grandma, they were a completely new thing to her! They were like a brand new toy.

So now it will be a challenge to keep them on her - not because they don't fit, but because she thinks it is a grand game to take them off!

Hi Mom!

weekend at the farm

Ella and I spent the weekend at my parents farm, helping with wedding projects and enjoying the beautiful weather.

There is lots to do outside at the farm. Like going for walks,
checking out the apple trees, meeting the dog, watching the horses,
and of course swinging with grandpa and grandma.

We love all the fresh produce from grandma's garden: corn on the cob,
green beans, peppers, potatoes and steak on the grill!

Grandma has great toys too!

And of course, no trip to the farm would be complete
without helping grandpa fix something.

It's too hard grandpa! You have to help me!

five months

Whoa, Ella is 5 months old. That means I’ve been a mom for five months! And you know what? It’s starting to feel a little more normal. Or at least, I’m starting to get used to this “new” normal. The past five months have been the hardest transition of my life. And it’s been wonderful. I still find myself questioning every thing. But I’m not feeling so much like my life is a wagon rolling out of control.

This month has brought many new things for Ella - the biggest being daycare. And she is loving all her new friends! The first week she came home exhausted every day. Her daycare mom tells me that she just sits and watches all the kids play, and smiles at them every time they stop and say hi to her. They are all in love with her too. And we love her daycare too. It’s an in-home Christian environment, we get picture texts every so often, and a complete printout of her Ella’s activities everyday. I was so apprehensive about sending my baby to daycare, and it truly has been such a blessing.

Ella has officially discovered her thumb! She and and her pacifier are still fast friends, but he’s slightly less important these days. Another new talent of Ella’s is sticking out her tongue, she always seems to stick it out the left side – and I just think it’s hilarious. She has learned to roll from her tummy to her back … so tummy time is now an optional activity in her book. She hasn’t learned to roll from her back to her tummy yet, there’s not as much motivation for that one! But she really is so close, she’ll get as far as her side with her head face down but just can’t get that arm out of the way. And just last week she discovered she has feet; grabbing onto them is a new hobby of hers.

We are definitely experience the four month “wakeful period” here – and hoping it ends soon! Ella has been such a good sleeper, sleeping through the night since she was about 2 months old. But lately she’s been reverting! We had her sleeping from 10pm-8am (with a 6am feeding) fairly consistently. But lately she’s been missing her paci around 1am, and seems convinced that 4am is a great snack time. I haven’t decided if it’s her still adjusting to being in her own room, or if she’s going through a growth spurt.

Ella is becoming more and more animated and interactive. Nate is a little worried about what that means in the future. He was hoping for a content and quite little girl like her mom … but I think we may have a little social butterfly on our hands! She’s constantly moving, talking all the time, and always wants to have us in her sights. She loves to be held, and loves to watch Nate rant about his day. She just sits and stares at him, and smiles and laughs – it’s completely distracting to him. :) Her little personality (or rather her big personality) is showing more and more every day. I truly cannot get enough of her. Some days I think I can’t handle the cuteness. Which I guess is good when she keeps me up all night!

not my favorite store

To say that Walmart is not my favorite store is, well, an understatement. This is not a political statement, it’s just true. I try so hard to have a patient open mind, but I’m usually frustrated before I even find a parking spot. There are just so, so many people. And they all have their own pace, which usually doesn’t make much sense to me.

Saturday I had to go to Walmart. And with Ella in tow no less. This trip was no different than any other. I was maneuvering my car seat-filled cart around people every turn I made. As I traversed the store multiple times in search of the four things on my list, I was constantly accosted by brightly colored displays of stuff that I, supposedly, need.

By the time I had found my items, Ella made it known that she was done shopping. Her patience had worn thin. I made my way to the front of the store, only to find multiple people waiting in every check out. No surprise there. I found the checkout that seemed to have the best people to items ratio and hopped in line.

Ella didn’t really agree with my choice to stand in line. So there we stood in line, rocking the cart back and forth, praying that her little cries wouldn’t annoy all the people around me. Then something I wasn’t expecting happened. A Walmart employee spotted me and offered to check me out in the closed lane next to mine. Why yes, yes please!

He quickly rung up my items and was very cordial. He then agreed to check out the guy who walked up behind me, confused by the presence of a person in the “closed” lane - and I was on my way. Then as I was just walking outside, he came running up behind me with a bag of items I had left behind. What service. What a space cadet.

I won’t go as far as to say that this experience has changed my desire to shop at Walmart, or even changed my perspective of Walmart. That’s not realy what this story is even about. But I will say that I was touched by the encounter with this man. It was certainly nothing over the top. He simply help a flustered new mom.

It got me thinking though. How often do I look outside the things going on in my own little world and help someone else? Our new theme at church is servilization - and to me, this man epitomizes what servilization means. Servilization … a civilization of people following Jesus’ lead to serve others. We don’t serve out of religious obligation, our for the accolades, but rather because Jesus has changed our hearts and we look at people differently - or at least we should.

If we are truly following Jesus’ lead, our priorities, our perspectives and our purpose in life should be different. When I think of serving my mind mind usually goes straight to volunteering. Volunteering is certainly a great form of serving! But volunteering is an event. I like the concept of servilization so much because it reflects a way of life rather than an event.

Being a part of a servilization means holding the door for someone with their arms full, even if they’re still across the parking lot. It means smiling and being friendly the the cashier, rather than being impatient and rushed. Basically it means stepping outside of my own little busy world, with my own agenda and to-do list, and looking around at the people in this world with me and how I can make their day and life a little better. And that’s my challenge for today.

four months

I was looking through pictures from Ella’s birth today and it made me a little sad. 4 months have flown by so quickly, and I find myself already forgetting so many things. I have not been very good about documenting Ella’s life so far - I’ve just been living every moment.

Ella is becoming more and more free with her smiles. Her favorite time of day is morning. She wakes up so happy, and is content to lay on our bed and talk to us (or the ceiling) while we get ready. Any attention from us brings huge grins, and even giggles sometimes! She is very ticklish - on her feet, neck and back especially. She loves when we make silly faces or sounds, and thinks it’s SO funny when my hair brushes against her face.

We were almost certain that she was starting to teeth already. But our pediatrician said she didn’t see any signs of teeth coming in just yet. Ella has definitely entered the ‘oral’ stage of development! Everything goes right to her mouth, and she is drooling all over the place.

Tummy time is becoming a more acceptable activity, but it still doesn’t take long until Ella is ready for something different. She’s loving her play mat more and more; she loves to reach for (and chew on) the dangling toys, and loves to kick at the bars. She will hang out there for a good half an hour at a time perfectly happy to play by herself. She’s starting to roll to her side quite often; she sticks her feet up in the air and over she goes! Rolling over is coming next! Soon we’re going to have to keep a very close eye on her!

We are starting to notice an awareness of individual people. When Ella doesn’t recognize someone, she is not as free with the smiles. But a couple reassuring smiles from mom or dad, and she warms right up to anyone.

Bath time used to be something that Ella simply tolerated. She was ok with it, but there was definitely a time limit on it before she was ready to be done. There were also times that something would scare her and she would get so upset that nothing short of scooping her up, holding her close and soothing her for a while would take care of. But bath time has recently become Ella’s new favorite activity! She has discovered that when she kicks (another of her favorite pass-times) it makes a new fun sound as the water splashes! She is so happy to just hang out in the tub, kick her feet and smile and giggle up at me. I seriously love it.

Not only did we move into a new house this month, but we also moved Ella into her own room. It was a big step, but mostly for me! It was so reassuring having her in her bassinet right next to me, not to mention convenient for nightime feedings. Now when she wakes in the middle of the night, it means one of us has to drapes to the other end of the house. And by the time we get there she’s usually too awake to simply take her paci and go back to sleep. But after the first few nights, with the help of my mom, she is starting to get the hang of it. And Nate and I are certainly enjoying being able to watch TV in bed again, and just having our own room back. :)