I Smile

Our apartment is an ice cube. Even though we keep cranking the heat, it's freezing cold in here when it's a chilly 14 degrees outside. Yikes! Ellie and I try to stay bundled:

 She wasn't sure about this pj outfit at first - by day 2, she was toasty warm and happy :)

Testing out my new video camera to take a picture while holding Ellie in one arm

Speaking of Ellie, she continues to crack me up. I've got to be on my toes with this girl! Here are a few random moments with her.

1.  Ellie has two teeth - the bottom front ones. She got them both in the past two weeks; the first came the day after she turned seven months old. The second came about a week later. She loves to gnaw on anything. She has a stuffed puppy dog...she loves to gnaw on his legs, which is too bad because his fur is coming off in tufts :) Kinda gross! Today she discovered the straps of her toy bag. In my opinion, that's much better to gnaw on. I imagine it feels good scratching against her new little teeth.

2.  From an email I sent to Steve at work the other day: Ellie makes me laugh. Case in point: Today I emptied all of her dresser drawers into boxes with the intent to go through each and every tiny piece of clothing to decide if it currently fits her, will fit her in the next three months, or is too small and needs packed away (sniff). I figured it could be done while she's awake since lots of things can't be done while she's up. So we were hanging out in our bedroom - Ellie playing with her reflection in the mirror - and I thought, Hey! This would be a great time to go through some of her clothes! She's distracted but we're still hanging out together.

So I plopped down on the floor with a box of clothes and began sorting. Well, Ellie quickly lost interest in her reflection and wanted to grab each piece of clothing within her reach. I pulled her into my lap and let her play with one piece of clothes. That was boring quickly. So she leaned forward as far as she could and began grabbing a flap of the box. You'll never guess what she wanted to do with it. She promptly put the corner into her mouth. I set her on the floor and turned the box at an angle I thought would keep her from gnawing on it. Wrong-o. She always finds a way. After several minutes of trying to get her interested in the Mr. Happy back scratcher instead, she turned her attention to grabbing my slipper (with my foot in it) and putting that into her mouth. Arg!  I had to give up and admit defeat. I was not going to get any more sorting of clothes done.

Next I put her on the floor next to my feet and let her play with my water bottle while I type this. She lost interest  by  the second paragraph :) I think I'll go feed her lunch.

3.  Ellie likes to sit in the laundry basket - it's like a mini-playpen. She will sometimes just sit in there and wiggle around, sliding all over the place...and sometimes she tips over sideways and gets stuck :)

 

The other night she was quietly playing in there next to my feet while I worked on my laptop on the kitchen table...and when I glanced over at her, she was standing up! First time - very first time I saw that she had pulled herself up to a standing position. We watched her for a few minutes, but she never did it again. I did finally see her do it two or three times in her crib this week. I don't think she's much interested in crawling, but she sure loves to stand, hold our fingers and walk...

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As for the hubs and me...He stays super duper busy with work and church. 

I do a little bit of everything and a lot-o-bit of taking care of my girl. Speaking of which, may I just say...I totally get why moms wear crummy clothes at home all day long. During just one meal today, I ended up wearing Ellie's turkey and rice baby food (in four different spots on my good jeans and three places on my sweater...) and milk (on my jeans and sweater as well). I should have known better than to dress for the day and not to save my outfit for later tonight...

Ha ha. Good thing she's so cute - ooh, and waiting for a diaper change. I'm on it.