Ellie at 10 1/2 Months

I think I'm giving up trying to hit the one month mark.  April has been beyond busy.  We've been running around with soccer, spring break, my nonbiological kids' (my students) big test, movie night, birthday parties....I'm worn out from this month!  Ellie remains the most calm baby we've ever known.  She is carted around all over town with us and she rarely makes a peep.

She is really starting to LOVE playing with her brother and sister.  She follows them to the playroom, and when they give her their undivided attention, she is over the moon.  Hannah plays puppets with her and she laughs so hard.  It is absolutely adorable.

She has learned that yelling MAMAMAMAMAMA when she's hungry will get her the food she is interested in.  She eats just about anything we attempt to feed her.  She will eat table food and baby food.  I think she likes feeling like a big kid when she gets to eat some of our dinner.  She is also starting to act like more of a big kid by standing up!  She is pulling up on EVERYTHING.  She hasn't figured out the cruising yet, but she stands up and looks around, drops back down on her bottom, and crawls away at full speed.  She is also very sneaky and has figured out the stairs.  I think it's safe to say we are ALL in love! (even Ben 90% of the time!)

Ellie at 9 1/2 months....

I can't seem to get myself on track with Ellie's monthly postings.  Poor Ellie doesn't have a baby book, so my hope is to have these monthly posts bound into a book for her to look back on when she's grown.  She went to the doctor last month and is weighing in at 21 pounds 15 ounces (92nd percentile) and she is 28 1/4 inches long (74th percentile).  She is growing so fast.  She has already started wearing Hannah's 12 - 18 month size clothes.  Right around the time she turned 9 months old, she finally got her two front bottom teeth and she started crawling.

It seemed that Ellie went from not crawling to being the most speedy crawler in about 2 days time.  She is EVERYWHERE now.  Ben is not appreciating her being able to get his toys and papers, and it's almost like Ellie has a radar for Ben's things and she works very hard to get to them.

She is a very stubborn little person and will do just about anything to get to something she wants.  She LOVES to get into wires and electronics.  My phone is her absolute favorite thing to mess with.  She had her first tantrum a few mornings ago.  She did not want to take a nap for Mommy.  She did everything shy of jumping out of her crib to let me know that she was not a happy girl.  This is very out of character for her.  She is usually so calm and goes down for a nap with little to no fight at all.

Ellie's personality seems to bloom more everyday.  She loves to be outside and she will sit for hours in the wagon just watching the neighborhood kids play.  We can take her anywhere with us because she is such a sweet baby.  It is very rare to hear her cry.  She loves getting attention from Mommy and Daddy.  She has the most ticklish tummy and we love making her laugh.  She has started eating finger foods, and will eat pretty much anything we give her.  She loves dancing and she seems to have octopus arms with the way she grabs everything around her.  We are so in love with this baby girl.