I’m a little behind, but on November 1st, Ella hit 8 months old. That morning when she woke up, I went in to get her. I was greeted by this sight…

Yes, that’s right. She was standing in her crib. If Jameson wakes up before her, I usually find both of them in the crib. She loves it. Please don’t judge me and the fact that my little girls sleeps in blue and trains. Also, after 8 months, I finally ordered her bedding, and I hope I can have her room put together by Christmas. The bedding is on back order so it might take till then.

Anyway, our mornings usually go as follows. The kids wake up within 10 minutes of each other. If Jameson is up first, he beats me into Ella’s room. She now stands in her crib and shakes the side so it squeaks, until I come in. Jameson climbs in the crib, and tries to stand on the two rails while Ella laughs at him. One day, the crib is going to break.

So Ella is 8 months old now. There are a few things she’s conquered since the first of the month, but I will do my update as of today.

• She is fully crawling, and getting pretty quick. She loves to come find you, and especially loves to bang the cupboard door in the bathroom. She loves getting into Jameson’s room, and follows me around the kitchen hoping I’ll drop something I’m cooking.
• She can now pull herself up and stand at anything. She can’t quite get down yet. She still kind of lets go and falls. Once in a while she yells for help. Mostly when her feet are too far apart, and she’s stuck.
• She loves food. She will cry crocodile tears if you don’t share. Story to follow…
• She can now hold her own bottle. You still have to watch her, because when there’s about an ounce left, she’ll play with the bottle and get milk everywhere.
• She is sleeping from between 7-8 pm till 7-8 am. (Except this week with daylight savings. Didn’t save me any sleep!)
• She can grab her puffs and put them in her mouth. (Open her hand and put the puff in.)
• She thinks Jameson is the funniest person alive.
• She is starting to reach for you to pick her up. Love it!
• Ella is definitely hitting the attachment stage. She goes to other people, but only on her terms. You can’t take her from us or she wants to come right back. But, if she crawls to you, it’s fair game.
• She loves to play with her binki. She will pull it out, flip it around, and put it back in herself. She won’t really take it, unless she’s tired.
• She weighs about 20 lbs.
• She is eating real food in small pieces.
• Her favorite is to crawl to the front door and eat the leaves that have been tracked in
• She loves to sing. At church, as soon as the organ starts, she gets so excited and starts yelling.

So one night Kevin had some ice cream. She crawled to him so he let her have a taste. After about 2-3 taste, he looked at her and said, That’s enough.” Then set his ice cream down on the other side of him. She immediately started to cry with huge crocodile tears! At first, we didn’t think that could really be in reaction to him telling her no more. So he gave her a little bit more, and the tears turned off. We started laughing. He set the cup down, and they immediately were back. It was so funny, but her cry was so sad.

A little bit later, we were at playgroup. I was sitting by the table with the food (we were having our Halloween treats that day). I gave her an apple to gnaw on. While she gnawed on that, I grabbed a wheat thin to eat. She dropped her apple, and started crying those crocodile tears. Everyone turned to look what was wrong as I popped the wheat thin in my mouth. Ella gave me the most devastating look. So, I gave her her apple back. That was not good enough. So I gave her a cracker. You would think she would start by sucking on it. Not my daughter. She shoved that whole wheat thin in her mouth, and then gagged on it. I had to do the finger swoop to get it out, but then she cried even harder. So I got another one, and I tried to hold it so she could suck on it. Nope. She got a hold of it and shoved that one in her mouth. So, I once again removed the cracker, and we left the table. She cried so hard, everyone was laughing. They couldn’t believe at such an early age she was so demanding of food and knew what it was.

So that’s Ella. Jameson on the other hand, has decided naps are no longer needed. Now, I frequently find him like this around 5 pm.

Great.

I have been pretty good about Ella only having baby food. I want her to eat the vegetables, so I’ve tried to limit sweet things she eats. The other night (Oct. 8th), I decided to give her a treat.

She LOVED it! Oreo cookies are now her favorite. She gnawed that cookie till there was nothing left. It was the biggest mess to clean up, but totally photo worthy!

Jameson enjoyed them, too.

(October 1st)

Ella at 7 months

This little girl has hit her 7 month mark. I can’t believe it. About 3 weeks ago, she was 18.5 pounds which puts her in the 95%. When I find the paper from the doctor, I’ll fill in the rest. I know her height was in the 90% and her head below 25%. Weird that my children have small heads. Nice, but weird. At this point, her accomplishments are:

rocking on all four’s

Looking when her name is called

Rolling every direction possible along with army crawling

Trying to push herself up to sitting position

• Sitting, although not long.
• Blowing raspberries
• Smacking her lips
• Feeding herself with hand to mouth (not able to open hand and eat from it yet)
• Passing items between hands
• Chew everything
• Belly laughs and giggles
• Yell to let you know she wants something. She definitely loves her own voice
• Loves to watch her older brother
• Will stand if you hold her hands
• Will take steps forward if guided and held by you
• Sleeps through the night, usually about 8 pm till 7:30ish am (at least I do, so I hope she is)
• Trying really hard to crawl, but can get to whatever she wants by army scooting
• Will eat pretty much any solid (fruits and vegetables) if hungry, but starting to feed real food. She loves graham crackers and rice cakes.

Almost every one comments on her cheeks. I’ve had people walking by my car as I’m getting her out, and stop to say, “Look at those cheeks!” She is a pretty content baby, and loves attention. We already have a little diva on our hands.

As Kevin and I were sitting here watching tv tonight after putting the kids into bed, I received this email…

from Jameson <jameson’s email> to “brittany <brittany’s email> date Mon, Sep 6, 2010 at 10:14 PM subject Hu.

hide details 10:14 PM (3 minutes ago)

Sent from my iPod

I laughed so hard. Let me explain. Jameson has an itouch his Grammy got for him. It has been the best toy ever. He has puzzles, flash cards, games, memory, videos, Diego, etc. We haven’t had to buy a travel dvd player even with all our traveling, because we just put the movies on the itouch. It’s pretty durable, too. Jameson’s Grammy also sends videos of them and the animals on the farm. So I created his own email since I didn’t want him to have access to mine. Lately, he’s wanted to watch the videos, so I showed him how to go to his email and watch them on his itouch. (He loves the videos, Grammy!)  So at night, we sometimes let him take it to bed, and then go retrieve it from him after 30 minutes or so. Then we all get our own quiet time before bed.

Well I’m sitting here tonight, looking at some craft blogs, and I get the pop up that I recieved an email. Who is that email from you ask? Jameson! My son just sent his first email at 2 years old. It read “Hu.” And that is all he had to say. 🙂

P.S. The email also reminded us that he still had his itouch, and we needed to retrieve it for bedtime. He wasn’t too happy.

(7.8.2010)

We’ve been doing some swimming this summer in actual pools rather than lakes. Lakes are fine, but Jameson doesn’t really get a chance to swim. He mostly just plays in the water and the sand at the lake, but no swimming. This is totally different than when I was little. I lived in pools in the summer and we all knew how to swim by his age. I mean, we had to. It was Vegas, and that’s all you can do in the summer is live in the pool.

He surprised me this summer by wanting to swim. I put floaties on him, but he stays pretty vertical. He kicks as hard as he can, but doesn’t really go anywhere. Some friends had a tube for their little girl. Well, when she was out of the pool, Jameson snagged it. Then, he was off. He cruised all around the pool, and loved swimming. In fact, he didn’t want to get out of the pool.

Ella was a great observer of the activities.