Unconditional love

It never ceases to amaze me. Every day I think about how I am the lucky one to be Ella's mommy. That I get to spend every day with her. I get all her slobbery kisses, all of her smiles and get to share in her squeals of delight. I get to spend every day with her. How lucky am I! We've definitely had our share of hard times as we've delved into parenthood, but none of that comes close to overshadowing how unbelievably happy David and I both are to have Ella here; to wake up every day to her little face; to spend our days playing with, kissing and loving her, and putting her to bed every night.

Last night when we went to bed Ella had already been in bed about three hours. I quietly tiptoed into her bedroom and bent down to her crib. I stood there crouching for a few minutes watching kind of in awe, my sweet baby sleep. Her face looked just like an angel. I listened to her breathe. My heart felt like it was just flooding with love. I love so much about my life, but the love I have for Ella is unlike any other kind of love. Looking at her I sometimes still am in awe that she's mine. She's here and she's mine. It sometimes overwhelms me. I almost wanted to cry watching her sleep, I felt so overwhelmed. I had to go get Dave so he could experience this as well.

At almost eight months, we've never really crept into her room while she sleeps. We peek in constantly, but have always stayed at the doorway. Perhaps it's because it used to be so hard to get Ella to sleep at night. We used to tiptoe around like little mice on our way to bed, so careful not to wake her. Things are different now. As I stood there watching her, I couldn't resist. I stretched out my hand and stroked the top of her head. She stirred and brought her hands to her face and sighed audibly at my touch before relaxing her arms back down at her sides. I love this little thing so much. Being a mom is so much more than I imagined. It's a lot harder and a lot more exhausting, but also much more wonderful than I ever thought it would or could be. Being Ella's mommy is the absolute greatest gift. I'm so thankful. God has really blessed us.

Thank you prunes

Ella had her first taste of peach puffs today. I soaked them down with water before giving them to her, both Dave and I nervous about the possibility of Ella choking. She wasn't sure what to do with the puffs, but ate maybe five of them. The last one seemed to stick in her throat a little and she coughed a bit. I think we'll try again in a few days or so.

Ella blowing those raspberries, soaking her shirt.

All bundled up for our afternoon walk today. It was a gorgeous day with the sun shining. Ella enjoyed looking all around but eventually fell asleep.

My little movie star. ;) She's constantly ripping my glasses off my head and sticking them in her mouth. I gave her her own sunglasses to play with, but I don't think she enjoyed them quite as much.

As I've mentioned before, since Ella began eating solids she's been a little more constipated. Today at lunch she gobbled down 4oz of apples & prunes. She looooved it! Later while we were out picking up some groceries we kept her in her infant seat. I noticed she seemed to smell a little funny but I wasn't quite sure what it was. As we were checking out, however, she raised her arm and I saw her entire shirt and pants on her one side was soaked...brown. Sure enough, the apples & prunes had gotten her system going. The poor little thing had been sitting in her own poo and pee for at least 30 minutes. The cute thing is, she rode around in the cart through the store smiling away, giggling and "talking" to me. She was so happy! On the ride home she fell asleep. You never would have guessed she was sitting in her own mess. Nothing seems to bother the little thing. What a great disposition she has! Here she is before heading off to the grocery store. (I'm still trying to get the stain out of her onsie though... :))

Hooray for the weekend!

Why are you taking my picture? Can't you see I'm busy with my table?

Really?! We're going to church today?! (Ella loves loves loves church!)

Staring contest #1.

Staring contest #2. She is really, really good at this game.

My little "fuzz head" as some people like to refer to her. ;)

Playing with her giraffe and practicing her standing skills. Getting pretty good!

What is this big furry thing on me?

I think Lucy is a little too... hmm.. shall we say, affectionate, with Ella?

Ella and mommy playing with, what else, the leapfrog table.

That's grandma in the background. They were playing with, yes, you guessed it, her leapfrog table. :) SHE LOVES THIS THING!!

We just love bath time at our house. And the rubber ducky.



Yeah. I know I'm cute. ;)


Nothing like a good foot after a nice, relaxing bath!

The Tastiest Little Morsel

This face and those eyes make me melt. Nothing too new and exciting to report from the past week. Ella's been going craaaazy with making raspberries to the point where she's drooling all over herself. It's pretty funny. :) Anyway, here are some recent pics of my little blue-eyed angel.

What did you say?

Ella showing off her sole dimple.

This was our attempt to get a picture of Ella's bottom two teeth. It took Dave prying her mouth open a bit to get a shot. This is the best we got. Check out those sharp puppy dog teeth!

She really is the most delicious little thing.

My cutie pie

My little nekkid baby.. :)

She's a fiesty little one

Ella decided to fight her nap today. Something she hasn't done in a loooong time. Here's how I found her after her whole 25 minute nap. I guess she was ready to get up!


Today she was in her jumperoo for a whole hour COMPLETELY content! I took her out after an hour so she could have some lunch before her afternoon nap... even though she wasn't really ready to get out. And let me tell you, she was going CRAZY in there! Jumping like a maniac! Feet were leaving the ground. She was jumping so hard that the whole thing was shaking and noisy...all the while Ella was "talking" quite loudly. I guess she was expressing her happiness. :) In comparison, though she enjoys her exersaucer, she tries to jump in that too. Doesn't really work for her. ;)

Even though she doesn't look too thrilled, trust me, she definitely was having a great time. Unfortunately, Ella's got a bad case of mommy-takes-out-the-camera-and-I-become-super-
serious-and-cautious-and-won't-smile-for-the-life-of-me. :)

Ella's learning so much. She enjoyed a game of peek-a-boo tonight. I remember playing a few weeks ago with her and after coming back into view I had realized she'd totally forgotten about me and lost interest. Sort of the out of sight, out of mind thing. So I tried again tonight and she got it! I kept hiding and peeking my head back up and she would giggle and give me the biggest smiles. It was awesome. She's learning so much.

And... lately when I put Ella down on the floor to play on her tummy she goes down like this. She HATES being on her tummy (as if you couldn't tell?). So now she's keeping her knees up, but doesn't quite know what to do after this. She can be very dramatic as you can see. ;) Really, I'm not torturing her.

But mooooommmm, I don't wanna be on all fours!

Everyday she spends some time playing with her table. She loooves her table. But, she keeps catching me taking pictures of her bum!

She loves kisses, as her shirt says, and boy does she get tons and tons and tons of them. We can hardly keep our lips off of her.

Come on. Isn't this little face just begging for kisses!?