Sugar Plum Fairy

My incredible sister-in-law took these darling pictures of Eleanor on Christmas Eve and Christmas. I love them!

Happy Holidays!

11 Months

I choose not to believe that my baby will be a year old in a month. The time has gone by too quickly. She is so mobile now, making life much more interesting!

At 11 Months Ellie:

- Walks quite a bit, still falls but is getting much better.

- Can go from sitting to standing up in the middle of the room by herself. She doesn't have to pull herself up with something anymore.

- Loves to point at things. If we ask her where the Christmas Tree, Minnie Mouse, Santa Mouse, her bottle, or her books are, she will look around until she seems the object in question and points to it. Still working on finding Mommy and Daddy.

- Still only has two teeth, but we think her top ones are starting to come in.

- Hates wearing shoes, but we are working on it.

- Loves cheese, pretty sure it is her favorite food. And applesauce.

- Is starting to mimic us. I've caught her shaking her head with me when I tell her no.

- Loves to clap and knows the word. Any time she hears the word, even on TV, she claps.

- Is such a smart a smart girl. We can no longer hide things from her. She sees where we put it and goes right for it.

- Still loves other kids and babies and always wants to be part of the group.

- Babbles a lot, but no real word association we think. She may have said "tree" a few times when she points to the Christmas Tree, but we aren't sure.

This girl seriously has so much personality and makes life so much fun. She has learned to be such a tease and it cracks us up every time. We are excited to spend Christmas with her this year!

Deck the Halls

The Sunday after Thanksgiving we have the tradition of decorating our Christmas Tree. We have a very large fake tree, but since we have a little girl that likes to get into everything, we decided to just put up our little 3 ft tree. Much easier than the bigger one, and I hope Kevin doesn't think we are going to do this every year! He hates putting together the big tree.

We were so excited to see what Eleanor's reaction would be. She loved it! Whenever I ask her where the Christmas tree is she looks around until she sees it, smiles and points to it. She is so smart! I took a quick video of her putting on her first ornament and I thought it was a great memory to share.

When I asked her where Minnie Mouse was she was pointing to her giant stuffed Minnie Mouse doll. Lol.

Many Thanks

Last week we spent a lot of time with family. We had a blast with my parents, my sister Heidi and her family, my sister Katy, brother Ben and my Aunt Judy and Uncle Kevin. My parents had a hotel for a night so I took Ellie swimming in the indoor pool. It was freezing but that didn't bother one bit. She loves the water. I also saw Breaking Dawn Pt 2, went to the shooting range and shot a gun for the very first time, spent many hours at Walmart for Black Friday shopping, had an amazing Thanksgiving Feast with 60 members of my Dad's side of the family (we made 80 lbs. of potatoes), went to the Jazz game against the Sacramento Kings (Go Jimmer!) which the Jazz won in the last few seconds, played games and just plain had fun with the family.

Ellie is walking a little bit more now. She mostly just takes a few steps before she falls, but she has gotten up to 8 steps.

I am so grateful for my amazing family and wish we could spend time with them more often!

Playing with Grandma Leonard and Cousin Isabel

Thanksgiving!

Just hanging out after our Thanksgiving Feast

The cutest little deer that you ever did see!

Four Generations

While my parents were in town we visited my Grandma Stewart who is in a care center. We hadn't visited her in several months and wanted to get a Four Generation picture. Ellie is in her "Afraid of Strangers" phase and didn't want to go near my grandma. Grandma is not doing that great and we aren't sure she even realized we were there, but it was still nice to see her. I wish we could have gotten a better picture, but this one will have to do.

10 Months

Seriously, where does the time go? Our little girl is growing too fast. Before we know it she will be a toddler. She has become much more mobile and is all over the place. She took two steps all by herself today, and I hope she decides to repeat it. You can tell she stands there thinking about taking a step, but then decides to just get down and crawl.

At 10 months Ellie:

- Walks around all the furniture and crawls everywhere.

- Is really into biting. Whenever she is mad at us she bites us. And when she sees our toes she has to try to bite them. No idea where she got this from.

- Had a cold all last week, which means she was a little extra cuddly.

- Waves "Hi" and "Bye" pretty we'll now.

- Watched Cinderella for the first time and managed to watch about 30 minutes of it.

- Eats a lot of table foods and we discovered that she loves mashed potatoes, can eat an entire banana, eats Gogurt like it's going out of style, and will eat most chicken.

- Got to see her first real snow storm and absolutely loved the snow!

- Loves Little Einsteins and claps and dances along.

- Enjoys books and especially ones that have different textures.

- Likes when Mommy blows bubbles, though she blinks like crazy when they get near her, just like her Daddy.

- Is a very happy baby and always smiles for the many strangers that stop and say hi when we are out and about.

- Loves seeing all of her Grandparents on FaceTime.

- Celebrated her First Halloween as Little Red Riding Hood.

- Still loves to play with Minnie Mouse.