Ella- 15 months old

*Ella can crawl! This is a milestone that we have been hoping we would see for a while now. It has taken her a lot of practice, a lot of physical therapy and a lot of bribery, but she did it. My friend, Elizabeth, brought me a Passion Tea Lemonade from Starbucks and Ella decided she was going to come and get it. She crawled a few “steps” and took a drink and then crawled a little more. It was precious.
In the last month she has made so much progress. She finally figured out these stages of mobility:
-Getting to her hands and knees from her tummy. And then she can move from her hands/knees back into a seated position.
-Getting from a seated position to her knees by pulling herself up. Then she can lower herself back to her bottom.
-Using her upper body to scoot herself backward, in order to get to things.
-Using her hands to pivot her body, in order to get to toys she wants to play with.
-Synchronizing her arm and knee movement so she can crawl a couple of “steps”.
* We are finally seeing some top teeth. The two that have cut through are not right next to each other, so she is going to look like she has a missing tooth for a while. She got one of her left central incisor and her right lateral incisor.
*Her favorite toy is her dinosaur ball maze thing. I don’t know what to call it. She has mastered putting the balls in the holes and she favors the hole on the right, which makes the balls go out of the dinosaur’s mouth. She will laugh when the ball rolls out on to the floor.
*She is eating like a champ. We have heard comments from people on what a great eater she is. I guess we take it for granted that she will eat almost anything we offer her. We keep trying new items all of the time and she seems to enjoy the variety.
*She was in her first wedding. She got to be the flower girl in my sisters wedding and she did a great job. Okay, well, I carried her down the aisle and handed her off to Mike, who kept her in the back the whole time. But she looked gorgeous and everyone loved her in her frilly dress.
*She is protective of Jaycoby. If we wrestle with him, or tickle him, she will start to fuss or cry. She doesn't like it when she thinks he is getting hurt.
*She's our "little monster". Since she is mobile, she is getting into everything she isn't supposed to. Papers, the magazine basket, the laptop and my cell phone are her favorites.


Ella gets a lot of soda. She is able to sneak a drink here and there and I'm sure she is getting a lot more soda than we would like to know about.

Melinda, Matt and flower girl, Ella.


Cuddles with her favorite uncle.

Ella got to see a lot of family that came out for Aunt Melin's wedding.


Bottle time with her Buddy, Logan.

Sittin' pretty, as always.

Pulling herself up and getting more confident on her knees. This was a big deal.

She is a mommy's girl. On this particular day, she would cry if I moved away from her. So we sat on the floor together an watched tv. She kept her hand on my knee, so I couldn't move.

Playing with her favorite dinosaur toy.