Christmas and 11 months old

This Christmas seemed to be much busier for us with a little girl running around. These days Elli doesn't like to sit still, but prefers to walk all over the place. Elli seems to be growing up too quickly. She is working on 3 teeth on top and has one on bottom (yes, she got 2 front teeth for Christmas)!

We managed to fit in 1 Christmas party and 7 Christmas celebrations including our own within 2 weekends. To get to all the destinations we were in the car about 22 hours which doesn't include little 10 or 15 minute trips here and there. Elliana doesn't enjoy road trips like she used to when she was only a couple months old. She did ok with all of the traveling, but was very excited to get into her own bed last night (she literally lunged out of Scott's arms into her crib). All the traveling has really worn Elli out! She slept until 9:45 this morning and went back down for a nap around noon. She is still asleep now at 1:30. Needless to say, we will be staying in Ohio for quite some time and will give our Acadia a nice break from traveling. So....feel free to come visit us :)

Here are some pictures to document our Christmas celebrations....

My work Christmas party was on the 17th in Lexington, OH. We left the next morning for IN to celebrate Christmas with Scott's immediate family on Saturday and extended family on Sunday.

Papa made her a cradle for Christmas. She enjoyed opening gifts in her cradle....just her size for sitting! She enjoyed this gift; however, her favorite gift was a new outfit her Papa picked out for her. This was evidenced by her carrying the outfit around everywhere.

Each grandchild got new PJ's with their name. (Look at Elli's eyes....she was so tired)

(Pictures from the big Lindvall gathering are on Nana L.'s camera....I'll get those later)!
********************************************************
We traveled to Mansfield, OH on the Thursday before Christmas to Grandma and Grandpa Brauchler's house. We left after work, so we unfortunately didn't get to spend much time there.


I love this picture! I love Elli's belly-laugh!
***************************************************
We came back to our house that night and woke up the next morning to open gifts on Christmas Eve!

At this point, she was becoming quite the pro at opening gifts!
*******************************************************
After our Christmas, we packed the car up and headed back to IN. We made a quick stop at my parents house to let Elli run around for a bit. Then we went north to Grandma and Grandpa Wamsley's house.

Helping cousin Vander open a gift! Notice Elliana is already in pj's. Her and I stayed back while everyone else went to the Christmas Eve service. I tried to get her to fall asleep at the house....no luck!

**********************************************
We stayed at my parents house on Christmas Eve. We made a quick trip to Scott's parents house on Christmas morning (this was cut short as Elli was fussy from lack of sleep). We brought her back to my parent's house for a nap before it was time to open gifts.

She enjoyed taking a ride on many gifts.

Not really sure what she was doing here, but I'm glad I caught it on camera!!

***************************************************
Elli and Kensley got to go sledding on Christmas day and they LOVED it!!

*********************************************

We went to church on Sunday......

And then went to Huntington to Grandma and Grandpa Zurcher's house.

Helping her Great-Grandparents open gifts.
***********************************************

And while we were busy celebrating Christmas Elli turned 11 months old! Yes, that means only 1 more month until she is officially 1 year old. I can't believe it! She is already so big. So....this photo shoot was taken this morning and as you can tell Elli is exhausted. No smiles for this photo shoot. We might try to get some better pictures later!

Christmas Photoshoot

This weekend we got Elli dressed up in her Christmas dress and tried to get a good picture of her and Bella in front of the tree.

And here is the photo shoot....

Apparently they both wanted a treat....

********************************************

Elli is getting yet another tooth. I have a feeling she is going to be getting a lot here within the next couple of months seeing as how she was a little behind with teeth. Naps have been a bit more difficult and she hasn't been as interested in food. I'm thinking she might be getting one of her top two teeth. Her gum is now purple in a spot....I put a quick call into the nurse and she said it was completely normal. There is apparently a little blood in her gum....when she gets that tooth she might bleed a little, but there should be no complication with it as long as she doesn't seem to be in pain.

She is keeping me busy....staying in the living room playing with toys just isn't cutting it anymore for her. She likes to go in the office and pull as many books as she can from our bookshelf.....hang out by the baby gate trying to figure out how to knock it down....and so much more. She can now walk across the room and will do it on her own....we don't really need to prompt her anymore....if she wants to walk-she will.

We've put her presents in our room and she constantly goes in there and picks them up. We'll do our Christmas on Christmas eve when we wake up....I'm excited to see her open up her gifts.

Well....she's up already from her 30 minute (yes....30 minutes....what happened to our 2 hour naps????) nap. That's my cue! We have a busy couple weeks, so I'm not sure I'll be back on to post in a while. We did find out some exciting news....Scott actually has 3 weeks of vacation this year instead of 2. So we have an extra week that needs to be used up before May! We'll be using some days over Christmas and might do an impromptu trip here....that is if I can talk Scott into it (yes, please!!!!)

Merry Christmas!!!!

Naughty List

When Elli woke up from her nap last Saturday we told her she was going to go see Santa! She couldn't wait! We got her all dressed up in her Christmas outfit and tried to get a quick picture of her in front of our tree. She was so excited she wouldn't even sit down.....

Um...is it just me or doesn't she look so big??

**************************************************

We got to the mall and rushed inside. We were excited to see that there was no line AND we could use our own camera to take a picture so we didn't even have to pay. We put her on Santa's lap and................

He told her she was on the naughty list. She was not very happy!

And wanted off of this scary guy's lap.

Needless to say, Elli wasn't a fan of Santa....nope....not at all! Are you surprised? We did warn Santa before we put her on his lap that she would have a meltdown. This child has major stranger anxiety! Next year, we're hoping she won't be so afraid of him!

We tried to get another picture of her in front of the tree before her other nap. Look at that innocent face....ugh....irresistable!
**************************************

Elli has been working on going from a seated position....to a stand....and will occasionally take a few steps. She's doing a great job............

Sometimes she'll just bounce to music when she stands!
***********************************************

She also enjoys picking things up. This day it was a package of diapers.

She did this over and over!
********************************************

Elli loves shoulder rides!!!!!!!!!!!! She thinks it is so much fun....

**********************************************

Elli is becoming such a big girl. She hasn't had a bottle since Saturday morning....no that doesn't mean we haven't given her formula....it means she's been drinking from a sippy! She never transitioned to the sippy, so we had to just take the bottles away. We took them away completely after I found a sippy that she would finally take. The fact that she wouldn't take a sippy was so stressful for me. How could I tell my client's parents to get rid of the bottle when I wasn't able to get my own child to do it? She is only taking formula out of the sippy. For some reason she won't drink juice or water from it, but only plays with it. So....we do a regular cup and are also working on straw drinking during meals. She is still young....so I'm convinced once she gets more used to it, she will start drinking different liquids out of it.

We went through about a week where Elli wasn't too interested in food because her new tooth was coming in. Her appetite is slowly coming back, but there are still some things that she used to love that she still won't eat! She's been fussier the past couple of days, so I'm hoping she'll start feeling better soon!

10 months and my 1st tooth

All I want for Christmas is..................."My 2 bottom teeth." I'm sure this is what Elli would be singing if she could. After months and months and months of teething Elli finally has a tooth coming in on the bottom. Hopefully the breakthrough of this tooth means we can ease up on the extremely dirty diapers, right Elli....please :/

Elliana has been taking more steps and is gaining more confidence. Today she was letting go of different things and taking a couple steps to get to what she wanted instead of dropping to her knees and crawling.

Elli on her 1st Thanksgiving! I think she looks so old in this picture....standing up giving me a big grin. Thanksgiving last year marked the beginning of swollen ankles and feet for me until I delivered Elli.

At this point on Thanksgiving, Elli was exhausted. She laid her head in Kensley's lap....I'm not quite sure why, but it was cute!!

Elli had a busy weekend traveling all around the state of Indiana. She skipped some naps and most naps were shorter than normal, but overall did well!

*******************************************************
We officially have a 10 month old as of this past Friday! Here is our 10 month photo shoot from beginning to end....it is very difficulty to get her to sit and smile.

I'm bias, but I think she has the prettiest smile!!

Trying to tackle the bear....

Happy 10 month birthday Elliana (only a couple days late)!!

1st steps & no paci

I love having a 9 month old!! Elli is so much fun these days!! I'm sad that this is our last week in single digits for age in months....I can't believe this Friday will mark 10 months! She's grown so much in these last 9 months! The past couple days we've been working on rolling the ball back and forth to each other. She's doing better at waiting for the ball and is realizing that the other person will roll it back to her.

Elli surprised us on Saturday by taking her 1st couple steps!! She of course did it for Scott while I was upstairs in the shower (of course we spend almost everyday together, but she waits to do it for Scott....little stinker). Scott was pretty excited that she did it for him! She's only done it a couple other times since then and she's only done 2 tiny steps at a time for us. Daycare said she did about 3-4 tiny steps today....they are very little steps!! We are quite a ways from perfecting this new found skill, but it is exciting nonetheless!

We continue to try a sippy cup. Although she has taken a few true sips out of it the past couple days, she still doesn't enjoy it. We will probably have to go "cold turkey" on the bottle....We probably won't take this away for another couple months when we switch over to whole milk. I'm not looking forward to cutting her "cold turkey" from the bottle, as I'm sure it'll be a rough couple days! On a happy note, we thought we'd put her to bed without a pacifier and she is sleeping soundly with no pacifier to be found in the crib!!!! I hadn't thought I'd take it away before a year (and I'm not sure she will be without it for good....esp. since that is how they put her to bed at daycare and she still goes there 1 more day this week), but we'll try no pacifier for naps tomorrow!

Below are pictures from our shopping trip on Saturday! There was a smurf parade going on in our Macy's and the workers just thought she needed a smurf headband. We didn't join in on the fun because...well...she's not old enough to realize what she was missing....we figure we don't have too much longer until she's begging us to join in, so we will seize these opportunities while we can :)

She was so over the headband

*********************************************

I took this video on Saturday in the car....Elli was exhausted! She sneezed and I said "Bless You" and she thought it was the funniest thing. So I decided to start taping. She wasn't laughing as much as she was before I started the video, but her little giggle is cute. Sorry for the annoying loud voice...try and tune me out!

(If you turn up your volume you can hear scott's road rage coming out towards the end of the video :) )

****************************************************************

Just a video of Elliana doing a little bit of her dance routine!

Among many things, this year I'm thankful for a little 9 month old whom last year I didn't know, but could only feel! Happy Thanksgiving!

Dancing

Elliana loves music....we sing all the time throughout the day. Now with the holidays coming around, I often have Christmas music playing in the house. I think I mentioned in the last blog that she loves dancing and we LOVE to watch her. Scott and I took a video of Elli dancing this past weekend....notice the head bob :) (And yes, I know her sock is falling off....it is so hard to keep socks on her!!).


*Sorry....it is a long video....but the head bob is totally worth it!!


This video was shot with our new video camera!! As a result, I will probably be having more videos to post on here. Unfortunately, I haven't been doing a good job at taking pictures lately. I will try and continue to post as much as possible, but I might not be posting every week like I have done.
*******************************************************************
It has been fun to watch Elli's progress with walking. She is now doing a great job walking while holding only one of our hands. We tried seeing if she'd take a few steps this past weekend, but she was unsuccessful. She would just lunge forward for us to catch her :)

Elli has been "talking" a lot more lately. We've been hearing a lot of "dadada," "bababa," and "mamama." We love hearing her little voice all over the house!


Scott...I took a video of Elli waving to the camera when I was telling her to tell you "hi." I was going to post it, but it takes too long! I'll have to show you when you get home! Elli has missed you tonight, but you've got a pup at home that doesn't know what to do without you...she's been moping all day long! Hope you're staying warm in Denver!

Elli

Elliana continues to grow everyday. These days we are enjoying watching her "dance" to music. Elli loves dancing and does it about 90% of the time when music turns on. Last Thursday she made my day when I turned around in the car and saw her little head bobbing to the sound of her CD while she was sitting in her car seat! She's the cutest little dancer....she definitely loves dancing and we sing multiple times throughout the day!

Elli is also learning to give kisses. She's not extremely consistent with this, but it makes your day when she actually does give a smooch. Her kisses involve her grabbing your cheeks, pulling you in, and opening up her mouth really wide. We love it!

Elli seems to be more interested in eating than she was last week. I'm convinced that this little girl is working on a tooth. She is getting back into her normal nap routine! Despite my best efforts, Elli absolutely refuses a sippy especially when I put formula in it. This morning I was determined to give her formula out of her sippy. It didn't turn out the way I had plan. She cried and cried. Luckily, she's not the only child that has refused a sippy. I continue to do research on how to effectively transition her while trying not to get too stressed about it.

Playing peek-a-boo! I caught Elli's reaction as I was hiding behind the couch. Little does she know....this game is usually how I get her to come back into the living room when she's crawled out in the kitchen getting into things she's not supposed to!

No baby food tonight!! Elli enjoyed pasta with meatballs and some peas! I made a good decision to take off her shirt before we ate dinner!


Travis and Sarah introduced Elli to Sesame Street this weekend. She loved it and Scott loves showing her clips from the show.

Watching intently on the computer....

And then she decided to use the computer to make her gums feel better! Hopefully a tooth will pop through soon!!

Scott reads Elli her books before bed. Elli loves reading and we read lots of books throughout the day! She is getting to the point where she can make it through the whole book without getting distracted or chewing on the book (she's been teething for quite sometime) :)

We are loving the stage that Elli is in now! We knew that we'd enjoy being parents, but we couldn't even imagine how much fun we'd have! We love watching her grow and develop each day.

By the way, did you notice Elli's Christmas pj's?? 'Tis the Season!! I'm counting down the days to our annual Black Friday shopping trip! Is is sad that this is the day I look forward to each year? I'm excited that Sarah will be joining us for the day this year! Last year I was pregnant with Elli and that slowed me down a bit! Not this year....I'll be ready to go for 8 hours straight....who's with me ?? :)