Halloween Party

Ella and I went to her first Halloween party, at the Gymboree in Cary last Saturday. My friend Shruti (her daughter is 2 days older than Ella) invited me and it was such a fun time. Ella dressed up as a monkey and was just adorable, and we all had a great time!

Little monkey ready for an adventure


Avni, Ella and Reyenne

Reyenne REALLY wanted the banana on Ella's hat!!

Ella climbing and crawling (notice the hat is long gone by this point...)




Rocking the boat with Elise


Hahahaha, this is so fun!


Very busy playing


Amber and Reyenne; Shruti and Avni; me and Ella


Now I am excited for Halloween tomorrow. I'm going to bring Ella into work with me in her tiger costume and tomorrow night we'll take her "trick-or-treating" in her monkey outfit. Should be lots of fun. Happy Halloween!!

Little Tiger

Although this is not her official Halloween costume, Steve got Ella a tiger costume last week and when I got home from work he had her dressed up in it, and she was of course the cutest little tiger ever. What better to do with a precious little tiger than take lots of pictures, here they are!

Ella and her little pal Cali


Laughing


Happy girl


Tiger on the move


Me and my little cub


Daddy and Ella

Birthdays!

We went to Dad & Donna's house last weekend to celebrate Dad and Erin's birthdays (October 17 and 28). Here are some pictures from the trip!

Happy Birthday!


Blowing out the candles


Getting sleepy


Nap time!


Playing with Grandad






Me and Ella

Early Morning Drum Session

Here is Ella playing with her drums one morning last week before work!

Pumpkin Picking

Mom & I took Ella to a pumpkin farm today. There wasn't any actual "picking", but we had a great time and Ella definitely enjoyed herself. We went on a SPOOKY hay ride (although it must not have been too spooky because Ella dozed for the second half of it), took lots of cute pictures of her, and she picked out her first pumpkin!

Before our adventure


Posing on a bale of hay


Look at that face!!




With her new friend, the scarecrow






Picking out her pumpkin


Got it!


How cute, my little pumpkin with her little pumpkin!

Ella is Crawling!

Ella officially started crawling last night! She's had her own way of getting around for about a month now, but she is now crawling up on her hands and knees with her tummy off the ground, and able to get back into a sit from her tummy. Her little crawl is just precious - she inches along and occasionally goes backwards instead of forward.

We always encourage her to come after her toys and usually she'll do her swim-crawl to get to them or roll around, but last night she actually got up on her hands and knees and came after her toy. I couldn't even beleive it, it was just so cute.

Here she is!


She's off


Done and not interested in trying any more for the night!

(Notice the pout complete with hand on her hip??)

I am so proud of our little crawler :).

Little Musician

Mom & Glenn were here this week and spent lots of time with Ella; they watched her all day on Wednesday and Friday, and they babysat for us on Friday so we could go out with friends for a night out.

They also got Ella her first "musical instruments" - a little piano and a set of bongo drums! Here she is with her new instruments.

Playing the piano. She hits the keys and bops around while she plays - completely adorable!




Ella loves to dance whenever she hears music - she starts to bop around and bounces her head - it is just the cutest thing and she is a natural!!

And here she is rolling her little drums


With Grammy & Gramps

First Sick Day

Ella had her first 'sick day' this Monday. She had her regularly scheduled 9-month doctor's appointment on Monday morning, and she had a cold since Friday (stuffy nose and a cough), so when I took her, I wanted him to make sure it was just a cold and nothing else. She was acting like her normal happy self and didn't have a fever and had been sleeping well, but it turns out she had an ear infection in her left ear :(.

I felt so sorry for her. She also got a flu shot (which I was not expecting), so I think all in all she was just not feeling well. The doctor gave her a prescription for amoxicillan and I got her prescription filled and stayed home with her for the day. Except for some longer naps than usual she really seemed OK but I was glad to have the day to take care of her.

Here is a pic from her sick day


The next day Steve stayed home with her and taught her a new trick - learning to hold the sippy cup (with the handles) by herself - I was completely amazed when he showed me that night!!



Also of note from the doctors appointment, Ella is 16 lbs 6 oz, and 27 inches long - she's getting so big!!

Race for the Cure

This weekend Ella and I went to Charlotte with Mom and we went to Erin & Josh's house for the weekend. On Saturday, we walked the "Race for the Cure" which is the Susan Koeman breast cancer walk. Last year the four of us walked the national race in Washington DC in June, and Josh invited us to do it again this year in Charlotte.

Here are some pre-walk pictures:




At the starting line




All ready to go


Josh pushed Ella and she was absolutely perfect - she had a fun time getting pushed and enjoyed looking around at everyone and all the walkers. She took a short nap at one point but other than that stayed up the whole time and just took everything in.

Here she is with her happy feet going


Piece of cake!




We had beautiful weather and it was a great day for the walk. After, Erin showed us her office, we wreaked some havoc there (all over a bag of popcorn), and headed to the Catalyst parking lot for a group photo in the 'construction cam'!



Back at Erin's house later that night




Beautiful girl in her carseat


And then Sunday was Ella's nine month birthday!