8 months old Today!

Today Ella is 8 months old! Another month gone by SO FAST. It seems like Ella started doing lots of new things this past month. Her personality is coming out so much. Here are some things about 8 month old Ella:

Nicknames: Ella Bella, Sweet Pea, Sugar, Stinkerella, Portabella, The Ella-nator (Rusty calls her that sometimes. I do NOT) :)

Weight: 18ish lbs

Favorite things: nursing, reading books, singing, "talking", cuddling, her sippy cup, bath time

Least favorite things: getting dressed, diaper changes, getting her faced wiped after eating

Favorite foods: squash, banana, applesauce, oatmeal cereal

Clothing: mostly 6-9 month

This past month she got 2 teeth, started clapping (she LOVES to do this), and started waving (sometimes). She's so funny. Somtimes when we wave bye bye to her, she'll start clapping instead of waving. I think she's finally started to associate clapping with being happy and with music. A lot of times she claps when she gets in the tub or when I start singing to her. The other day, I gave her some food she didn't like (oh, sometimes she spits when she doesn't like things...not good). So finally I gave in and gave her some bananas. After her first bite she started clapping :) She also talks/babbles ALL day long. I don't even have to have the TV on for noise anymore! The past few days her babbles have sounded like she's saying "diddle, diddle, diddle" over and over. and over. She's also gotten really into cuddling lately, which I love. She loves for me to rock her. She'll just put her head on my shoulder or chest for the longest time...SO Sweet! It's been a fun month, can't wait to see what this next month will bring!

I love this picture of Sarah and Ella. Don't pay attention to my messy kitchen!

Memorial Day

Sunday at church, our Pastor challenged us to really instill patriotism in our children. He said something he does with his children is to take them to a cemetary on Memorial Day to honor the men and women who died defending our country. What an awesome idea! That is something we plan on doing. Today we went to visit Rusty's grandpa's grave site. He served in the air force during WWII. We planned on taking Ella (not that she would know) but it was so rainy and gross out today that she didn't come along this year. Happy Memorial Day!

Today was a rare treat for Rusty and I. We spent the entire day, just the 2 of us! We love Ella dearly but we were desperately in need of a day for just us. We planned on going to Rustic Gardens, this cool miniture golf course in Indy. Its really one of a kind, SO fun. Well, the weather had something different in mind. What started out as a forecast of isolated rain turned into an all day downpour. We were pretty bummed at first but then decided to go bowling. We bowled for a few hours. I'm SO glad it was just the 2 of us. We were an embarassement to the game. I blame wii. Anyways, after bowling, we went to Olive Garden for lunch, went to see the new Night at the Museum and then walked around Family Christian Book Store for awhile. It was a great day!! Big thanks to Rusty's mom and grandma for watching Ella for us!

Here's a few pictures from the past few weeks!

At Steak & Shake. Ella's first time!

3 generations

Me and my sweet girl

PS I keep forgetting to post this but Ella has 2 teeth now!! The first one (bottom right) popped through the Friday before Mother's Day. The 2nd one (bottom left) popped through Wednesday of last week. They are SO cute. I can see the bottom right one when she smiles. She didn't seem to be in any pain at all when they popped through the gum, hopefully that will continue for the rest of her teeth!

Little Diva??

This video may not be funny to anyone but me, but I just had to post it. It's so Ella. Totally happy but then the tiniest thing isn't the way she wants and the world is coming to an end. And then she's happy again. Maybe babies in general are just like that. But I think we have a drama queen in the making on our hands.

Mother's Day

I know its a few days past Mother's Day but I still wanted to post about my first ever Mother's Day. There were times over the past few years where I didn't think I would ever be able to celebrate a Mother's Day but yet, here I am. I'm so so thankful. For as long as I can remember, I've wanted to be a mom. After Rusty and I got married, like most couples, we talked about how long we wanted to wait before we started a family. When we moved from West Lafayette to Indianapolis, I felt VERY ready to start a family. But I knew it wasn't quite the right time. We wanted to be in a house and be more financially secure. Finally, the summer of 2006 came and it was finally time. Finally time to become a mom. Little did we know that OUR plans weren't GOD'S plans. Go figure :) I ended up getting pregnant in January 2008, 1 1/2 years after we started trying. I know in the grand scope of things, that really isn't THAT long, but to me, to us, it felt like an eternity. I wondered what God was trying to teach me, teach us? Why did God put this desire in my heart if it wasn't to be? I prayed and prayed that if it wasn't God's will for us to have children, to remove that desire from my heart. Adoption was always in the back of my mind, but I'd always looked at pregnant women with envy. I WANTED to be pregnant, to experience everything. I saw friends get pregnant that weren't even trying. I heard about teenagers getting pregnant. But not us. I knew God had a plan for us but sometimes it just felt so unfair. I humbly praise Him for not letting this waiting period make us bitter. And of course, now looking back, God's timing was perfect. And, with all we went through, my first Mother's Day was that much sweeter. I now look at my darling, sweet baby girl and she is a constant reminder to me of God's love and faithfulness. I'm so honored that God chose me to be her mamma. My prayer for this first Mother's Day, and for every Mother's Day is that I will never forget God's perfect timing, God's faithfulness, God's steadfast love.
I've been given the ultimate gift.

You think she's having fun?

Tagged! (not it, no tag backs) :)

So my good friend Lissa tagged me for the "8 things" quiz...8 things I did yesterday, 8 things I'm looking forward to, etc. I've been tagged a bunch of times of facebook for stuff like this too. No offense, but I'm just not really that into that kind of thing. I feel like I have nothing good to really say, or nothing interesting to say. Not that I ever have anything THAT interesting to say but that doesn't stop me from blogging! BUT, I was thinking, the point of all those things is to get to know people better, right? And what says more about someone than their guilty pleasure?? :) So I'm starting a new "tag" of sorts...what is your guilty pleasure?? I'll start. I'm kind of embarrased to admit this. You ready for it? Ok, here goes.

I am totally addicted to The Real Housewives of New York City. Ok, I feel better that that is off my chest. I first discovered the show probaby 4 weeks ago. They play reruns of all the shows on Bravo during the day. I got totally sucked in!! Why do I care about a bunch of stupid socialites who just stab each other in the back all the time? I have no idea. I can't get over how pointless their lives are. But, nevertheless, its really entertaining.
So....I tag Lissa, Amber, Jen M., Jenny J. and my sister Sarah. Give me the dirt.

5am ramblings

Its 5am on Saturday morning and I am blogging. Why? Because my sweet, adorable baby girl will not go to sleep! This is really rare for her. She pretty consistenly sleeps from 7-7 now but every once in awhile she'll wake up around 4:30am. Almost always she'll go right back to sleep after I nurse her but not today! When I put her back to bed she was quiet for about 5 minutes (until I was just drifting back to sleep...) and then she just started being really noisy. I really didn't want Rusty to wake up...he's had such a long week at work and lots of early morning. So, here we are, downstairs. Ella's on a blanket beside me playing and I'm blogging and watching infomercials :) I'm seriously thinking about buying a cordless vacuum. Or a ShamWOW.

Yesterday after her morning nap, Ella woke up in the best mood! She was just so smiley and happy. So I decided to do an impromptu photo shoot....

Here's her 7 month pic from a few days ago...

Something sweet - a lot of times while I'm nursing, I'll pray out loud. Partly to pass the time and partly just so Ella can hear me praying. Almost every time I start to pray, Ella will instantly stop nursing, get really big eyes, look up and me and just start smiling and making all these sweet noises. Its like she just knows that we're talking to God :)

I do have one prayer request. Maybe someone reading this has experienced something like this with their little ones? I noticed a few days ago a lump/mass/knot (not really sure what to call it) on Ella's chest, underneath her left nipple area. Am I allowed to say nipple on my blog? nipple. anyways, I was worried about it so I called my dr. I was hoping she would say it was normal and not to worry about it but she said she wanted to have ella come in so she could look at it. Its about marble-sized, not tender to the touch and only on the left side. You can definitely feel a difference if you compare the 2 sides. So, I'm mildy freaking out about it but trying not to worry too much. So I'd appreciate your prayers! Thanks!