Ella, Ella, Ella....

She is such a hoot. This week, daddy went to LA on business for a couple of days. We had a great time and had many heart-to-heart girl talks.

During one of these talks, we were talking about how daddy was gone for a couple of days. Ella looked up, bright-eyed toward her bedroom door, and said, "da da"? I was floored! At first, I thought her mamamamamas and dadadadas were a fluke, but I don't know! And then this morning, as Daddy was waving good bye and told her "bye bye", Ella waved back at him and uttered a soft, "byeee byeeee". My heart sank!!! She is growing way too fast for her weepy momma. I am totally in love with this sweet, blue-eyed, adventurous girl. Where have the past 9 months gone??

Well, while I was cooking last night, I opened up the fridge. I saw Ella crawling towards the shelf so I knew I needed to act fast; I didn't want my tofu stir fry to stick to the pan so I grabbed the terriaki and dashed some in the pan. Well, in that short, very short amount of time, Ella had time to pull out, not one, but 2 miller lites from the fridge! She is getting to the point where I literally have to keep my eye on her 24/7!! Check out the proof above.

Happy Friday, everyone! We have a busy weekend. Lots of fun pics coming soon.

xoxo,

Nicole

Ella D is on the move and so are her doting parents!

Bowling at the DRB. Awesome.

Cute girls at the par-tay.


Freakishly small picture of me and Kadee. I have no idea why it made itself this small? Oh, well. Cute picture, though!

Ella and Uncle Reilly checking out the Atlanta snow.

Mommy, pick me up. You are just messing around on the computer. I need loves.

More Reilly and Ella goodness. Could you die?

Ryan, Mark's thumb? and Erica. Still cute, despite the OK from Mark!

Yes. That is what it looks like. Smoke was actually pumped into the DRB on purpose. I think it was really not needed.

Mark and B. Cute!

Ella again. Seriously. Get off of the computer. Who cares about updating the blog?!

Quinn's stationary. All packaged up.

Ella LOVES to hang out by the toy basket. She sat there for an hour and pulled out almost every toy she owns. So hilarious.

Look at those guns!

Happy screams. I just LOVE swimming, however, I wish the water were a tad warmer. Do you hear me, Lakeshore Athletic Club?!!

Posing. Seriously. I think she was posing for this picture.

Ariel shot of Ella and both uncles.

A little too late of a night. Time to call it a night! I miss dancing at the bar. Kinda.

My cute hubby and me.

Just a quick recap for my almost 9 month old baby!

Ella is now:

- Starting to cruise the furniture. She will crawl up to the couch, stand up against the couch and put her arms up for us to pick her up. Wow! When did you become a little girl, Ella?

- She is waving back at us, sometimes on command, other times, she a bit more spontaneous.

Other than that, she is just seriously cute and super sweet. We hit the baby jackpot, however, we might be a bit biased!

Last weekend, we took a trip to Atlanta to celebrate Kadee and Ryan's engagement! We had a ton of fun! I miss dancing and staying out late with my girls. I paid for it the next day; I am old.

Ella loved spending time with her uncles in the A. She liked to crawl up to them and help keep watch for squirrels, snow and anything else that moved. She also loved hanging with her gram and E-Pa. She will get lots of one on one time next month when we go back to Atlanta. Ella will hang there while we kick it in Mexico. Its been a long time coming! We are super excited to get away but there is already a pit in my stomach thinking about leaving Ella. I will miss her so much. Ella better not walk while we are in Mexico!

This past weekend, mommy and daddy spent some quality time at the Diversey Rock-n-Bowl with friends. Seriously, how have we lived here for almost 4 years and never been to this fine establishment?? It was a ton of fun! Thanks for organizing, Erica! We got to hang beforehand at our place and ate/drank/socialized. We needed all of the energy possible to bowl! So fun. Can't wait to go back. I would love to suggest to management to take it easy on the smoke machine. That was a bit much

As promised, please find pictures of Ella modeling her juicy suit and showing off her swimming skills. As you can see, she was not a big fan of the kick board!

Today, as Daddy worked out and Ella slept, I got a chance to make some stationary for little Quinn Christine Hays, my friend Karen's little girl that just arrived yesterday! I went to my little piece of heaven, Paper Source, to make a "welcome baby" card, but while I was there, I thought it might be nice to make some personalized stationary for Quinn to thank everyone for her cute baby prezzies she is bound to receive. I cannot wait to see pics of her! What a lucky girl; she has the sweetest momma ever. I cannot wait to meet her! Hopefully this summer I will make it out to CT to meet her!

That's it for now! We have a super busy March-May so we need to rest up the next couple of weekends.

xoxo to all,

Nic

Mid-Week posting..Lots more to pics to post soon, I promise!

Hi all!!! Well, I am a little delinquent on posting and for that, my apologies! Let's see, what is my little Ella D up to.....

- She is crawling, like, for real crawling, consistently starting last week. She much prefers the army crawl because she gets places tons faster. She also picks up loads of dog hair this way. Yuck. To say I am anal about floor cleanliness is an understatement; I vacuum and swiffer with antibacterial stuff everyday!

- She is pulling up like crazy! This girl find something, props herself up on her knees, and then stands so well now! I cannot believe this is my little nugget, standing up and exploring (while holding onto something for dear life, of course).

- She is mimicing us if we "sing" to her. For instance: Us= "blah blah blah blah (imagine blah in a sing song voice). She will listen and laugh and then "sing" back to us. It is the cutest thing. She has such a little personality and loves for us to sing to her.

- She is becoming a ton more attentive when we read to her. She is still gunning for the book to chew, make no bones about that, but now, she is listening more now and "talking" to us while we read.

- Like our good friend, Ben Bolger, Ella is grabbing anything and everything that isn't for "her" and rips it up, puts it in her mouth, and goes to work on destroying it, mainly paper. She also loves my PB, Jen! She also loves giggling/screaming as she heads for the dog toy basket. She loves going for the bones even though she has tons more toys than her siblings...

We have big plans this weekend! We head to Atlanta for Kadee's engagement party. We are excited for a long weekend and a night out on the town.

We hope everyone is having decent weather where you are...we just got 12 inches last night. I am soooo over winter. Bring on Mexico in March!

xoxo,
nicole