11 months

Our beautiful Ella is discovering so much about her world at this stage. Here are some of her latest discoveries:

- We just started giving Ella baths in our tub rather than her infant tub and she is in heaven as she splashes and crawls all over in the water.

-Ella is crawling quicker each day as she finds more places to explore. Today it was under our bed.

-She opens up all of the cupboards and drawers she can reach. She pulls out what she can and plays. Unfortunately she is also discovering the pain that accompanies slamming her fingers in those drawers and cupboards.

-Ella is finding more ways to move her little body. She climbs up on everything, but hasn't yet figured out how to cruise along the furniture or use her knees to successfully squat down to get something from the floor.

-She is exploring more successful ways of communicating. This doesn't mean her tantrums have stopped. She is a very dramatic and moody little princess, but she has learned a few nice ways to communicate her desires. She signs milk, eat, more, and all done (they are not all consistent though).

-Ella loves playing peek a boo. She will often go and grab a blanket or cloth and start playing with us by covering her face and quickly pulling it down to reveal her cheesy grin.

-She is branching out and eating a lot more food. I would still call her picky, but no longer impossible.

-She is starting to mimic us. The other day while I was using all of my body weight to scrub the glue spill from the floor, I noticed Ella directly at my side getting up on all fours with her bum in the air moving up and down in the same manner. Then as I moved to a sitting position she mirrored me and started wiping the clean carpet with her open hand.

-Ella continues to wave good-bye and has even blown us kisses a few times.

-She used to give us kisses, but she must have gotten tired of our overwhelming affection because now she turns away from us and only gives kisses to her dolls.

love you forever

As I feed Ella her bedtime bottle we cuddle in an oversized arm chair. Occasionally she falls asleep in my arms. In those peaceful moments as I look at her soft features and kiss her smooth skin I feel flooded with emotion. I often think of Robert Munch's book Love You Forever, "I'll like you forever, I'll love you for always, as long as I'm living my baby you'll be." I imagine cradling my sweet Ella through the different stages of her life. Everyone talks about the immediate love that you feel for your baby the first moment you hold her in your arms, but I had no idea how much that love would continue to grow and deepen.

oh man

Today I managed to drop a tupperware container on Ella's head leaving her a nice bruise. Later I watched her slip and hit her head on the wood floor. Shortly after I spilled lots of glue all over the carpet while attempting to fix something. Ella crawled over, touched the glue and then licked her fingers before I could get to her. All of this happened between 3 and 7 pm. Two of those hours Ella was napping. Am I an amazing mom or what?

it's over

During these last 12 days of Christmas vacation I've:

• eaten more calories than I usually do in a month
• been incredibly lazy
• only cleaned my house once (SO LAZY)
• gone out to eat way too much- and loved it every time
• seen The Princess and The Frog which I strongly recommend
• played an excited round of Wii golf thanks to Dad and his sleeping pills
• played lots of games
• bowled my new high score of 131
• managed not to get the stomach flu again (knock on wood). Emily's family of 7 and Megan's family of 4 have all had it during the past week and we've definitely been exposed to their germs
• stayed up late
• slept in every morning (thanks Gustavo for taking the baby to make that possible)

It has been a great break. One of the many benefits of my perfect job.

'Tis the Season

Christmas is always my favorite time of year! We are blessed to be able to see all three of our families for the holidays. Sometimes this gets really busy and can make things crazy and a little stressful. This year things worked out perfectly though. We went down to Nephi to spend Christmas Eve with Gustavo's dad, Liz, and Isaac. While we were there we played our traditional unwrapping game that Yolanda always puts together. We were very pleased that everyone played, including Gustavo's dad. I am happy to report that I won the 5 dollar prize. After playing we had a delicious ham dinner and opened presents. It was a great night without any stress and Ella was WONDERFUL. Usually this isn't the case so it was perfect. She even let grandma Liz and uncle Laz hold her.

Christmas morning we got to have our own little Christmas (this is only the second time we've been able to do this since Gustavo and I got married- all the traveling from house to house usually doesn't leave us any time.) Ella was about as excited as we imagined; she crawled around and danced when she heard the music from her xylophone. She loves music and so we thought this would be a great gift. I had to help her open the two gifts we got her (a toothbrush and the xylophone). I thought she would love the tissue paper, but she just wanted to touch the shiny bag and take off bows. We made our way down to Provo at about 10:30 for our traditional brunch with my family. This year my parents got a karaoke machine so we had a blast being crazy and loud while singing along to a Disney cd (Hannah Montana, High School Musical, and Camp Rock songs) and classic rock tunes. Fortunately for my sisters' sake I won't post any of the video Gustavo took of the four of us (Meg was in California) singing "Love Shack."

My nieces LOVED singing along to their favorite Camp Rock, HSM, and Hannah Montana songs.Chris and Eva sang "Beat it." Eva is a big Michael Jackson fan.

Ella enjoyed singing and dancing with everyone else.

At around four o'clock we headed down to Spanish Fork for Christmas dinner with Gustavo's mom. It is always so funny to go from my family to his because of the extreme differences: my family is loud and crazy with grandkids running around everywhere while his family is small and all of the attention is directed to Ella and Gabe. It was nice to spend more time with Gustavo's family. We had fun assembling the toys from Abuela and Abuelo and watching the kids play with them. Ella got a little walk and ride and a singing doll that she danced with and gave kisses to.

Overall this year Christmas was great. I felt like we had ample time with each family and were able to really enjoy the holiday without feeling rushed. We love our family so much and feel so blessed to have been able to spend time with everyone, including my sister Megan's family and Gustavo's brother Laz.