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.

10 months

This past week has not been my favorite. It has been full of whining, screaming, crying, and other terrible behavior. Ella has started throwing tantrums at 10 months! She goes limp and then arches her back until I put her down so she can roll around while screaming at the top of her lungs. It is awful. I thought this started at around two?! I keep trying to tell myself that she is teething in hopes that this behavior won't last long, but there are no real signs of that. I think she is just being extra dramatic. What am I supposed to do? The worst part is that she really only does this when I'm around. Yolanda acted so surprised and just asked, "What is she doing?" when I went to pick Ella up on Thursday and she started throwing a fit while rolling around in Yolanda's living room. Gustavo always says Ella is great until she sees me. What thanks for all that I do for her!

Fortunately she isn't always acting like this. Sometimes she is really adorable. She still LOVES music and dances almost every time she hears it. This past week Ella has started to try more things. Instead of clenching her jaw and sucking in her lips when I offer her food, she has been at least putting it in her mouth before spitting it out. Yes, she is extremely picky. A few days this week she has actually eaten the introduced food. Here is a list of the things we have been successful with at least once in the past 2 months: boiled egg yolk, cheddar cheese, beans, corn, pears, carrots, wheat bread (not white bread though), dry cereal, pasta, peas, apple sauce, all types of treats including peppermint and swedish fish (she would try the candy, but not the diced tomatoes that looked identical to it- how does she know?). A lot of these foods have only been eaten once although they have been introduced a dozen times. She is so incredibly picky, but these last few days she has tried a lot more so I have hope that she'll continue to expand her pallet and become a healthy eater one day. Ella has also become a lot more interested in moving. The last few months she has been pulling herself around by army crawling. A few weeks ago she started adding a few traditional movements in with the army crawling, but this weekend she has been crawling around! She is trying to pull herself up on furniture, but can only get on her knees by herself. She loves to stand up and has a bit of a bruise on her eye from falling down while holding on to her changing table the other night. Yesterday she figured out how to get into a sitting position all by herself. It is exciting to watch her grow and develop even though I know with this new freedom to move comes a lot more potential for trouble!

For Sale

We've decided to try to sell our house. I thought we would live here for at least three more years, but Gustavo feels like we should try to buy a family home while the interest rates are low. Right now we are just trying to sell it ourselves and are asking $159,900. We put the sign out on Friday and made a flyer on Saturday. We have had one person call (we think it was a neighbor trying to size up the competition) and one couple from church wants to come look at it. If we sell we would like to stay in American Fork or move to Lehi since we both work there. We'll keep everyone posted on the process. If you know anyone who is interested send them our way (or to our listing on MLS or KSL)!