Ella: Secret Disney Princess?

Sometimes we wonder around here if our baby is secretly a Disney princess. Here are some of the reasons we suspect this might be so.

1. She is cute in regular clothes and fancy "ball attire"
2. Birds don't get startled and fly away when we walk past.
3. Woodland creatures ask to see her during her nap.
4. She is strong willed and passionate.
5. She looks pretty with flowers and enjoys nature.
6. She already "sings" songs. 
7. She has personality!(Cute and Quirky!)
8. She would even look cute in "prison."
9. She looks cute even when she has a cold while teething! (Fluids and all)
10. She would have a great blooper reel! 

Ella at 9 Months

Ella is 9 Months Old! This Month at a glance:

Ella has been working on her standing
She loves to pick things little things out of the carpet to try and eat
Flew on an Airplane
Visited Utah
Visited Idaho
Met lots of Cousins
Started sleeping on her tummy
Discovered a love of Grass
Talks with Mommy and Daddy

Vacation Part 2

We spent the next week of our vacation in Idaho.

The first night we played with Jay and Amber's family
We got to play with Grandma and Grandpa (and Great-Grandma Call)
Ella had a jumper off with Ellie (and just played too)
We played the piano and looked cute doing it.
Ella learned how to high five.
Daniel helped set up the car track.
We flew some fancy kites. (And I managed to get it stuck in a tree)

We even had a nice, uneventful flight home, but after all that travel Ella was glad to be home!

Vacation Part 1

So, we spend some time on vacation to see our families and our friends back in Idaho and Utah. Ella did pretty well on all the flights. On our flight into Salt Lake someone had a medical incident in the last few moments of the flight. We were already late arriving and we all had to wait on the plane for an extra hour. Poor baby didn't get to bed until 9:30pm!

Early in the trip we went to Emily's and Joseph's wedding and luncheon.

At Grandma Larsen's house we had lots of fun!
We played with Grandma
We played with Noah's ark and Grandma's Bells
We rolled around on the floor
Played on Grandma's soft grass
We went to the family reunion with an Easter egg hunt

General Conference Weekend

So, we are little behind posting our blog! For all our friends who don't know about General Conference, here is the low down: Every six months everyone in our world wide church gets together (sometimes figuratively) to hear from real Prophets and Apostles! ( Yes, we believe they are real prophets and apostles just like in the Bible). They give talks on topics of their choosing lasting 15-20 minutes over the course of several hours over the assigned weekend. (You can see or read what they said here!) We watched at home through the internet, but some people watch a live broadcast from the church buildings (where they usually go to church on Sunday), and some even literally gather by going to Utah to see the events in person.

Anyway, this conference comes in 4 two hour sessions (5 sessions for the men during the weekend. The women have a meeting the Saturday before instead of during the conference weekend.) This is a long time to sit and listen, and we found we have the most cute, distracting toy ever! (Daddy says that it isn't his fault because he was captured to be used as entertainment) But, she was the only one who fell asleep during the conference, which is probably a record or something for us grown ups!

Ella's 8 Month Update

Even Ella has a hard time believing that she is 8 months old!

I decided that a water bottle was my favorite toy for a few weeks.
I started practicing my puppy dog eyes.
I have become an expert sitter.
I can pick up finger foods and put them in my mouth. (Other things too!)
I love outside! (Even just looking outside makes me smile!)
I can roll over both ways!
I have two teeth!
I show more of my happy personality every day.
I love to smile for Daddy!(when he plays with me in the morning, when he comes home from work, and when he helps me stand up!)
I have been working on making my sounds. Sometimes I scream, and sometimes I 'talk' for fun.

Little Miss Tummy Sleeper

Ella has learned to roll to her tummy, finally. She mostly only does it when we aren't looking though. (Like at night, in her bed.) For a week or more when we come to get her from her crib, she is on her tummy! The only downside is that we haven't figured out how to stop tummy sleeper diaper leaks. (No huge explosions or anything, but we're working on figuring it out.)

We go to ward choir at 1:00 on Sunday afternoons. This is great for a lot of people, but this is just about Ella's naptime. If she doesn't need to nap as soon as we get home from church at 12:30, she comes to choir and sits in the baby carrier. AND if we are lucky, she falls asleep. The duck rattle/pillow is an optional accessory.

We've been working on finger foods around here as well. Ella is getting very proficient at picking up cheerios now. Sometimes they even make it in her mouth, but sometimes they just get really close!