santa baby

Today we braved the Green Hills mall traffic and headed out for the required photo with Santa. Luckily we got there about 30 minutes before Santa, so we were only about 15th in line! Grandma & Aunt Jessica came too. She loved the jolly old guy!
Still all smiles...

But wait--there's my girl! The photographer caught her mid-spit-up!!!!

And then just to make her mama happy, she decided she was done with Santa and we got the "crying with Santa" photo as well!

All in all, I'd call it a successful outing!

Daddy giggles

Only a Daddy can get his baby girl to giggle like this:



(Please ignore the messy closet in the background & the shaky camera work--she was cracking me up, too!)

it's about time

After a bit of this: And some of this:
A lot of this:

And even a bit of this:
We have a tooth!!!!!
(Although I don't have any pictures of it since every time I try to take a peek, she sticks out her tongue! But, there is definitely a sharp bottom tooth poking through :)

Playing catch-up

I'm going to take this opportunity to share a few photos from the last week...

Here's our future rock star.Thanks again Jones Family for the hand-me-down drum.

Ellen loves it (& all of your hand-me-downs)!!!!

As many of you know, we are working on our kitchen right now in the hopes of getting the house ready to sell. JP's been working really hard--in between work & being a daddy during the day--to get the cabinets painted, appliances hooked up, countertops in, etc. I was in the laundry room Saturday morning putting clothes in the dryer when I looked up and saw Guinness looking like this: Apparently while digging around in the trash, she got a bit more than she bargained for and her face was covered with paint.

Surprisingly it wasn't too difficult to get out!

Now, back to the peanut...
She's got a new habit.

Spitting--yuck!!! She thinks it's hysterical though! (This photo is payback for spitting apples all over me!!!)

Thanks to Grandma, here's Ellen's required Christmas sweater.

Happy holidays to everyone!

We're going to see Santa tomorrow so check back for some more photos.

Thanks, Jones Family!

A present for me????

Thanks--it's delicious!!!

What?!?!? You're not supposed to eat it?

Oh, I see...Thanks!
Maybe I'll just have a little nibble...

i don't know whether to cheer her on or cry!

The other day I left her in her room for a minute while I went to go start the bathtub. This is what I saw when I came back:The girl is dying to crawl!!!! I don't know whether to cheer her on or cry...Life as we know it will be over once she becomes mobile.
Especially for you, Guinness :)

Go get 'em, girl!

i think i'm in love!

Yes, with this face of course...but more importantly with my new camera lens! JP & I had decided to not do Christmas presents for each other this year with the new peanut & trying to finish working on the house. But, I'd been eyeing this lens since before Ellen was born (and probably should have bought it then) & just had to have it to document her first Christmas! My other lenses are just fine, but I'd been having difficulty getting the exposure right when taking photos indoors. I couldn't seem to get aperature to let enough light in while keeping the shutter speed fast enough to keep up with a little one. As a result I was having to always use my flash. This lens should solve my problem! I still have some things to learn, but look for some new posts here in the near future with my new gift!

(Of course in true baby fashion--can you guess what her FAVORITE toy is?!?!?!?)

If this isn't a Starbucks commercial...

What do they put in this stuff??????

Happy 6 months!!!!

Well, baby girl, you've made it 6 months on this earth & to me, it's hard to remember a time when you weren't here...

You've been growing up so fast! You're 27 1/2 inches tall (still 95th %?!?!??!) and 17 lbs., 8 oz. Dr. Brady also heard a heart murmur so we're off to make an appointment with the pediatric cardiologist to have it checked out. Other than that, you're doing great! You've been sitting up really well for almost a month now. You're dying to crawl, too. You get up on all fours and rock a bit but usually just end up going backwards which often makes you rather frustrated :). We've been working on some more solids--sweet potatoes, peas, squash, bananas & pears so far. Some days you're more into it than others, but overall you seem to enjoy it. We're anxiously awaiting the arrival of some teeth! I feel like you've been teething for months now with nothing to show for it! Hopefully we'll see some pearly whites soon (although I'm sure I'll miss your sweet toothless smile). We love you sweet girl and can't wait to see what the next 6 months bring!!!!

so thankful.

enough said.

Happy Anniversary!!!

Happy Anniversary! Although it may have taken us 7 years to get here...

It's only taken us 2 to get here:

Thanks for being a wonderful husband and father. Here's to what the future may bring!

Our little sweet potato

Although the doctor recommends waiting until 6 months, we decided to go ahead and give rice cereal a try a couple of weeks ago. Here is a little video of Ellen & her first taste of cereal: (WARNING--this video is 5 minutes long--I couldn't edit it once I uploaded it and I was too lazy to redo it--of a baby eating cereal. Not terribly exciting!!! You may want to stop watching after the first minute!)



We've been continuing with the rice cereal almost every night since then. Sometimes she seems really excited but it's usually only for a bite or two. Usually she's not too terribly interested. For a change last night, I decided to go ahead and just give sweet potatoes a try. I think we have a hit! She ate it all up!!! Check out the photos below:

First bite Smiling after her first bite face made Mommy laugh
Hamming it up!

Trying to grab the spoon alreadyOur little sweet potato :)