We are back!!

Ok, I have been working on the same blog for a week now so sorry its just getting posted now. Its been crazy here since we came home from vacation.

Well we made it back from vacation. It was a wonderful, well needed trip. Ella did wonderful on the cruise. She slept and ate great the entire time so that made mommy very happy. Since there was a large group of us I had tons of hands to help out with Ella. Thank you to everyone for all the extra help it was very much appreciated. Eric and I even got some time out to ourselves which was really nice. During the cruise they had "aqua babies" which is a class for infants. Ella did so well and loved playing with Miss Rosie. It was a great activity for her. Ella went to Jamaica, Cozumel, and a private Island owned by Royal Caribbean. She is such the traveler!! I am glad Ella had a great first vacation and I am sure she is looking forward to many more. Thank you mom and dad for a GREAT trip and the help with Ella.

Ella is doing just wonderful. She will be 7 months on Saturday. I just can't believe it. She is such a joy to have in our lives and we couldn't imagine our lives without her. She makes me smile everyday, even those not so good days! ha She has a contagious smile and it just brightens my day. She is REALLY growing now. I can't believe how much she is changing too. She is officially crawling.......... I feel like my life has been turned upside down. It so great to see her on the move, but that means I am now too. Our house is officially child proof now. It has been a little challenging keeping up with her. She is also pulling herself up. Today we had to lower the crib because to jumped out head first!! Thank goodness I was in there to catch her before she hit. Gave me a heart attack. Her bottom teeth are now all the way in, they are just so cute. I think I see one of her top teeth coming in now too. She is saying dada all the time and I mean all the time and loud. Unfortunately she doesn't know who or what dada is but its nice to hear her say something. She is also saying baba. I like to think she is saying bottle, but I know she has no clue what that means either. As parents we like to think all our children are so smart!! ha Ella has also started going to music classes at the library. She seems to really enjoy it. I have also joined MOPS (mothers of pre-schoolers) at our church. Which I LOVE!! I encourage every mother to find one in their area. They are wonderful. Ella is considered a moppet ha! and she goes to the daycare with 4 other babies. She loves it. I think its just as good for me as it is for her. We are home a lot and this gives us an opportunity to get out and meet people. Ella is a people person for sure. She loves other children and anyone who will chat with her.

I will be posting pics from our trip, but I am having trouble at the moment!! Imagine that. Hope all is well with everyone. We love you all!

6 months and GROWING!!

Well we have so many new updates going on with Miss Ella, where should we start............ Well she turned 6 months last Wednesday and its seems she has changed and done so much since then. We are almost "really" crawling now. She gets on her all fours and rocks back and forth and will move forward a little bit but still not a "normal" crawl. She can also sit herself up from a crawling position on her own. She can also sit on her own for longer periods of time now without falling over. I guess the BIGGEST milestone is she has 2 TEETH!! So that has been interesting to say the least. She has been a little fussy and not sleeping very well at all. She is up almost 3 times a night b/c she is uncomfortable. I feel bad for her but once the 2nd tooth breaks through the skin I think she will be ok. She is also talking a little bit. I can't tell if its da da, ga ga or ba ba but she is saying something. They say around this time they will start blabbing something.

We went to the Dr today for her 6 month wellness visit. She is just growing up!! She is 14.9 lbs and 27 inches long. She is in the 90 percentile in height but not so much on weight!! She is still enjoying her veggies, carrots seems to be her favorite by far. We will be starting the greens next. I don't know how they will go, but we will see. All in all Ella is doing great. I love that I have the opportunity to be home with her, especially now that she is doing so many new things. We have a lot of fun together during the day. She loves her exer-saucer. That is a big hit. She also loves to hang out and swing some days too! I guess it depends on our mood.

This past weekend we went to Jasper, Indiana for a Manchir family reunion. We had a great time. Ella and I had a chance to meet some family we hadn't had a chance to meet. They are all so nice and we had a great time!! Thank you for making us feel so welcome. We are looking forward to our short week b/c next week we are on VACATION!! We fly out Saturday to my parents in Jax, FL and then Sunday to board the ship!! We are planning on going to the Western Caribbean but with all the hurricanes we might be going to the Eastern now. We will see!! At this point I think we all just want a vacation. I don't care if we just sat on the cruise and circled Miami! HAHA!! We need this!! I can't wait to share all my pictures and stories from our trip. I am sure it will be a blast with a lot of great memories. Hope all is well with everyone!!

All over the place

I am sorry I haven't had any updates lately, I have been a little slack with my blog..........oops! Everyone is doing really well here. Ella is changing more and more everyday now. I feel like everyday we wake up she has learned/discovered something new in life. She is all over the place now. The days of laying her on the floor and her just laying there are OVER! She has learned how to crawl. Its not a "normal" crawl b/c she hasn't figured out how to coordinate the hands with the legs yet, but she is on the move. She gets up on her knees and tries to move with her head down on the floor. She some how figures out how to move across the room that way. She amazes us. She can also sit up on her own now too. She can't do it for long periods of time but she will sit there for a little bit until she realizes she wants to be back on her stomach and GO!! She has a lot of energy, I think she gets that from her daddy. Eric is always doing something and that is how she is, Wow we are in trouble when she gets older. Ella will be 6 months next week. Where has the time gone. She is still being breast fed but she has officially started her veggies. I started them a little before 6 months b/c we are going on a cruise in 2 weeks and I didn't want to introduce it to her then. She seems to enjoy them so far. Her new interest is my cell phone and the remote to the TV, this is not a good sign ha! She can spot my phone a mile away. I guess since it rings all day for work she likes the sounds. Ella is still always smiling and laughing, which we just love. To see her happy makes us just melt. We are looking forward to our cruise next month with my family/friends. There are 12 of us going so it should be a BLAST. It will be Ella's first real vacation!! Too bad she won't know whats really going on, but we will have pics to show her when she gets older!! Other than that we are all doing well. We are meeting more people here and Ella has made some new friends here too. We took her and her "friends" ha to her first County Fair!! She loved it. I think the bright lights kept her entertained. I am sorry I have no pictures to show from the fair, I forgot my camera URH!! Hope everyone had a nice summer, I can't believe its already over. Time for some cooler weather I guess. I will post some recent pics as soon as I get some.

5 Months

Ella is 5 months today. I can't believe it. Where does the time go?!?! Ella is doing very well. She amazes us more and more everyday. I love watching her experience new things. She is now 13.3lbs and I am assuming about 26 inches long or so. Ella is still waking up at night but normally its only around 3am and then she goes back to sleep until 6:30am. She is really good about her bedtime though. When its 8:30pm she is ready. As far as her napping goes, that is a different story. She will take about 3 naps a day and they are only for about 30-45 mins. I am hoping that part will change!! She is still turning over from back to front and has only turned back over to her back a few times. I think she is still trying to figure it out. She loves being on her stomach b/c I think she really wants to crawl. She gets so mad that she can't go any where once she has turned over so she gets very frustrated. I keep telling her it will happen oneday just be patient!! She is VERY chatty ha! She will just talk and talk. I wonder where she gets that?!?! I tell Eric all the time we are in trouble when she really starts talking. She laughs and smiles constantly. I guess its a GREAT thing to have a happy baby b/c happy baby makes happy parents. She is still enjoying her cereal. Her new thing with that is she thinks its very funny to do "motor boat" while she is eating. So you can imagine what that is like, food is every where. My mom said I did the same thing. I can only imagine once we start veggies what my walls are going to look like. This past week MeMa (Eric's mom) came to visit. I think her and Ella had a great time together. It was very nice to have the company and especially the home cooked meals!! As you know I am no cook so its so nice to have breakfast, lunch and dinner cooked for you EVERY day!! Thank you again MeMa for coming to see us. On Friday Kari, Scott, PawPaw and Dylan came to see us. They went to see the Wiggles in Nashville. Ella did not go b/c we felt she was too young to enjoy it, but maybe next year. On Saturday we took Dylan and Ella to get their pictures made together. They turned out really cute. Other than that we are all doing well. Eric is doing really well in his new position here so we are very proud of daddy. As far as mommy, I am good. Working from home and really enjoying it. I have the best customers so it makes my job a lot of fun. I feel very blessed to be able to stay home with Ella. Hope everyone is having a great summer. We miss and love you all.

Our Weekend

We had a nice weekend as a family. Friday we went to dinner and came home and crashed. I guess we came off a long week after a holiday weekend the week before. On Saturday it was so pretty but HOT!! so we took Ella to the pool with my friend Sara and her girls. Ella got to go in the baby pool for a little bit. I think she is starting to like it a little bit more. She loves her bath time so I am sure she will enjoy the pool more as she gets older. Today we went to church and out to lunch. Ella has finally figured out that when we are at restaurants she wants to be out of her car seat. She wants to sit up at the table with us, I think she feels left out ha. We really enjoy her company however she is becoming a pistol to take out to dinner. She will fuss until we give in to her and let her out. I am trying not to spoil her and do this every time, but we are in a restaurant and I feel bad for other people trying to enjoy their night out. Its amazing how much she has picked up on just in 4 mths. She wants to drink out of our cups with a straw I might add and wants to hold her spoon when she eats her cereal. She REALLY wants what we eat but that is not happening for awhile. I guess breast milk could be pretty boring everyday ha! I give her a bottle everyday with breast milk just so she will take a bottle from someone else in case I need to go out. Her new thing with that is she holds the bottle herself. I have to assist of course but she will hold it with both hands and chug away!! Ella was having a fussy day today so we decided to take her to the park here. Its the "Charlie Daniels" park and its so nice. I was amazed at everything they had. Here are a few pics from our day at the park. We were in our play clothes so please excuse how we are dressed. I promise Ella dresses to the "T" usually but I didn't want to change her since she was already being Miss Fussy Pants!! All in all Ella is doing great. Amazing us more and more everyday with everything she learns. We love her to pieces and look forward to each day with her and what it has in store for us!! Its always something.

YUMMY!!

Sunday was a BIG day for Miss Ella. She got to have her rice cereal for the first time. I was planning on waiting a little longer, but when we went to Dr for her 4 month check up they suggested her wait until she was closer to 6 months UNLESS she was "interested" in our food and/or was able to hold her head up. Well the entire time we were in Florida she was trying to eat everyone's food. HA! She was always trying to grab at everyone's plate and would get fussy that she was not eating so I figured it might be time. Well she LOVES it!! You would have thought we fed her a steak dinner. I am sure it was to her considering she has been exclusively on breast milk for 4 1/2 mths now. I always heard they won't finish the first bowl the first time you give it to them and she ate it alllllllll. It wasn't much anyway but I was still surprised she ate it all!! I think she had more on her than what actually went in her tummy. You will notice she doesn't have a bib on b/c she was trying to eat that too so we had to take it off! ha She is just loving her cereal. I can only imagine what she will do with fruits and veggies at 6 months. That is all our excitement for now. We are planning on having a laid back week and weekend since we have been so busy. Hope all is well with everyone.

4th of July

Well let's see where to begin with all of our new adventures............. Well we flew out Wednesday morning to see MeMe and PopPop in Florida. I was a nervous wreck about how this was going to work with me and Ella on a plane together, but she really impressed me. I knew she was a laid back baby but she proved herself to me for sure. She feel asleep from the minute we hit the run way to when we landed coming and going!! When we got to Florida we went by PopPop's office so they could meet Ella. They all loved her and I think she enjoyed herself as well ha! We then went to my parents house and relaxed. I was exhausted at this point and it was only noon! Then PopPop (my grandfather) came over to meet Ella!! I didn't know he was coming over so that was a nice surprise. We got some great pics of them together. Ella really liked PopPop. Later that night my friend from High school came over with her little boy. Ella and Powers had a great time together and then Ella passed out!! She was so tired from all the excitement in one day! On Thursday after a visit with Sara and Will we headed to Amelia Island. My Aunt and Uncle live there and all our family was in town for the holiday weekend. It was Ella's first "real" visit to the beach. On the 4th the plantation has a HUGE parade and everyone decorates their golf cart. Ella was in her first parade and you can see how excited she was! ha She fell asleep the entire time. That evening we cooked out and enjoyed a wonderful fireworks show. Again, Ella fell asleep so I watched them from inside which was nice and relaxing. Saturday we had a day at the beach. Ella came down for a little bit. Mainly for pics of her "toes" in the sand. All in all we had a very nice visit with all of our family. Ella enjoyed meeting everyone and can't wait to go back.