The Herrins from Scratch: Ella at 13 months...

Such a big girl..

Ella turned 13 months old a week ago. I feel like I've been focusing so much on what's going on with the family, I've forgotten to focus on the star of the blog. Well that's going to end right now...Miss Ella is really coming into her own and there's so much to talk about. In the 5 weeks since her birthday she has changed tremendously. She's starting to act like she understands what we are saying and tries to communicate to us too. Here's a list of things she is doing that are relatively new:

- walking...she took her first steps on December 28th and has slowly, but surely become a walker. It's so crazy to look up and just see her walking around the house just like we do. She's becoming steady on her feet and it's been so fun to watch this process evolve from baby steps, to unsteady toddling, to pretty confident walking. Sure she falls down, but she's learned to drop to her knees then hands to cushion the fall. We are happy that she's been very cautious throughout this process and really seems to want to avoid getting hurt...I think that's why she took things very slowly! Smart girl.

- blowing kisses...Ella has learned to blow kisses. It's precious and funny. Her kisses are unlike any we've ever seen before. Basically, she smashes her hand to her face (the palm of her hand covers her mouth, nose, and part of her eye ball), she makes a smacking sound (like a kiss), then removes the hand to complete the kiss only about 20% of the time. Often times the hand is left pressed to the face with lots of kissing sounds until she decides to move on to something else. One of her favorite combos is walking around the house blowing kisses...I have to get it on video! Every time I try she gets distracted by the iPhone and stops the kisses.

-eating anything...some of the foods Ella has added since I last updated are spinach, tortellini, gargonzola and feta chesese (any cheese for that matter), cheerios and milk, cake with chocolate icing, peanuts (finely chopped...Dr. Ben cleared her for nuts when she turned 1), spaghetti...ummm pretty much anything..she gained a whole pound last month. We love that she has such a hardy appetite and it makes things so much easier on us b/c she'll eat ANYTHING we give her!

-open mouth smile for the camera or iPhone..when Ella sees the camera or iPhone she automatically opens her mouth and gives the biggest smile. It's hilarious. She really is a ham!!

-feeding the baby doll...before Ella was born, we knew Dolce (our small dog) was going to take our new addition poorly. We asked the vet for suggestions on how to make the transition easier. I've told this story before on the blog, but the short version is-- we bought this doll at Target (per the vet's suggestion) that cried, snored, and drank milk from it's bottle. I carried it around and pretended it was real (Brent did too a couple of times) and basically Dolce mauled the dolls face repeatedly. We decided that it was probably working to our disadvantage b/c all Dolce was learning to do was attack the doll. SO, we put her away never to be seen or heard from again..until...last Saturday I was cleaning out Ella's closet, putting away clothes that were too small, pulling out newborn items...thinking this baby totally needs to be a girl because we have enough girl stuff to easily sustain octuplet girls...when I ran across the baby. I pulled her out of the closet and turned her on for Ella and she was immediately hooked. She loves hearing her cry and loves feeding her the bottle. We are hoping this is a sign of good things to come with her loving Baby #2. She adores her stuffed animals and dolls so much and is such a little nurturer...it warms your heart to watch her love on them.

-sleeping...Ella goes to be around 7:30/8:00 and sleeps until 6:30/7:00. We can't complain and are blessed that she makes bedtime so easy. I rock her for 5 minutes and lay her down, tell her I love her, hand her her lovey and leave. And that's it. We are very fortunate.

In addition to all that, Ella still loves to read and play. She is happy most all of the time except for when she is sick (who can blame her). She loves music and dancing, so we dance and sing a lot at our house. She bounces up and down to the music. We're working on learning words--she's not really wanting to add many besides uh-oh, bah-bah (bottle), and dada to her vocabulary, but we keep reading and talking to her to expose her to words. I'm sure it will all click someday. The main *GROWTH* area we need to work on is the BOTTLE. We cannot get her off the bottle. When people say...take it away and give her the sippy cup and she'll take it when she wants it bad enough...I have to laugh because that's just not true for Ella. She spent two hours yesterday throwing her sippy cup and body on the floor because I wouldn't give her the bottle. She eventually ended up drinking a whole bunch of water from her sippy cup...she'll take water from it, but the milk was never touched. She is SO strong willed. I've talked to Dr. Ben and all his suggestions have not worked...so...I'm at a loss. But if you ever need a sippy cup or cup with a straw we have at least 30 and would be happy to share. Starting to wonder if she'll go into Kindergarten holding a bottle!!

Watching Ella grow and change makes us realize how blessed we truly are to have a healthy and happy child. It reminds us to always be grateful and express gratitude for ALL we have been given. Hope you enjoy some recent pictures of Ella :)