Nine Months Old

I am about a week late posting this. Ella turned nine months old last week. She is still a bundle of joy, smiling and cracking up laughing when she is playing, especially with Arin. Their bond is priceless and I hope that it always continues.

Despite her normally wonderful disposition, she can have a bad temper when something is taken away from her that she wants (toys, things she finds on floor, etc.). Uh oh!

Ella tried a new food this month - tomatoes! This food has quickly become a favorite. Yesterday, I gave her small pieces of watermelon along with diced pieces of tomatoes. She picked around the watermelon and ate all of the tomatoes! She also still loves bananas. She can eat a whole banana in one sitting! She does not care as much for avocados and spinach as she once did. She does love to eat green peas. They were one of her favorites as baby food, but now she loves that she can pick up each individual pea and eat it. She also loves rice and yellow squash.

She still has only four bottom teeth. The top two are super close to coming in, but just haven't popped through yet. I am assuming they will be here in the next day or two - both at the same time.

Ella loves learning, just like her big sister.

Other than the normal everyday play, we also have been working on colors. Arin or I will show Ella the different colored legos. We tell her the color name and set it down in front of her. Then, we tell her to "get the pink one" or "get the blue one" etc. This is all just luck at the moment, but she gets super excited that the attention is focused on her!

We have also been playing letter recognition. The same concept as the above mentioned game. Show her the letters and then ask her to pick a certain letter. Again, all luck at the moment, but we give a lot of praise, especially when she happens to pick the correct letter. If she gets the wrong letter, we repeat the name of that letter and show it to her, but put it back on the refrigerator and ask for the previous letter again.

Ella loves to clap. She can also clap on demand - just ask her to clap (without showing her what a clap is) and she can do it.

We have been working on counting also. This is not a very good picture, but she can show you what number one is when asked - just not when she is expected to perform for the camera :) I usually count to five on my fingers and show it to her. Most of the time she will copy with the number one and occassionally with the number two.

Ella loves to play ball. We roll it back and forth to each other. Arin likes to get in on this game too. Ella thinks she's so big when we all play games like this together.

Ella found her ears a couple of months ago, so I have been working with her to point to them on demand, but no luck so far. On a hit or miss basis, she is able to point to her tummy when asked. Almost always (but again, not so much with the camera around) she is able to point to mommy's nose when asked. Her fingernails need to be clipped because when she found my nose today, I thought she was going to rip it off!

She now responds to all of her names Ella, Ella Jane, Ella Bella, Ellie, Ellie Belle, Ellie Belly, Ellie J, etc., etc.

She also loves to drink from cups and water bottles. She also gets excited to see Arin with popsicles because she knows that Arin will share them with her.

Ella also likes to walk while holding on to the doll stroller. This is merely for confidence because most of the time she is picking the stroller up as she is walking, which she can do fairly quickly.

A couple of nights ago, Arin was laying on the floor "reading" a book to Ella. Ella was cracking up laughing. It was the sweetest sound and sight!