every day something new

Ellie is 6 1/2 months old now, and I can't believe it! Since she turned 6 months old, it seems like she accomplishes something new every day. Here are some highlights...

• 5 months, 3 weeks old: first tooth. Then she got her second tooth the next week! I think she's working on a third as we speak. She's been chewing on everything so hard, like she's trying to get it to come out! So far she has her bottom front teeth in.
• She began to sit up very tall all by herself, then the next day, she was "swimming," as we call it. She was trying to crawl, but it looked more like the breaststroke across the living room floor.

• This past weekend she figured out how to crawl for real! I think she was getting bored with being in the same place all the time, so she did something about it!

• Now she's pulling herself up, not only on small things around her like my leg and her lap, but also on the couch, the recliner, the door jam...everything!! When she pulls herself up and holds onto my or Nick's hands, she immediately starts taking steps toward us! She might be walking next... Now, when she wakes up from her nap, or in the mornings, I find her kneeling in her crib looking out into the hallway, waiting for me to come get her!
• Apparently, she's not as easy anymore for her teachers at Parent's Day Out...She is (I think) the only one that can successfully move around on her own, so she tries to "play" with the other kids and ends up crawling on top of them! They just lay there, and she keeps going! I think she's frustrated that she's the only one that can move around.

Since she started progressing so quickly over the past two weeks, we are forced to baby-proof the rest of the house. The living room was pretty safe, and that was fine because she just stayed in there all the time. But now, if I'm cooking in the kitchen or something, she will crawl out of the living room, through the dining room, down the hall to the kitchen! This means, she has to go past the computer desk full of cords, which is her favorite thing to play with!

Anyways, Ellie is not so little anymore, and she's so happy to be mobile and more interactive. It is so much fun!

We also went to Missouri this past weekend. Nick ran another half-marathon with his brother, so we waited in the 40 degree weather to watch Daddy run :) Here's Ellie all bundled up... Can you find her??

And Ellie, of course, had lots of fun playing with her cousins Iris and Milo. They were so excited that we got to stay with them for 3 days. They LOVE when Ellie comes to visit :)