"Cracker, please"

Ellie was not super-psyched to turn nine months old. Bad teething day, I guess. She still only has two teeth. At this rate, she's not going to have all her teeth until she's about 15 or so.



Inflicting some of the pain on Daddy seemed to lift her spirits.


She certainly is learning how to tease. (Not sure why some of these pictures are coming out grainy/blurry--sorry)


Finally, the shot for posterity.


I realize that we are now closer to the ten-month mark than the nine-month mark (the 3rd of the month), and since it has taken me so long to update, I have forgotten exactly what goes with which month. Also, as soon as I finished my post last week I got called to give a talk at church, so my limited computer time was devoted to that for the rest of the week. So here goes for just a big, long jumble of pictures and updates.



Over the last several weeks we have dragged Ellie across thousands of miles, a couple of time zones, and completely turned her world upside down.



She was a good sport while we were so busy getting ready for the move. Brady was crazy busy wrapping up his internship, I was packing and cleaning all day, and Ellie got to know friends from church who were so kind to come play with her or take her to their homes while I worked.



By the end of it all, she was pretty worn out. We drove as far as Nashville the first day and Ellie cried about 2/3 of the trip. Poor kid. We were so excited to stay at a motel with a swimming pool to finally really take her swimming. She was a trooper and went along with it, and even though she was exhausted, she perked up a bit and seemed pretty happy with swimming--for a while.

Ellie and I flew the rest of the way from Nashville. Other than a couple of major meltdowns in the airports and changing a really messy diaper at 35,000 feet, she traveled pretty well, especially considering what her week before had been like. We finally landed and have been worked back into normalcy again.

Ellie has enjoyed spending lots of time with cousins since we got here:




They take good care of Ellie (Jon was assigned the job of keeping her on the couch after she tried to somersault off the front)



They play with her outside.


Always ready to entertain with silly faces, songs, books, toys, or "Ellie's movie" (Here Come the 123's by They Might Be Giants)


They probably love giving kisses more than getting Ellie's slobbery kisses; she has become very affectionate with family.


And they like to help feed her. And bonus, their parents don't need to take them to the petting zoo now. Basically, Ellie is like fun little pet to the cousins.


Ellie has also gotten to meet more of her extended family.


Here she is checking out Great-grandpa's amazing garden.


Four generations. This is the grandma Ellie is named after. These are Ellie's only living great-grandparents. Ellie is getting a little pictured-out here, I think. (Note: I am actually the tallest person in this picture, but to get everyone in I had to hunker down a bit, so we didn't take a lot)

Ellie has also been doing lots of eating since we moved.


Lots of sneaking treats with Daddy.


And lots and lots of messes.

Other developments this month (which require video to illustrate and this entry has already taken me two days to get caught up on--maybe next time I will edit and format and upload videos): Ellie has taken up crawling. She never bothered with the army combat crawl and just went for it, full on crawling a few weeks ago. It has opened up a whole new world to her. She is still pretty determined to walk, though, and pulls herself up to standing on anything she can reach, whether it will hold her weight or not. She waves hello and smacks her tongue. And she said her first word: "cracker" (hence, the title of this entry). I thought I was just making it up a couple weeks ago when I thought I heard it, but my sister said she heard it too. This past weekend when all my family was around for a reunion, they all said they heard it too. So it's not just me. Every time I feed her crackers, she will say it back to me.

At first it was under her breath, more like she was commenting about the cracker when she had it in her hand. I thought how amazing it was to finally be able to communicate with Ellie about something. Now, however, every time I feed her something she doesn't want, it results in an anguished cry of "CRACK-AHH!!" and we have to bargain a bite of real food for a bite of cracker after a while. Maybe this talking thing isn't always so great. But she seems to be recognizing more of the words we say to her and I think she enjoys finally being able to communicate.

She's getting to the fun age of something new every day, probably too much to blog and update about. But we are enjoying getting to see her personality unfold more and more. If we can keep up with her (Ellie's new nickname from Grandpa: "Ricochet"--try holding onto that through Sacrament meeting.)