Ellie the scooter

Ellie's really been trying her best to crawl, today she was scooting around the kitchen floor. She's also doing a great job sitting herself up from a laying down position.

Almost crawling

For the past few weeks Ellie has been trying to crawl. She can get into the crawling position and rock back and forth. Sometimes she lunges forward, and sometimes just retreats back to a sitting position. I think we're going to have a mobile baby very soon. She loves to practice standing up, and can hold herself up by holding onto the sofa. Ellie has started eating Cheerios, she can pick them up but hasn't figured out how to put them in her mouth yet. Ellie has also started mimicking us, sometimes she sticks out her tongue or claps when we do. For Halloween Ellie is going to be a chocolate chip cookie, pictures will come soon!

At Brad's 30th birthday celebration in Pennsylvania.

Ellie's friend Grace Mai Huynh was born this month (they are exactly 7 months apart). We paid the Huynh's a visit when Grace was 2 weeks old.

Ellie's first trip to the pumpkin patch.

She loved the pumpkins!

Ellie and her cousins Sebastian and Eve at the park in Piney Orchard.

Grinning with her two teeth.

Ellie enters Autumn

It's amazing how much Ellie learns and changes each month. She has a very happy and smiley personality, and she loves to laugh! She has sprouted her bottom two teeth, and really wasn't too bothered by it. She's pulling herself up in her crib and on the couch, and she lunges herself forward as she's trying to figure out how to crawl.

Our little Terps fan!

Ellie visits downtown Annapolis right before the Boat Show.

Baltimore Running Festival, Ellie was there to cheer on her Daddy, Me, Timmy, and Jim in our races. Great job to everyone, especially Brad and Timmy who ran the marathon!

Grammy and Ellie waiting for the start of the marathon.

Ellie in the tub, laughing at her Daddy.

One Year!

Today marks the one year birthday of this blog! It's amazing how much has changed in the past year. Let's see where the next year will take us.

Here is Ellie eating a teething biscuit, yummy.
Ellie is enjoying her tummy time a lot more these days because she can roll over herself so she can reach her toys. It won't be long now before she's crawling!
Here is Ellie enjoying biting on a bottle of water after finger painting with sweet potatoes and prunes.

Ellie and I took a trip with Ngoai (Vietnamese name for a maternal Grandmother) to visit the O'Neill Family this past weekend and had a great time!

Central Park with Ngoai.Eve and Sebastian going down the slide, with Lien's sunglasses following close behind!
Ellie has discovered her tongue, here she is on the swing!
Me and Ellie at the playground.Again with that silly face!
With cousins, Sebastian and Eve.Sisters!Me and the kids in Central Park.At the O'Neill residence, Sebastian in the cardboard plane Lien and I constructed for part of his Halloween costume.Me and a sleeping Ellie in Brooklyn at a street fair.

September, already?!

I blinked, and it's half way through September! Ellie is 6.5 months old now, at her 6 month appointment she weighed 16 lbs 15 oz and was 25.25 inches tall. Our doctor said she is doing, "awesome." He also gave the ok to start on some other foods. So far we have tried, rice cereal, applesauce, pears, prunes, and bananas. I think she really enjoys the applesauce and bananas. Tomorrow we will try either sweet potatoes or peas, yummy.

Pretty soon Ellie will be cruising around, she can roll both ways now, and she is always motivated to reach toys that are far away. Watch out, Smeagol and Mimzy!

Last weekend we took a relaxing trip to PA where Ellie made a new friend, Max.

She enjoyed time on the patio.

And had fun being pulled around in a wagon with her cousin Lilia by strongman, Dominick.

This coming weekend we are taking a trip to NYC to visit the O'Neill family. Ellie is excited to visit the big apple! Imagine all the photo opportunities!

Does Ellie look like her Mama?

I recently borrowed an album of photos from my parents to compare myself to Ellie. There are many photos where we look very similar. Now I need to find photos of Brad to see if Ellie resembles him as well.

Here's one of me and Ellie:

This month we had a visit from the Pizzelanti family. We spent some time at the pool, went to a nice dinner and watched planes take off from the BWI Airport Park.

Ellie sometimes blows raspberries when she's eating her rice cereal. This makes for a big mess, but babies are supposed to make big messes, right? It's actually pretty funny.

We took another trip to a zoo this month; this time in Wilmington, Delaware with Anne. Ellie was wonderful for the car ride (two hours each way) to and from Anne's house. I was a bit worried about the drive since I was going solo with Ellie, and there have been times lately when she wants nothing to do with the car.

A couple more pictures just for fun!

5 months already?!?!

So at 5 months Ellie can now roll over from her tummy to back (especially since she hates tummy time!) eat rice cereal and applesauce, giggle, and sit up! There are a few things she has not mastered yet... sleeping through the night, falling sleep on her own... but we're working on these. Ellie tried the swing at the park for the first time, and she seemed to enjoy it, but still may be a bit small.