Sesame Street Live!!

Ellie had a ball at Sesame Street Live. We had front row seats and enjoyed the show with her friend Callan (Callan's mommy Joslynn is a friend of Michaella's from work). She got to shake Elmo's hand, saw Oscar the Grouch's female friend (when was she invented?....she wasn't on any Sesame Street I ever saw!) and danced for an hour straight! We went out for lunch with Callan, Joslynn and Eric afterwards and had a nice surprise of running into Ann, Dan, Joe & Sean Rivera!

Ellie the Bee

Ellie had fun at Halloween in her bee costume. We celebrated Halloween at the Botanical Gardens and Trick or Treated at Grandma & Grandpas. Ellie even managed to say "Trick or Treat" a few times and was very protective of her candy bag (even though we don't think she'd ever had any candy until that night!)

Ellie Turns One!!

Ellie had a big day on her birthday - she spent it at the zoo with Mommy & Daddy. She rode the carousel, & the train, and her 1st hot dog. In the afternoon, she went to a birthday party for her friend Sean who turned 1 two days after Ellie . We had a big party on the weekend with Ellie's friends and family. Lots of fun had by all!

Almost 10 months old

It is getting harder to find time to update our Blog!
 This past week Ellie is really doing a lot. She has learned a lot of new gestures, the funniest is  that she beats her chest like a gorilla when we say 'wheres the gorilla?', She puts her arms up when someone says "So Big!"; she is also learning to point at just about all the words she knows, such as, belly, her nose, hair, ears, lips... in books she points to flowers, banana, trees, and she has always loved pointing to flags.  But maybe the biggest step for her has been taking her first steps. She has started to walk behind her baby walker. I guess she is hitting that age where she will be picking up new things everyday if not every hour.

Some of the pictures here are from Grandpa Roger's visit a couple of weeks ago. Ellie & Grandpa had a great time hanging out together. These pictures are from their visit to the botanical gardens (Ellie is a regular:)  

We also have pictures from Ellie's first swing at the park and of Ellie sharing her cookie in her pac-n-play after spending a day with mommy & daddy planting outsides.

Tomorrow is Mothers Day and we will be posting pictures of Ellie & Mommy's first mother's day.

Everybody is Waiting for Spring!

Ellie is on the move...and she is fast! She started pulling herself up in her crib about a month ago and now all she wants to do is pull herself up and stand.

She crawls FAST and so we've realized the all-hands & eyes-on-Ellie necessity that seemed to spring up overnight. We are babyproofing but realizing there is so much she can get in to. She loves to dump over the cat's water bowls, open her bottom dresser drawer and pull everything out, and pulls herself up on anything she can get her hands on. We try to be there to watch her yet give her some freedom to learn, which has resulted in a few bumps on the head...nothing serious:)

She has four teeth on the bottom and one coming in on the top. Her favorite sound this last week is brrmm...brmmm (like a motorcycle) and she is laughing all the time (at us some times we think).

Dan, Ellie, and I are all looking forward to the spring when we can get outside more. We have had a number of nice days already and have spent those outside with her at the zoo, botanical gardens, and on neighborhood walks.

Here she is having dinner outside with her friend/neighbor Luci Rae.

They are a bit overdue, but here are a couple of pictures from Ellie's 6 month photo shoot-our friend and neighbor Andy took these great shots at his studio.

You can see them all at:

http://andrewmarinkovich.com/gallery/portrait/ellie6mo/

Grandpa Roger is coming to visit in two weeks and we are all looking forward to that. Also looking forward to seeing all of the Wittmanns just after Ellie's first birthday in July for cousin Kristin's wedding (she's marrying a Dan so she's off to a good start:)!

Happy Spring!

Scooting along!

Just a quick post.
Here is a video of Eliana crawling around. She is getting quick and we need to have a constant eye on her. She has been getting into everything of late.
Enjoy the video,

Lovin' the Water!

Lots of new things going on in the Wittmann family....Dan is officially a part-time stay at home daddy as of Monday! He will be home with Ellie 2 1/2 days a week and Ellie seems to be showing off that she is so happy about that by doing a lot of firsts the last couple of days...On Monday, she initiated a game of peek-a-boo with Dan on her own by pulling her shirt up over her head and waiting for him to start the game. This morning, as Dan was taking her upstairs, Ellie waved bye-bye (twice!) to Michaella. This was definitely a curl the fingers wave (and not just the arm movements we thought might be:). Then for her big news.....she had her first swimming lesson tonight at the YMCA. They start classes at 6 months and she had a blast! She loves baths and so we thought she would be OK in the pool. She started splashing and smiling as soon as she got in the water. We did a lot of movement in the water and she got the hang of kicking right away and even did some paddling motions with her arms - the Y 'instructor' said she was a natural and couldn't believe how much she was doing at her age (Dan suggests it is the Wittmann blood in her, but I think he forgets the Wrights grew up around water too!...maybe she is a natural). She floated on her back (with a little help), used a noodle, and even went under water twice (Dan has been wanting to do that since she was born!!) Mommy and Daddy were very proud!

7 months old!

The first months of Ellie's life seemed to go by slowly. Maybe that was because Michaella was home with Ellie for a couple of months, or because Ellie's growth (mental and physical) didn't seem to happen so quickly overnight! That has all changed. Here she is at 7-months old. What she's doing: 'crawling'...inch-worming across the floor (using her tummy and arms to scoot across the floor)...saying 'ma ma ma'....starting to go from a sitting to a crawling position and back and forth....clapping her hands with ours....making noise by banging her blocks together....recognizing her favorite books (she knows what to do on each page of her peek-a-book & touch/feel books)...and generally just being cute:)

Halloween 2009

Ellie was a bee for Halloween....and a great Bee she was:)

All sorts of new things....

Ellie is doing lots of new things....sitting up in her high chair, getting up on her hands and knees like she wants to crawl & babbling a lot (ma ma ma and ba ba ba). She is loving to eat our homemade veggies (except squash!) and likes to take small sips out of a cup when she's done.

She LOVEs bath time and even likes to get in the shower with Daddy. Ellie also seems to really love music...she waves her arms and legs when music starts and smiles a lot....quite often it even sounds like she is trying to sing!

One thing she's mastered is putting her pacifier in and out of her mouth on her own (except some times in the middle of the night when she prefers to wait until mommy or daddy come in to do it for her!). Here's a funny photo where she got it in...just upside down...

Stay tuned as I am sure there will be a video of her crawling soon!

6 Months Old!!

Wow - Ellie is six months old already!! Here she is (and also a picture of she and mommy) at her 6 month doctor appointment. She weighed 15 lbs 1 oz and was 27 1/2" long. ...long and slender the nurse said;)

Here is a cute picture of her helping Grandma with some laundry this week.

Big Weekend for Ellie!!

It was a big weekend for Ellie! On New Years Eve, she sat up for a few minutes by herself for the first time! She doesn't have sitting up mastered yet, but definitely is getting the hang of it! The three of us flew to St Louis on New Year's Day. It was Ellie's first plane ride and she did great. She played quietly the first half of the trip and slept the second half. We arrived at Aunt Audrey and Uncle Brian's in the afternoon and the entire Wittmann clan gathered to celebrate Christmas together. Here she is with cousins Alex and Ashley.

El got some gifts perfect for her....some fun bath toys, her own cell phone (she's always grabbing for mommy and grandmas...although I'm sure she's disappointed that hers doesn't have text messaging;) and check out this cute hat from Audrey and Brian. It was almost 50 out on Saturday so we took her for a walk at the park.

Ellie also broke her first tooth this weekend! It's on the bottom left and as usual, she's about as happy as could be.....

she has been just a bit fussy at night, but mostly she just wants to chew on things more.

It was a great weekend with family and Dan also got to see a number of his good friends from St Louis on Saturday night.

Happy New Year!!