Ellie Bellie

The other day I walked in the kitchen to where Scott was with Ellie in my arms. Scott looked up and Ellie flashed him one of her amazing smiles. Then she plopped her thumb in her mouth. Scott looked at her thumb in her mouth and replied, "I knew you had a fault!" This made me laugh since she truly is a happy and good-natured little baby. Ellie, at 9 1/2 months old is running on her own schedule and making my life easier at the same time! She still doesn't have any teeth and never drools! She is not in any hurry to get moving around. She army crawls, but is content to let me hold her through soccer practice without fighting me to get down. All the other kids started walking at about 10 months--Ellie is not even close! I've enjoyed having a little baby for longer. The other kids relish her every accomplishment. A couple weeks ago she started pulling herself up in her crib to stand which still brings screams of delight when the other kids go in her room and see her standing there with a huge grin on her face. Ellie loves when Scott wrestles her, but gets nervous when he's wrestling and throwing around the other kids. She loves to swing and laughs every time Scott swings her in his arms or throws her up in the air. Brynn loves to stick Ellie in the laundry basket or any box big enough for her and push her around. Ellie just grins through it all. Everyone always comments on how happy and smiley she is. Her smile lights up a room and makes everyone happy.

One of the most amazing things is when what she does at night while we're putting Jared to bed. She is sharing a room with Jared and I usually put her down about a half-hour before Jared, but sometimes she's still awake when I come in with Jared. When she is she sits up in her crib, scoots to the side and puts both hands on the bars of the crib and peers through her "jail bars" at me and Jared. She quietly watches wide-eyed while I lay by Jared for a minute. Then I lay her back down and leave. No fussing to be held ever! It is so cute to see her peering through those bars at us! My friend called her a "trick" baby--she's so good she'll "trick" us into having another one. She hasn't done it yet!

On another completely different note, the other day we were reading a few minutes in the scriptures before school. We were reading in the illustrated Book of Mormon for kids about the brother of Jared and the people trying to build a tower to heaven. Looking at the picture and hearing about the event Brynn remarked with excitement and said “Awesome!” Apparently we need to do a better job of getting the message of the scriptures across.