Happy 1st Birthday to our little girl!

Wow! It's really hard to believe that a whole year has already gone by. It's simply amazing how much this once tiny little person can develop in just a few short months.

Ellie still isn't crawling or walking, but continuing her butt scoot. Her pants are literally wearing through on the butt. We've been practicing walking with her, and she is getting much better at it. Although sometimes she just gives up and goes limp legged. Just this week she has started to pull herself to her feet, but doesn't want to go down on her own. We are working with her to be comfortable 'falling' to her butt. Below is a video of the butt scoot for those of you whom haven't seen this hilarious activity yet. This was recorded about a month ago and since then she has gotten really fast!



Also, Ellie is finally starting to say more actual words. She has continued to say "Oh WOW!" for months now - her favorite item to comment on is the huge air blown lawn figures for Christmas. Every time we go to the store she just repeatedly states OH WOW and stares at them. She is also saying "Kitty" "Kitty Cat" and "Cat". She loves playing with them. Reno likes it and will even let Ellie lay across the top of her. Whereas Vegas gets freaked out and runs away at any sign of Ellie scooting towards her.

Ellie has been eating solid foods for a couple months now too. She is primarily eating what we make for dinner for the two of us and only eating baby food when she has finished eating solids or if she's refusing to eat at all (generally due to teething). We moved to whole milk in October which she transitioned really well to. Now the trick is getting her to drink from a sippy cup and eventually move to cold milk.

Speaking of teething - Ellie has 6 teeth. Two top center and four bottom center. We are still waiting for the next top two to poke through - they are soo close.

We had her 1 year checkup on Tuesday morning, which went really well. This was our first visit with this doc since I wasn't too fond of the last one (and neither was Ellie). He was great with her, even thought he was rushed, since he was 30 min behind already. She got 4 shots and did pretty good. First poke, she flinched and tightened up her leg muscles, by the second poke she started crying and by the 4th we were crying, with no sound, since she decided to hold her breath. Nice Ellie. Way to freak mom out.

She's continuing to grow, slowly. Weight is 16.5 lbs (2 lbs gained since her 9 mo checkup). That is still the 1%ile. I think that its actually lower than the 1%ile, but because she is gaining and not losing it can't go negative or be at 0. As for her height - shes 29.3 inches, that is the 59%ile! She great 2 inches since her last checkup and increased from the 42%ile. For once she's above average in some sort for her growth! Her head circumfrence is 17.5 inches, still growing from 17 inches last time. But a big change in the percentile again from 27%ile to 33%ile. Doc says shes just long and lean.

Enough rambling for now. Her party is on Sunday, so I'm sure I'll have lots of pictures to post after that.