6 Months Old!

Our baby girl turned half a year old today!  Wow.  In some ways, the time has flown since she was born and in other ways it seems like our life pre-Ella was forever ago.  Ella is just the cutest baby.  She loves any attention and will give the biggest, cutest smiles and giggles to anyone who gives her the time of day.  She is also the most physically active baby that the Hartland household has ever seen.  As of a few days ago, she is crawling 100% the "normal" way (no more scooting along on her belly) and she can travel from one room to another in record speed.  I will turn my head for a few seconds after putting Ella down on the floor and when I look back, she's gone!  It's quite the funny thing.  Ella is also sitting like a champ.  She figured out how to sit hands free last week and has never looked back since then.  She now happily plays on the floor with whatever toy she finds.  And the biggest surprise of them all happened two nights ago when Lia shouted at me to come into the family room because Ella had just pulled herself up to her feet using the couch!  What?!  I couldn't believe it when I saw hers standing there with my own eyes.  It's just crazy.  If she keeps this up, Ella will for sure be walking full-time by her first birthday.  Heaven help us and our Christmas tree.  She also discovered her tongue recently and blows raspberries all the time.  It's so cute.  She also is interested in touching EVERYTHING and reaches for anything that is within arm's reach whether it's a toy or a package of wet wipes or my dinner plate.  Ella just started eating rice cereal and "drinking" water out of a sippy cup a few days ago.  She is still trying to get the hang of it, but we'll keep at it!  She is taking a morning and afternoon and sometimes evening nap each day and is now going down for bed around 8 p.m. (hooray) and sleeping 12-13 hours a night.  I do have to make many pacifier runs a night, but I will take this any day over nursing in the middle of the night!  So, life is starting to get a little bit easier in the baby department which I am so grateful for.  That's our little Ella Avalon in a nutshell...