This Month with Ellery

Ellery is almost 10 months old!  Madness.  We're starting to think about her first birthday party already...my Bean is almost all grown up!  She's really fun these days.  Suuuper busy, crawly, spitty, eaty, standy, pull-uppy, and cute.  I love our days together!

Here's the update email I just sent out to our family to keep them up-to-date on our lives.  I thought I'd put it out there for everyone to see!

She plays with this music table every single day.  It's basically her favorite thing right now.  And I'm getting really good at singing the ABCs in Spanish!

She's eating a ton and growing well (I think!)  We go back in to check her weight early next week...I'll let you know the results!

Yeah, I have a lot of pictures of her shoving food in her face.  She loves to eat!

She's still cute too.  Just in case you were worried about that.

Loves to 'walk' around the room holding on to everything, and is getting better at transferring from object to object in her quest to get into every corner, nook, and cranny!

Nakey Diaper Time (with just the breathable cotton layer) is a daily occurrence, and she usually takes the opportunity to pull everything off of these shelves over and over.  We know how to party!

We have two growing, sharp teeth!  In her enthusiasm to consume food, we are working on not biting everything she sees.  It's hard to learn why you can bite toast but not fingers!

Again with the table.  Seriously at least 30 minutes every day.

Oh, and I need to figure out how to edit some video, because the music table has inspired some great dance moves around here.  Without prompting, she just started bopping around to it one night.  It's very bobblehead-esque.  Fantastic.  Now she'll Bobble on cue, and the hips are starting to get involved.  Watch out, world.

 And again with the food.  Do you see a pattern here?  Eat, music table, eat, pull everything off of shelves, eat, sleep, eat again.  That's our life right now!

She still sleeps really well...zero issues since we fought through her crying in Frisco!  Thanks for putting up with that, Heartys.  She's a champ sleeper now!

She now has a drawer in the kitchen that's all hers...we pull out her baking set while I cook so we can both get some serious work done.

And we've been supplementing with formula in the evenings just to make sure she's getting enough food overall.  I don't know what I'll do if she hasn't grown enough at this next weigh-in...I seriously feed her for at least 75% of the time she's awake.  She only eats 2-4 ounces of it once a day if she takes any at all, so I think that she's getting enough other stuff in general.  We just top off her tanks just in case there's any room left!  :)  Aren't these two just the best?

There you go!  Just a quick peek into our lives!

Books!

Mmm.  Books.  You know, my opinion of people has gone up and down a lot in my life, but my relationship with my books has always been consistently, reliably awesome.  Yes, that makes me a big nerd.  But it doesn't matter if you decide not to like me for being a nerd, because I have my books to keep me company.  I love them.

One day, back in 2006, I was sitting in an airport with Tim, re-reading Heart of Darkness.  This dark masterpiece by Joseph Conrad was placed on a list of the Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century, and the version I was reading happened to have the whole list printed in the back.  Now, I've been a reader for most of my life.  I've read a lot of good books.  I was shocked to see that I had only read 3 of the books on the list, and had only even heard of about 20.

So a new vision for my 20s was born.  I decided to start reading the whole list, and I made a goal to finish by the time I turn 30.  I visit our wonderful library about once a week because I just like it there (and want Ellery to like it too), and I try to get through 1-2 books each month.  I am currently 72 in, with only 28 to go in the next 25 months!  Totally doable.

I would really like to post the list on here with my progress, but I have no idea on the best way to do that.  I'll work on it.

Maybe I'll write some thoughts on each too?  Hmm.  I'll see what I can do.

In the meantime, here's my favorite reviewer of The List.  He really hasn't done anything new in the last year or so, but I keep hoping he'll pop back up someday.  Meet Doug.  Good stuff!

For now we'll just stay current.
Last Book:  Appointment in Samarra by John O'Hara
Current Book:  The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington
And because I just remembered that I actually finished that one before bed last night...
Next Book:  The Ginger Man by JP Donleavy

Mmm...I loved The Magnificent Ambersons.  Primarily because of the name.  And the author's name.  Booth Tarkington.  That's just fantastic.  Do you hear me out there, Bowdeys who are soon to have a boy whose name has not been decided upon yet?  Booth Tarkington!  It's perfect.  Uncle Booth Bowdey.  I love him.

Yeah, it's been a while.

It's been over a month since I've posted anything.  I just stopped paying attention, and since I haven't actually told anyone to come look at the blog yet, I figured I could get away with it.  I also spend a lot less time on the computer now that Ellie and I spend our whole day getting her to eat more food...she's growing well, though, so the pressure of stuffing her face continually is finally easing up a bit!  :)  I'll catch back up eventually!

Things I need to catch up on posting about:
-Pictures, pictures, pictures of the Squirmy Bean!!
-Recent crafty projects...babylegs, bib towels, lined diapers
-Weekly Menus...I've been cooking a ton of new recipes this month.  Mmm.
-All the other thrilling details of our riveting life!

I'll get started uploading pictures!