Today Sweet Ellie stood by herself with out holding onto anything for 3 whole seconds!!!! Well it was probably more like ONE second because--like every new thing that my children do--I scare them with my excited/nervous GASP! Which cuts their potential short. (Sorry girls...I just get a little excited...) But she did it...which means she will be doing it more, then walking with my hands, then taking steps. Oh my little girl. When people ask me how old she these days, I myself am astonished to tell them that her first year birthday is approaching. Because of her little half no-hands stand still today, it reminded me of how far she has come.

Just a few weeks ago I needed to put some mail out, which is in our box directly on the other side of the front door. Ellie was playing with some toys in the TV room. From the time that it took for me to see her playing, open the front door, put mail in box, close front door & glance back over to where she was playing she had climbed up onto our space heater!!!! It was the first time she had pulled herself up on anything. She was just chillin'. Enjoying these new sights a few inches higher than her normal view. But of course, I let out one of my infamous inhale gasps, running to her rescue. She was fine. Praise the LORD I had turned off the heater earlier that day so it was way cooled off. Once I knew she was fine I grabbed the camera...

Just chillin'. It's pretty cool from up here!


Oh Hey Mom!

...Woah...that's a long ways down.


Now.....several weeks later, she has gone from simply pulling herself up onto an object that is inches from the ground...to:

Popping up quickly, pulling up onto couches, chairs, strollers...

Tucking Sally Dolly in to sleep? That is very kind of you, Ellie.

Pulling herself up to the side of the bath....first time she did this I was busy but could see her from where I was and in the back of my mind I thought "wouldn't that be bad if she could--" Thump....cries... GASP, run. Console. She was fine, but if you can't guess what happened, she had tried to reach a toy in the bathtub & fell into it...head first. :-( No water, thankfully. But Uhhhhh...felt TERRIBLE about that one, for the record. The bathroom door now stays closed.
She tries to climb EVERYthing these days.

The plastics cupboard she gets to play with, she now tries to get into.

The dishwasher.

Attempting to get up to the lazy boy recliners.

Climbs up to pound out some tunes on the baby grand.

And Audrey's big girl bed. She does it so quickly now. It's about the cutest thing to see. And she is SO proud of herself :)

Playing peek-a-boo :)

Wrestling. Or as Audrey would say it:

"We're raskeling eachother!"

My favorite place, however, is when you climb up on me baby girl. :)