not even a month past her first birthday and ellie has already developed a mind of her own. the simple tricks that a dad has at his disposal for entertainment and play are quickly becoming relics in the repertoire.

this video serves as visual evidence of my dying ability to influence her actions. turns our we’re raising an independent young lady with a mind of her own, who does things on her own timeline.

this is going to be a long 17 more years!

one of ellie’s many talents these days is cruising. for the uninitiated, simply put: cruising is the act of pulling one’s self up and using furniture, and a variety of other objects (or people!), to move around a room.

ellie has been doing this for quite some time now, but we’ve only captured it on film a couple of times. recently we’ve had to clear the coffee table of any item we didn’t want to end up in her mouth, but in doing so also figured out that some things she just can’t reach if you put them dead center.

this is an example of the shenanigans that ensue when she can’t reach something … as if moving around the table will get her close.

and this had gone on for five minutes before i decided to film! silly baby.

our little lady continues to amaze and entertain. she rolls, she’s starting to scoot, she grabs EVERYTHING, she babbles like crazy, and loves her new sounds.

the latter is the new party trick, and lately she’s started to put the whole package together, as evidenced in the below video.

it’s a pretty strange experience to watch her develop and change at this stage, sort of the first stepping stone to gathering all the skills of a normal human. a little baby human. :)

for now, i’m considering getting some ice for my ear since ellie has discovered it and loves nothing better than to grab and pull hard.

we’ve been a little m.i.a. from the blog lately, but it’s for good reason … ok, it’s not, but i’m trying here. work has just been kicking my ass and when i get home i just want to hang with mommy, the baby, and, i won’t lie, the tv. but, this last weekend was pretty eventful, including FOUR HOURS in the car going to and from st. helena for grandpa’s 85th birthday celebration. it was worth it, of course, because of the occasion, but i think i speak for all three of us when i say that i don’t think we’ll be doing it again anytime soon.

the food and the company were well worth it, though, and we were able to finally introduce my cousin danielle to ellie. she’s sent her so many cute clothing items and other little toys and had never even laid her own eyes on her. so, that was really nice. i’d love to post a picture of the two of them together, but since auntie d has failed to upload her pictures, that’s not possible. ;)

we … well, bryn, put together a really nice gift for grandpa on behalf of our little family, as pictured above, and grandpa loved it. he was so proud to show off the picture of him and ellie, and i’m sure he’ll be taking it to the donut shop to show his friends.

we love him and are really happy he’s still around to not only have seen ellie come into the world, but also watch her grow. she’s happy he has big fingers that she can try to teethe on.

as ellie’s father, anything positive or new that she does becomes my greatest moment. yesterday i was lucky enough to be home when the smartest, cutest baby on the planet decided she didn’t want to be on her stomach anymore and rolled over onto her back. that’s right, she finally figured out that her arm + momentum could move her body.

something tells me the next few milestones are going to come rather quickly! check back frequently because if they come quick, so will the updates.

go ellie!

this past weekend the lewis family, that’s my mom’s side of the family for those unfamiliar, held its annual garage sale at my grandpa’s house in san leandro. we’ve been doing this for as long as i can remember. literally. years and years and years. i mean, we have stuff still in storage boxes in his garage that have to be 30 years old, so they’ve definitely been there for a good long while.

anyway, so we’ve been planning for this thing for quite some time. it had been about two years since the last one … yeah, i know it’s supposed to be annual … shut up … bryn and i already had quite a bit of stuff at grandpa’s already, but boy, we had to have doubled or tripled that after searching for things to get rid of leading up to it. so we showed with a ton to get rid of and were reasonably successful at doing so.

ok, we were really successful. i guess $600 between us is successful for a garage sale, but, i mean, the family cleared $3,000 for the weekend. after all these years, i’m still floored by the kind of business we do. i think we could open our own store and do this full-time!

this year was especially … uh, special … because we had some new participants! first, of course, was ellie, who had no problem making herself comfortable and, surprisingly, sleeping! although, we have nan to thank for that because she bought us a nice pack n’ play prior to the weekend. it was a lifesaver.

another guest of honor, whom i hope continues to join us, was my father-in-law, bill. we had been bothering him about coming because we knew he had plenty of good stuff to sell, especially electronics, and he finally gave in. the good news for him is that he made out like a bandit for someone who initially hadn’t planned to come!

and last, but certainly not least, jumprope extraordinaire, aunt margie, our second-newest addition to the family, experienced her first sale. i think she had more fun trying to convincing her husband to give away useless crap than she did making money off the things they did sell, but hey, it was fun to watch … especially the rope jumping. lol!

overall, it was a nice weekend and a good experiment with ellie since we’d never had to deal with the nap schedule anywhere other than home. with all of that said, i’m still firmly convinced that the best part of the weekend was my discovery of this awesome hat. i wanted to buy it, but bryn said no. i don’t know why.

mmmm, linguica.

finally. the all powerful legs that ellie has been putting her full weight on for some time are beginning to be discovered. not only is she starting to grab her legs some (i don’t think she can reach her feet due to the size of her gut), but when we put her in her little jumper-saucer-thingy, she’s starting to push off of the floor and bounce. it’s not much yet, but it’s something!

she also was kind enough to throw in some short bursts of baby babble. she’s done enough of this lately to make us start referring to her as baby gaga. we think it suits her. :)

here’s a bonus video. the kid is finally starting to learn that there are other perfectly hilarious things outside of being tickled.

i love her belly laughs.