Dressed up for dinner out!

Here's Ella all dolled up and ready for dinner out in Lahaina with some family friends...











... tasting her dress, of course!












And then the whole family, ready to go!

Ella eats an apple

This must've felt great on her gums because she would not be parted with it!

Nine months old!

Ella celebrated her nine-month birthday yesterday by starting to crawl... She is still quite shaky, and she sometimes moves more backwards than forwards, but she is on all fours and is getting the concept. Bianca will certainly be quite dismayed when we return home tomorrow with this newly mobile being. Luckily, she seems to enjoy the attention, even when it involves pulling at her ears and fur.

Ella has also been working on a second tooth and has been suffering a bit from the pains. Although we've yet been unable to get that first one on film, we will hope to do so soon. It is pretty cute.

Well, she's back up from her nap now - time to play!
xo to all
HAM

"Where's Ella?"

Ella started playing peek-a-boo at Thanksgiving with her Grandma and Grandpa Morris when she was first able to raise a blanket over her face and understand the game. She loves hiding behind towels, cloth diapers, toys - anything that will block her view - and then dropping it down with a triumphant smile.
Here is a brief video clip of a peek-a-boo game that Ella played two weeks ago when we were having a baby party at our apartment with two 10+ month-olds, another 8+ month-old and one 4+ month-old... I find this clip particularly sweet because Ella misses the mark at one point and only covers half of her face while she peeks out at me with one eye.

First shots from Maui

We arrived to beautiful, warm, sunny weather and a nice cool breeze at the Kahului airport. This is our view from the condo, with pods of humpback whales speckling the ocean view.

Recent pics from CT

Playing with Bianca, Cheerios and laundry...

From Hawaii with love...

Just one week shy of nine months and Ella is having a lot of firsts! Her first trans-Pacific flight, first tumble off the bed (onto carpet, thank goodness) and first nose-scrape, first tooth (!!), first experience with a five-hour time change, first steps on Hawaiian soil and more... Though she is still far from walking on her own, she is finally talking steps as we hold her hands. The one tooth that is popping through is the bottom left. It is causing a bit of fussiness and a fair amount more drool, but, boy, is it cute!
We all got up quite early this morning, due to jetlag, and we've been watching whales breaching from our lanai (patio). It is gorgeous here - high 70's/low 80's and the perfect amount of humidity to heal our chapped Eastern hide. The big news around here is that my dad, Ralph, won his final case for the SF Bay Guardian, a small independent newspaper from the Bay Area. He ended his legal career on a real high and now we all have a week to celebrate the victory!
We will be sending more updates this week (including some recent videos!), but I'll just add a few more things that Ella is doing these days before signing off: loving Cheerios, eating real banana bits, cooing at ceiling fans, slapping five, flirting with strangers, playing in the pool, laughing a lot and really communicating in any way that she can... Oh - and she is always in constant motion - a real wiggler!