Elli's laugh

This is the most we've ever had Elli laughing... not sure why this was so funny to her, but she thought this was hysterially funny.

What we actually captured is the tail end of her giggling -- she was laughing harder than this prior to filming

In other Elli news:

1) We have a walker! Elli started walking about two weeks ago with a few tentative steps here and there. This weekend she walked about as much as she crawled from place to place, and we think in about two more weeks she'll be running all over the house (heaven help us!).

2) Elli's vocabulary continues to improve. New words this week include "buh-buh" (bubbles) and "Banana," the latter of which is properly pronounced at the top of one's lungs and with a very intense face (as if you are conjuring up the fruit with the mere mention of the word).

3) Elli's favorite foods are bananas (in case you wouldn't have guessed that from above!), spinach, bread, and ice cream. I'm happy with the dietary variety of her favorite foods. She will also down falafel like it's candy, but the chick peas cause a bit of gastric distress, so we've limited her access to beans for a while.

This is a picture of her downing spinach -- she's in the middle of a self-satisfied giggle and "mmm" commentary (which she says after every bite of food she gets... the more she likes it, the more "mmm"s and the louder they are uttered).




4) She is starting to understand and execute the concept of "feeding myself." (She's been feeding Jeremy and I food since February, but up until now, has looked at us as if we were insane when we suggest that she use that skill to feed herself.) Right now, she feeds herself cookies and string cheese, but she's getting the hang of things and she and Jeremy have been working really hard to figure out sippy cups, so we're probably another few weeks away from self-feeding, too.

5) Elli has 5 teeth now, and has 1 molar starting to peek through the gums and another one that seems to be necessitating a lot of chomping on her paci this weekend. I always thought that the teeth come in starting in the front, and then work their way back to molars, but Elli got her front bottom 2 teeth, then an upper molar, then the front top teeth, and now is working on the aforementioned two molars.


6) Elli loves her bath, and this weekend we put out the pool she got for her birthday. We splashed around in it for a little bit, and then we brought out the bubbles. Did you know that if your hands are wet, the bubbles actually stick to your hands? Elli was in absolute heaven.

(Abby, if you're reading this, note the cup catepillar you sent around this time last year in the background -- Elli plays with it at every bath time, and we had to bring it out to the pool, too!)