Ellie-palooza

I have less than two weeks left at home with my precious baby girl. I've been trying not to think about the time flying by, but it has anyway. Instead of freaking out about my fast-approaching return to work, though, I'm hoping to embrace every minute I have left at home with Ellie. We're calling the next two weeks Ellie-palooza.
And while I'm trying not to be too dramatic about it, I know there are a million things I'll miss once she's at day care during the days. I can barely keep up with all of her growth and changes right now when I'm around her all the time. In the past few days, I've been documenting the world according to Ellie. Below is her watching her Pooh mobile over her crib. She loves the dang thing and I'm so happy, because it gives me a few minutes in the morning to get my contacts in, get dressed and do other stuff.

Brian has been coming home almost every day to have lunch with us. He always takes his dress shirt off before eating. He does it mostly to protect his shirt from his messy eating, but it was a good more today because Ellie spit up all over his shoulder just as he was getting ready to head back to the office. I think she was trying to keep him home with us for the rest of the afternoon!

Ellie is having more and more fun doing things by herself. Here she is admiring herself in the mirror above her papasan chair. She's also started batting at her caterpillar toy. Such a big girl!

Here's Ellie's view. Very exciting.

And Ellie is having lots of fun on her play mat these days. We discovered she can hold on to toys that we put in her hands. Here she's got a death grip on a set of plastic keys and she's reaching up to grab a plastic ring over her head. What a talented girl!