2010 Photo Recap

I don't know about you, but 2010 zoomed by for me.

I got a little misty eyed thinking about my already 8 month old and went peeking through all my old photos. I found so many that got left behind and that I had already forgotten about.

So I made up my own game.

The rules: Pick a few photos from each month over the past year that haven't been previously posted and write about them. Simple enough.

So here goes...

January:

Snow/ice storm. Tattoo (the once previously spoiled puppy) loved to bask in the glory of a space heater!

Reese (our niece) turned 3. Brady made sure Ellis got to join in on the fun! And my SIL made the awesome cake!

February:

My diaper bag, purse, changing pad combo arrived! So excited! It seriously took me months to find the diaper bag I wanted. And I finally had to get someone to make it for me!

March:

(it was a little slim pickins in the photo library for March, guess I was saving up my picture taking for Miss Ellis...)

Anderson Lee Murray made his arrival.

Planned babies born just 15 days apart!

I hoped that they could wear these matching sweater sets for some photos, but they grew at different rates and Ellis just wore hers this fall.

April:

Ellis made her arrival, but that was well documented!

Sleeping on mommy was a serious hobby at the time! And it could wear a little girl out!

I had to post this picture. I think its the only picture of me looking decent with her this little. I think we might have had a doctor's appointment that day or something.

May:

I remember the day when we could let E sleep on one of our throw pillows while we ate dinner! (Side note: Wow! Those are some skinny legs!)

June:

We had this bird's nest for most of the summer on our front porch.

This was one of the groups (flocks?) of babies!

They were cute to look at from the safety of inside the house. Mama bird was not so nice if you were outside!

July:

Silly girl!

August:

ALL of my textbooks.

I remember this be a scary moment. And feeling very poor.

September:

Some seriously post nap crazy hair!

To carry her in from the car, Brady sat his leftover pizza on her lap.

She decided to just help herself

October:

Cereal for the first time!

She loved it... at least externally!

November:

So tired. Feel asleep in her highchair.

December:

Having fun with our vegetable medley & brown rice.

I love the joy on her face!

Dressed in Mommy's jeans (Wow, those jeans make me look like one tall mama!) and Daddy's boots!

As you can see, it was a great year!

Happy New Year! Welcome 2011!

1st Santa Visit

Ellis met Santa for the very first time not long ago. After waiting for approximately 2 hours with lots of crying, whining children around, it was finally my precious little angel's turn! This photo was snapped, then she looked at who was holding her and immediately burst into tears!

Merry Christmas from the Mankin family!

Baby's First Thanksgiving!

I'm a turkey!

Ellis had a great first Thanksgiving!

It all started by my Mom coming up to stay a few days. We shopped, cooked, ate and got our 'crafting' on! We all ate at Brady's parent's house with some extended family. Lots of yummy food and good fellowship afterwards. Ellis had her Thanksgiving dinner of baby food sweet potatoes and some real people mashed potatoes. She must be a true Mankin (their love of mashed potatoes rivals no other)!

My family of three. Thanksgiving 2010.

Daddy and Ellis!

(note what her shirt says! haha!)

Sweet girl cousins!

Giving some kisses to Cousin Reese!

Here is some proof of how difficult it is to get a photo of all the cousins. And these are just my pictures. Jill (Reese & Gage's mommy) was also taking pictures. Don't ask me what Reese was doing to Ellis's arm. I really wonder what Ellis was thinking all while she was being handle by a 3 year old!

OH well, here is to our first attempt at getting a holiday cousins photo!

Kung-Fu baby!

Where's the mashed potatoes?!?!

My 8 Month Old!

Alas, another month has passed already!

New happenings in our little world:

• She can wiggle, roll and slide to get pretty much anything she wants. Which immediately goes in her mouth! No crawling yet, but she might as well.

• So close to crawling. She can push up on her hands. Just hasn't figured out how to use her legs yet!

• She gets so much joy out of removing her socks. Immediately after I put them on. Seriously, big money could be made with a product that could get baby socks on!

• We've moved to Stage 2 baby food. She likes this much better. She actually laughed with the first bite I gave her. Kinda like I'd been holding out. So far she loves all vegetables and only likes bananas in the fruit department. She obviously doesn't get her taste buds from me!

• Favorite real people food: Mashed Potatoes! She actually cries when we are finished.

• We are back to waking at night to eat. No fun for Mommy! I got that sweet taste of sleeping through the night and I'm not a fan of waking up now! We are working on it though!

• She wants something in her hands all the time. Especially if it makes noise!

• She is constantly wiggling her wrists back and forth like she is revving a motorcycle! She even sometimes makes the sound effects with her mouth!

• First word: "Mama" (although its more like "MaMaMaMa Ma Ma Ma Maaaa")

• Loves her Daddy's rock star display of Christmas lights on our house!

• She has pretty much mastered the pincher grasp with eating, although sometimes said pinched item gets lost on her chin/lap/cheek and never makes it to her mouth.

• Loves to grab fistfuls of my hair to just pull or even eat. Seriously if you see me with some bald spots, you'll know what happened.

• This month she had her first Thanksgiving and her first visit with Santa! (I'll post more about each of these later!)

She had so much fun playing in a friend's ball pit! She would just keep getting deeper and deeper until all you could see was her little eyes peeking up through all the balls!

Candy Cane Baby!