Married With Cats: Week in Review.

Tim hassled me last night for the lack of blargh updates this week - it's been a busy one! Which sadly leaves him no new pictures or video to look at when he has down time at work.

Because of our schedule, we moved swimming to Monday morning. Now that Ellie is a real person with thoughts and feelings, she's gotten a little ornery about her lessons. She still LOVES being in the water and playing with the toys and splashing around, but she doesn't like when the instructor makes her work. There's a lot of yelling during back floating now, but Mr. Shane just holds her there until she gives in and does what she's supposed to do. I joke that he's working her like a show pony. He asked me if she's pretty independent, and I said no, but she's definitely willful. She'll come back around.

Tuesday we weren't at swimming because we were at Granny Janny's surprise 70th birthday party, thrown for her by the other Gardening Angels. She was completely surprised, and it was a great party. Jackie made a big cake and they actually lit 70 candles (and Jan actually blew out about 65 of them on the first try.) All of the Angels seem to enjoy having a small Ellie Bean running around, and Ellie very confidently walking between the ladies that she loves and recognizes.

Wednesday was a play date day! We spent most of the afternoon with Christine and her daughter Carina, who is a few months younger than Ellie. Took the girls to the park, hung out and played with all Carina's awesome toys, ate some Cheerios together - what more could you want if you were a small baby?

Thursday was adult play date time. We headed up to LA for lunch with my former coworker girlfriends, Ingrid and Emily. Emily was bringing her almost three month old son Liam to the office for the first time, and Ellie made a repeat appearance. We grabbed lunch and Ellie wandered around the office, impressing people with her walking skills. Most of my former team is now gone, which was a little sad, but I guess time marches on. We still saw a lot of our favorite people, and Elizabeth was delighted with Liam. She thankfully napped on both parts of the drive, which I always appreciate. I must say though, there's nothing cuter than watching her in the rearview mirror when she obeys commands from me - kissing her baby, hugging her baby, making weird noises with her mouth in response to me. I always crack up when she's being quiet and I think she's asleep, but she's only quiet because she has a foot in her mouth.

Thursday night was also big fun, with a fundraising dinner for the Glennwood Foundation, which facilitates Sara's youth group "club" on Monday nights. Once again, Ellie was a hit, wandering around in her little shoes, cramming parts of other people's dinner into her piehole at an alarming rate. I wonder if she's going through a growth spurt, as she seems to be a bit of a bottomless pit when it comes to dinner time lately, and then a half hour after eating she's ravenous to nurse for another 40 minutes before going to bed.

Friday was mommy class, which we always love, and lunch afterwards, where Ellie and Lexi pushed a tray back and forth across the table to each other and laughed like loons. They are so funny, feeding each other Cheerios and stealing each other's sippy cups. The little germ farms. And then we had dinner with Grams and Gramps, and John, who is in town for Thanksgiving. Things are a lot different now - last time he saw Ellie she was in her "screaming all the time" phase. She is quite pleasant now.

In between all of the events, we've done our usual - hanging out, reading books. She loves pushing her Cozy Coupe around the house, or moving the coffee table in the pretty room. Her other favorite thing to do is pull her picture magnets off the fridge and walk around with pictures of cute babies clutched in her hands. The walking is full time now - she only crawls if she falls and is in a rush to get somewhere. Otherwise, she pushes that big booty back up in the air and takes off with her little Frankenstein walk.