I feel like I have a lot of things I need to blog about this week . .. we'll see if I can remember everything!

It was a really busy week with lots of family in town for Aunt Tammy's funeral. My emotions have been all over the place with all the reminders of my mom's own funeral only a couple of years ago. But it's always nice to be reminded of the blessings we have!

Ellie & Grandpa White

My mom's brothers - Dale, Evan, and Al all made it down here for the funeral (along with my dad). We had nice visits with them and they were able to meet their great-niece. Ellie wasn't quite sure what to think about most of them but she seemed to like her Great Uncle Dale the most. She happened to provide a lot of entertainment to the people sitting behind us at the funeral by blowing raspberries at everyone and smiling. I was just grateful she wasn't screaming!

Uncle Dale playing with Ellie

We had a pizza and Guitar Hero party yesterday afternoon at our house with the family that was still in town. My cousins Jessica and Natalie were really good at Guitar Hero after a few rounds! We invested in a second guitar so we can compete now and Rob and I played it for a good hour last night before my hand hurt too much and we had to quit.
Rob and Jessica playing Guitar Hero

Ellie has gotten really good and fast with her crawling and is into everything!! Nothing is safe in our house. She found the tiniest piece of a wrapper on the ground and almost choked on it so I've been even more meticulous with my cleaning. I'm really hating the tile in our house right now because she has already managed to smack her head on it several times. It makes me feel like a horrible mother - even though I know it's all part of the stage that Ellie is in and learning and discovering how to move and get around.

And in other news, Ellie has discovered how to pull herself up in her crib (and on chairs, tables, couches, etc). We quickly lowered the crib mattress but she still likes to pull herself up and then use the railings to walk around the crib and yell out "mama, mama". It's making night and nap time a lot more difficult since it seems to take her twice as long to fall asleep. She hasn't figured out how to get herself down from the standing position so we have to go in every 10 minutes and put her back down until she finally wears herself out and goes to sleep. I'm really hoping she learns how to get back to a seated position on her own soon!
Standing up using the crib . .. .

And the toy box . ..

And the game!

Oh and very exciting news for me - our garage addition is finally done!! We have only ever had a carport but we were quickly running out of room in our humble starter home . . . so Rob has been working on turning our carport into a garage for our storage needs. The garage door was installed this week and I've been trying to get stuff out of my house and organized in the garage. My label-maker has gotten a lot of good use this week! We still need to paint the stucco pillar and repaint the front of our house - but that can come later on!