october at the hafen's

October was a fun month at our house. The weather was absolutely gorgeous. Fall is such a beautiful time of year and we have tried to take full advantage of enjoying being able to go outside before winter sets in.

Of course we also spend plenty of time hanging out at home. Ella definitely keeps me on my toes and literally makes me laugh out loud every day. She is such a little person now. I see so many of my mannerisms and actions coming through in her.

She still hangs out with me in the bathroom while I get ready for the day. Apparently she has been paying attention to what I do and now knows what an eyelash curler is and how to use it...

Although letting her hang out in the bathroom while I get ready comes at a very high price. The following was done in approximately 10 minutes while I was in the shower.

...shoes and hair products everywhere. And she learned how to unscrew lids in that time and had opened some hair products and rubbed them on herself. Time for drawer locks in the bathroom.

She has also started to really love babies. She is so cute caring for them. Anytime she sees a baby or picture of a baby she runs and gives them a kiss. She carries her dolls around and rocks them and loves them. I think I'm going to tell Santa that somebody would loves some new babies.

Sharing her string cheese...

Her hair has gotten so long on top! It's fun that it can go into a ponytail or pigtails. She's pretty good about letting me do her hair as long as I'm quick. But these new hair do's give her some crazy bed head in the mornings. So funny.

She still loves shoes. This picture is from the beginning of the month when she was still fairly new at walking and wearing her new shoes. She still absolutely loves clothes and shoes and will bring them to me to put them on her all throughout the day.

And she has started to wear mine as well. I caught her over in the entryway wearing my shoes and she was so proud of herself.

We decided that in order for us both to survive the cold months we needed to have something fun we could go do. We loved Cherry Hill in the summer so we decided to get a membership to the Treehouse Museum. I'm so glad we did. She absolutely loves it there! She gets the biggest smile on her face the entire time and almost can't contain herself as she runs to the different exhibits because she is so excited.

We did a quick photo shoot for her late 1 year photos. It was nearly impossible to get a picture of her because she just wanted to run around and explore everywhere. But we managed to get some of good ones of our little bug. Here are a couple of my favorites.

I threw this one in because it shows her little personality. I always do the "come here" hand signal to her when she's running away and she knows what it means. Now when she's on the go, she turns back and does the sign to me so I'll come with her. This includes doing it at church while I'm sitting in my seat trying to get her to come back to me.

We had fun this October spending time at her Great Grandpa Day's pumpkin patch.

Picking out the perfect pumpkin...

Playing in the hay and going on hayrides...

Out in the pumpkin patch...

A couple of other little "ellaisms" that I don't want to forget...

• One of her favorite things to do is to stand in front of the open fridge or pantry and say "ummm" while she taps her chin. Big decisions trying to figure out what to eat.
• She LOVES Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. I know she shouldn't even know what it is yet but when she's unhappy I can turn it on and she is immediately smiling and dancing. In fact, if I even start singing the theme song to her she gets happy. 
• She not only walks now she runs and laughs everywhere she goes. 
• She is really good at going to bed now and FINALLY sleeps through the night! Once she made the switch to whole milk she turned a new page.
• She loves to say "hi" to everyone we see at church, the store, pretty much everywhere we go. She is such a social little girl. 
• She understands basic commands. When she's getting undressed we say "hands up" and she knows to put her hands up to take off her shirt. Or when we're getting ready to leave I tell her to go get her shoes and she gets them and sits down to have them put on. 
• Something that is so tiny but so cute, when she has something in her hands when we are putting her in her car seat or getting her dressed, she pauses to switch hands. I don't know why but Danny and I both get a kick out of that.

I say it every month but I mean it - we love our little Ella bug and feel so lucky to be her parents. She is such a funny, happy, sweet little girl.