H Family

My friend Lindsay, who is also my neighbor, wanted to get her family's pictures done this spring. I was lucky enough to be the chosen one to take them. We took them yesterday but we were definitely worried that yesterday wouldn't work. It rained all day Tuesday. Then no rain Wednesday but the forecast for Thursday was 100% rain. It rained that morning and then the clouds parted most the afternoon so we were happy that we would be able to get them done. And it was overcast which was also great because we could take them really at any time rather than waiting close to sunset which is so late during this time of year. Anyways, we started at 6 and were just finishing up around 7 when the thunder started rolling. As soon as we got into our cars and drove away, feeling successful and accomplished, DOWN POUR! We couldn't believe how lucky we got. And to top it off, they turned out great. But, how could they not with such a great looking family.

The boys earned their treat for being well behaved. We went and got some ice cream.

Backtracking to February

This is February. Ellie is 14 months.

She got into that basket all by herself.

Unfortunately, I can't remember why I took this picture. I think she was trying to manage holding lots of things. But I do love when she holds her little baby doll.

She loves when I hand her towel to clean the floors with. I think she feels like she is really helping.

James built some desks for our office and Ellie was wanting to be in the action.

Getting Jolie out of her crate in a morning highlight. And Ellie is into zippers lately and  she was able to unzip the crate that much to try to get her out (too tiny of a hole though). I didn't even know she trying to get her out all by herself. So very cute.

Valentine's Day pictures. It is getting hard to take pictures of her by myself. I can't get her to stand still. Here is me saying, "Where is your belly button?" 

  "Fold your arms for prayer."

 "Sit here or else..." Kidding. James was home by this time. Good distraction. 

 There is a (tiny) local aquarium here and we bought a yearly pass. Ellie is enjoying it more and starting to ooh and aah. She also enjoys touching the animals (aka touching the water).

Valentine's church dress. I found the darn dress I had been saving for V-day AFTER V-day so we wore it to church. 

Playing in a fort.

This is an old picture of Tania's kids, Sadie and newborn Everett. Ellie frequently goes and finds it on the shelf and carries it around pointing to the baby. There is also a picture of James and I that she likes to get too and points to "dada."

Too flipping cute for words! I rarely check on her before bed. I know she's fine and I don't want to risk waking her since the door is right by her crib. But we were having space heater temperature issues and so I went to check the temperature in her room and found her like this. 

The stage kids go through-walking in big people shoes. 

There you have it. A quick overview of February.

Easter stuff

I hate being behind on blog posts. I decided to just skip ahead to now instead of back tracking. Maybe I'll go back someday. But for now...here is April.

They are building a new mall by my house and there are a few stores, restaurants and a movie theater that are already open. They also frequently hold little events in the common area and I find out about them on facebook. This particular day they had a petting zoo type set up that we thought Ellie would enjoy. She did of course. She loves animals and walked around to the different areas like a big girl.

I was at the regular mall the other day and Ellie was getting tired and hungry so we were on our way to the car. On our way out we saw the Easter Bunny and I wanted to show Ellie. I took her over to him and she started waving and smiling. I was super surprised since she wasn't a fan of Santa. Anyways, they let you take a picture and purchase a digital image at home which is so nice since who wants to pay $30+ for crappy pictures. Anyways, no line, I thew Ellie on his lap and she was so happy (I don't think she knew what to do with her arms though, haha). Glad I put her new bunny shirt on that day.

Last year, when Ellie was 3 months old, we went to my friend Amy's mom's house for an Easter Egg hunt. We wanted to do it again this year too. I dressed Ellie for the occasion, in her Bunny shirt. Then....just as we pulled up to the house I hear a noise, look back, and Ellie was throwing up all over herself.  She had been sleeping too so it woke her up. It was so sad. I'm not sure what upset her stomach but thankfully we were at the house so I ran in and got paper towels and a plastic bag. James took apart the car seat and got to do the fun part. I took Ellie in and got her cleaned up. I always have an emergency outfit in the diaper bag. It's been in there a long time. Size 6 months and still fits haha.
Anyways...she didn't quite get the concept of the egg hunt. She'd say "ball" and then pick it up and try to open it. It was cute. She also got to eat a few pieces. I figured she already threw up so what was the harm....but she was fine the rest of the day so maybe it was just a fluke.

Last year. 

Next, I wanted to take some spring pictures of Ellie in her Easter dress so we went out one evening and took a few. She's getting so big. We are loving this age. She is learning so much and is starting to say more and more words. Second picture down she's waving and saying hi.

 Easter morning Ellie got to see what was in her basket. She got 2 balls, bubbles, a book, cheddar bunnies and a stuffed bunny that my grandma sent her (with directions to dress it up) so I crocheted a little dress for it. Hehe. Ellie's favorite things were the balls, of course.

We had dinner at our friends house with another couple (we are each other's family on the holidays). There was also an Easter egg hunt for the kids. 

she loved this big "ball"

January 2014

I need to catch up on posts!! Here are some January pictures. I have to say though, while I love hurrying and taking pictures of Ellie doing cute/new things I hate that my ISO has to be up all the way to 1000 or more sometimes and my shutter speed has to be slow. All because my house doesn't have daylight lighting beaming through at all hours of the day. This makes for blurry and grainy pictures. I also don't clear out the space around her so days old mail, random shoes or breakfast from earlier may be lingering in the background. Just ignore all that. 

In these two pictures, I sat Ellie on the counter for some reason. I must have been writing or reading something because I then noticed Ellie had grabbed a piece of the Mint Chocolate Orange from behind her and started chowing down. 

Ellie playing peek-a-boo

This was a gift, v-tech Camera, from my sister in law. I showed Ellie how to hold it up to her eye to pretend to take a picture. She eventually caught on and started doing it on her own.

We were clearing out a bedroom that we were (still are) redoing and we brought this red shelf out in the family room. Perfect jungle gym apparently. (If I point it out it probably makes it worse, but ignore the dust!)

I heard, "Mommy come look at this." Daddy had covered Ellie with all her friends. She thought it was so funny!

One morning I was getting ready for a Dr. appt and I sat Ellie down to watch Yo Gabba Gabba so I could finish getting ready and I caught glimpse of her in her trance (pathetic, haha) but she looked so cute I couldn't help myself.
Side note: Ellie is starting to get a lot of red in her hair, but it is not as red as it looks in these pictures. It was the lighting. 

This is one of those pictures where I grabbed my camera so fast to take the picture so I didn't miss what she was doing. But I wish I could redo it. She looks like such a big girl laying on her tummy, feet in the air, looking at a piece of a magazine.

Ellie likes to reach in the trash can and see what she can pull out. Usually nothing good. I know better than to leave gross stuff within her reach (more gross than reaching in the trash itself) but after spilling salt from a pretzel bag on the floor I thought to put the trash cans up on a wooden crate. They are too tall to reach into now so hopefully she gets over her phase by the time she does grow taller. 

James' birthday was this month too. Prior to his birthday I had made some homemade Whoopie Pies using a homemade gluten free recipe. James would not stop talking about them. He said, "For my birthday I only want these. I don't need a cake." I could easily make that wish come true. He worked the day of his birthday and Ellie and I planned on meeting him at work for lunch. I also planned on bringing Whoopie Pies for everyone on his team. They took me FOREVER! Really you are making twice as many cookies as normal because you stick too cookies together to make the pie. Anyways, I made the cookies, made lunch and we visited daddy at work. Ellie even wore her "I [heart] Daddy" shirt. Later that night, I had him blow out a candle and make a wish. (We went out to dinner for his Birthday the Saturday before). 

Check James' Birthday picture from last year (holding baby Ellie).

Tania and I always challenge ourselves to think of homemade gifts to make for each other on birthdays and/or Christmas. We do buy gifts sometimes too. But for Ellie's birthday, Tania made her a quilt using the vintage sheets we spent months collecting. For Jane's birthday I painted peg people (their family) for her to play with. She loves them! Tania sent me a video of her eating a banana with one hand and tightly gripping one of the dolls in the other hand. When Tania tried taking it away, Jane whined. I'm glad she likes them! I thought they turned out pretty good. I was proud of myself. 

Sometimes I have to give Ellie a spoon or fork to get her mind off not wanting to eat or thinking she's done. She usually just bangs it around and I can discretely get her to finish eating. But this day in particular she was very into wanting to get the food onto the utensil herself. These were both was all on the same day.

Also on this day, January 30th, Ellie decided to start walking. She has taken steps before, but this day she decided was the day she was going to start walking. I really thought we'd wake up the next morning and she'd starting crawling again but walking was here to stay.