Silly Girl

Ellie has a few new traits over the past couple of weeks. One is that she loves to carry things with a strap like a purse. My wallet, a shopping bag, even a shoe with a strap...haha. The other is that she is getting pretty good at brushing her hair...so cute. She also likes to try to dress herself, this includes placing items of clothing on top of her head. Hilarious! She's also figuring where body parts are - but not hers. Only someone elses - daddy's eyes, nose, etc. Here are some fun pictures.

Learning to Climb

Well the other night we got ourselves quite the surprise from Miss Ellie. She was over by the stairs, playing with the cat and I turned away for a split second - and she was up on the first stair....a new development. Both Jared and I bolted for her. We let her keep going and she got up a few stairs. The next night she was at it again, but made it up the entire first flight of stairs. We are in trouble now.... :)

Moss Adams Christmas Party

This year we were so lucky to have been invited to Moss Adams' Spokane Office's Christmas Party. Technically, I am still part of the Administrative Office in Seattle, but since I sit in Spokane, we got invited. This is the most amazing Christmas party you could ever imagine. First it was at the Davenport Hotel, simply beautiful. Not related to the party was the Festival of Trees. The Davenport hosts this event of 12 spectacularly decorated trees with all sorts of gifts associated with them (we are talking 1,000's of dollars worth per tree). For only $1 you can get a raffle ticket, pretty cheap, except that you have to remember the other 50,000 people that bought tickets too...Ok back to the party. Cocktail hour at 6 with top shelf alcohol, dinner at 7. For dinner we had three choices from the buffet - or you could have all three - Ham, Turkey or Prime Rib. Delicious! Followed by dancing and PHOTOS! There was the craziest photo booth with awesome props that we had a blast with all night long. To top off our night, they gave us a room at the Davenport and a $40 voucher for breakfast the next morning! What a wonderful night for just the two of us.

Carter's 3rd Birthday Party

Tomorrow marks Carter's 3rd Birthday!! Such a big boy! Yesterday we celebrated his birthday with a party at the arcade center at Lake Bowl. It was sooo cool. I haven't been there since they remodeled and its a lot of fun.

Happy Birthday buddy - We love you!

Lots and Lots of Snow

November was a snowy month for us. The city of Spokane just had the snowiest November in history 25.7 inches! We broke the record held since 1955 by over an inch.

Well December is starting off good for snow accumulation too! Check out the snow we are getting tonight! Huge flakes!!

Also, I have pretty lights on the house despite the amount of snow already on the ground when Jared went to put them up and the fact that we do not have a ladder tall enough to get them up the entire roof line - don't ask how he got them up as far as he did.

Birthday Videos

This kills me. Ellie gets soooo excited as everyone starts to sing to her. She just lights up and smiles so big!



This one is a little long, but I can't find my program on the computer that will let me edit it down....

Snow!

After on and off flurries and a bit of accumulation we had a big snow last night! There was about 2.5 inches this morning and then it continued to snow throughout the morning. So pretty!

Ellie's Birthday Party

This was the easiest and fastest way to get pictures up for everyone! Ellie had a wonderful time at her party! She loved opening her presents and when everyone sang happy birthday to her. And of course she loved her cake too!

Personalize a photo slideshow

Happy 1st Birthday to our little girl!

Wow! It's really hard to believe that a whole year has already gone by. It's simply amazing how much this once tiny little person can develop in just a few short months.

Ellie still isn't crawling or walking, but continuing her butt scoot. Her pants are literally wearing through on the butt. We've been practicing walking with her, and she is getting much better at it. Although sometimes she just gives up and goes limp legged. Just this week she has started to pull herself to her feet, but doesn't want to go down on her own. We are working with her to be comfortable 'falling' to her butt. Below is a video of the butt scoot for those of you whom haven't seen this hilarious activity yet. This was recorded about a month ago and since then she has gotten really fast!



Also, Ellie is finally starting to say more actual words. She has continued to say "Oh WOW!" for months now - her favorite item to comment on is the huge air blown lawn figures for Christmas. Every time we go to the store she just repeatedly states OH WOW and stares at them. She is also saying "Kitty" "Kitty Cat" and "Cat". She loves playing with them. Reno likes it and will even let Ellie lay across the top of her. Whereas Vegas gets freaked out and runs away at any sign of Ellie scooting towards her.

Ellie has been eating solid foods for a couple months now too. She is primarily eating what we make for dinner for the two of us and only eating baby food when she has finished eating solids or if she's refusing to eat at all (generally due to teething). We moved to whole milk in October which she transitioned really well to. Now the trick is getting her to drink from a sippy cup and eventually move to cold milk.

Speaking of teething - Ellie has 6 teeth. Two top center and four bottom center. We are still waiting for the next top two to poke through - they are soo close.

We had her 1 year checkup on Tuesday morning, which went really well. This was our first visit with this doc since I wasn't too fond of the last one (and neither was Ellie). He was great with her, even thought he was rushed, since he was 30 min behind already. She got 4 shots and did pretty good. First poke, she flinched and tightened up her leg muscles, by the second poke she started crying and by the 4th we were crying, with no sound, since she decided to hold her breath. Nice Ellie. Way to freak mom out.

She's continuing to grow, slowly. Weight is 16.5 lbs (2 lbs gained since her 9 mo checkup). That is still the 1%ile. I think that its actually lower than the 1%ile, but because she is gaining and not losing it can't go negative or be at 0. As for her height - shes 29.3 inches, that is the 59%ile! She great 2 inches since her last checkup and increased from the 42%ile. For once she's above average in some sort for her growth! Her head circumfrence is 17.5 inches, still growing from 17 inches last time. But a big change in the percentile again from 27%ile to 33%ile. Doc says shes just long and lean.

Enough rambling for now. Her party is on Sunday, so I'm sure I'll have lots of pictures to post after that.

Oh I wish I were an....

Oscar Mayer Weiner! Ellie and I took a trip to Target today and this is what was in the parking lot. What a great photo op! A nice lady and her mother took the pic of us together and then I returned the favor for another gentleman. What fun!





I wish I were an Oscar Mayer weiner
That is what I truly wish to be
cause if i were a Oscar Mayer weiner
everyone would be in love
oh everyone would be in love
everyone would be in love with me.

Happy Halloween!

Ellie made a wonderful tinkerbell! She loved it too - surprising since we had to take off her tutu and wings to get in and out of the car multiple times! For those of you who don't know or might not remember, cousin Carter named Ellie "Tinkerbell" prior to being born. It was just appropriate that she got to be Tink for her first Halloween!

11 months

I am a day late on this - but yesterday marked Ellie's 11 month 'birthday'. So the 1 month count down has begun to her first birthday! I even finished her birthday invitations!

Oh so much has changed in the past month. Ellie started G.I. Joe crawling, and now has stopped. She spends most of her time scooting around on her butt. She is still pulling herself up to her knees, but is getting closer and closer (and even sometimes does) get up to her feet. She says "OH WOW" all the time - its pretty cute! Probably the biggest change in the past few days was that she cut her 4th and 5th teeth! 4th is on the top right and 5th is on the bottom left. That makes 4 on the bottom and one on top. She's handling it pretty well, but has had some not so fun symptoms (diaper rash, lots of diaper changes....).

Pumpkins at Green Bluff

Yesterday my parents, Becky, Dave, and the boys made the trip from ML to Spokane so we could go to Green Bluff to pick pumpkins. We had a wonderful time at Walter's Fruit Ranch! Among the 100's of other people on the bluff that morning - we made our way to lunch and to the patch. I picked up a pie - french apple...mmmmmm. After the Anderson's headed home, the rest of us headed to Knapp's to check out the Pumpkin Chunkin - unfortunately we didn't get to see any pumpkins fly. But I did get some wonderful decorative squash and pumpkins.

Last night after everyone was gone, I realized how thankful I am that we live in Spokane now closer to family. A day trip by the fam wouldn't have happened if we still lived in Seattle. :)

Super Sleepy

The past few weeks we have been 'playing' with Ellie's nap time - slowly pushing it later and later so that when the time change comes in November, she won't be awake at 4:30 in the morning. Well apparently today she was really tired around 9 right after her bottle, I sat her on the floor to try to keep her up and within two seconds, this.....

Fall Family Photos

Sunday we met up with Marta von Grey (VonGrey Photography) to take some family pics and a few shots of Ellie. Here is a sneak peek!

We Love Fall

Ellie's Room

I have been meaning to take pictures for some time now, but it wasn't 100% complete. But NOW it is! I still want one more thing for above her bed, but that will be quite a task to make.

Ellie says "Let me take you on a tour".


Ellie's door stickers.


The one last place that needs a little something special.


Homemade art.


Ellie's rocking chair, shelf with piggy bank, and her tree that holds all her hair accessories.


Ellie's dresser that was previously my dad's as a kid, mine, and my brothers.


Something pretty to look at during diaper changes.



You might also notice that her bed has been dropped to the lower setting. Last night, Ellie woke up uncharacteristically at 1 am - Jared went in and to his surprise, she was sitting upright in her bed! Talk about freaky. I told him that if I had gone in there it would have shocked me so much I probably wouldn't have been able to go back to sleep.

10 Months

Today Ellie is 10 months old. Geez. I am excited in looking forward to her 1 year birthday, but where has the time gone.


If you've been reading the blog, you know what Miss Ellie is up to. Crawling! Well more like scooting on her tummy, but she is getting around between that and rolling. What's new in the past couple of days is that she is really really trying to pull herself up on to objects (like the coffee table, toys, us!). Its really getting to be time to baby proof the hosue and to change our habits about where we leave stuff.

Ellie also has her third tooth. Not on the top like you might expect though. She has three bottom teeth. I still think her top ones are coming in - this is noticible through her increased fussiness, lack of eating or drinking her bottles, swollen gums, etc. Let's hope they break through soon.

I'll have to post some pictures later - we are headed to dinner with Jared's Aunt Happy and Uncle Forry. :)

Crawling

Provide a little motivation and this is what you get.

Note: After I posted this, I watched it and the audio is off on the video. What I say makes a lot more sense about a minute later.

Poor Vegas

For those of you who have met our kitties - Vegas is the long haired one. She is 5 years old and for the majority of those years we have been able to maintain her fur. Unfortunately, lately it just seems like no matter how much we brush her, she mats sooooo bad. The other night I tried to cut them out the other night and realized how bad they had gotten. So yesterday I called the groomer and today she got shaved. Poor kitty. The groomer said she did amazingly well, much better than most cats. She seems much happier too.

BEFORE:


AFTER: