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!