A Foot and Teeth

Well, this week has been exciting! Monday night through Wednesday we got a foot of snow! Brian's work was closed on Tuesday and he was allowed to work from home Wednesday; Ellie's school was closed Tuesday and Wednesday, Wright State University was closed Tuesday and Wednesday so Sherry was home, and I haven't had school this week since Monday (it's Thursday night now!) That meant that for two days our whole family was snug as bugs in our house, no one leaving to go anywhere which was cozy and nice for a change! This also means I have missed a whole lot of school with last week's closings so we are now officially adding on to the end of the year-bummer!!

Most exciting this week was the arrival of Ellie's two bottom teeth!!! We wondered last week if it was finally going to happen as she wasn't quite herself and was very clingy. I have been checking her mouth daily and Monday night-there they were!! Hopefully we'll get some pictures soon but right now she's not too willing to show off her pearly whites!! We leave tomorrow night to visit the Kennedy Triplets. We are excited to finally meet them in person. I'm sure there will be lots of pictures to share after our weekend! Enjoy these pictures of Ellie enjoying her snow days.

Happy Weekend!!

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Love,
Heather, Brian and Eleanor

Snow Pictures 2007 album

Baby It's Cold Outside!

Well anyone living here in the Midwest already knows this but MAN is it cold this week!! Last weekend and Monday and Tuesday the high temps were in the single digits, the HIGHS!!!Schools were closed on Monday and Tuesday due to the cold (our first "snow days" this year!) and then we got 6 inches of snow Tuesday night through Wednesday morning so we were out again. Thursday and Friday we had two hour delays due to the windchill (our elementary starts at 7:20 am so it's dark and too cold to wait for the buses)-so a great, relaxing week for me! Ellie did go to school on Monday and Tuesday so that mommy could clean, clean and clean. Our house has been in desperate need of this. Wednesday Ellie and mommy just hung out all day in our pajamas which was cozy and fun! I felt a little guilty sending her the first two days, but she really LOVES school now. I will rush to pick her up after school and she smiles and is happy to see me but then wants down to play again or will reach for her favorite teacher Miss Mandy. I'm so glad she is happy there and I feel comfortable leaving her there a little longer some days while I stay and get stuff done at school. She is now one of the three oldest babies in the nursery! I can hardly believe it! There are five new babies and they look so tiny-not that Ellie is huge but she can do so much and seems so old compared to them! Ellie is very interested in the new babies and her teacher's are impressed by how gentle she is around them.

In other Ellie news . . . we are beginning to think she may finally be getting a tooth. She has been not quite herself this week, kind of clingy and fragile. Her tongue is out constantly and she is doing funny things with her mouth. Her gums look hard and white too. She has fooled us in the past but perhaps this is truly it! We'll let you know when those pearly whites emerge!

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This post's pictures are of Ellie in her first snow at Nana's house with her cousins Joey and Emma and in her new pink snowsuit at Young's Dairy last weekend (it's never too cold for ice cream!)

Click Joey's picture above to see more snow pictures.

And here is one more videos of Ellie crawling (she really fast now!)

Oh, and lest we forget Happy 15th Birthday Cousin Sarah!!!

Nine Months, give or take

Ellie had her nine month check up last week and the doctor only confirmed what we already knew - "she's perfect!" Perfect she is. We couldn't have ordered a more perfect baby if we had tried. She is truly a happy baby nearly 98% of the time. We drag her everywhere we go and she just moves with the flow of things and checks out the new scenery. We are so thankful for that as we love to be out and about a lot.
Somehow Brian and I created a petite child. Our little peanut weighed in at 15 lbs, 15 oz (5-10%) and was 27 inches long (50%). The doc was not at all concerned about her weight as she has followed the same growth curve since birth. Despite the lack of heft, she does have nice chubby thighs and good baby fat everywhere so she's not a skinny minny. He was impressed with her milestones as she is ahead in most. So, a good visit was had by all with the exception of poor Ellie who had to have her 6 month shots (yeah, we were a little behind!)

Because of her size, we guess, she is extremely agile and mobile and has been for some time. She has been crawling for a while but really prefers to stand and cruise around the furniture or whatever else she can hold onto. She was pulling herself up and standing before the crawling and still prefers it that way. This week she has started to stand unassisted for a short amount of time before her legs give out and she goes to the floor. I think she will be walking soon, she certainly wants to! Here's a familiar scene each day in our living room as Ellie plays with her house. She loves to just stand on the "sitting" stump and hang out!

She is constantly busy and constantly "talking" these days too. She says a lot of mama, dada, nana, etc but it's not clear still whether she really intends them to mean us or not-but I like to pretend she does anyway!

She is amazing and perfect and just every other great word you can think of times 100! I still cannot believe that she is here and is all ours.

Here are a few of our recent favorite video clips:

• Giggle Box (I was spitting her pacifier out of my mouth and hitting her in the face-a desperate measure on my part in keeping her happy after a very long car ride on our New Year's trip.)

• Yea! (this was around Christmas, her first claps!)

• Piggies (a favorite song right now)