Exciting News!

Ellie would like to announce that she is gonna be a big sister!! Mommy is due on Valentine's Day and has just entered the second trimester! We will not be finding out the sex until birth (just like we did with Ellie!) We are excited and think Ellie will be a FANTASTIC big sister!!

Eleanor and Honest Abe

Every summer we travel to Akron for the Akron Cup tournament with vintage base ball on the ground of Stan Hywet Hall. As always, president Lincoln attends the festivities and last summer we had Ellie's picture taken with him. I hope to continue this tradition every year although Ellie was a little unsure about her meeting this year!

Last summer:

This summer:

Summertime Slackers

Well, as several people have recently reminded me, I have been a slacker with Ellie's blog. It's summer and besides truly being busy at the beginning of the summer with a HUGE time-consuming commitment I undertook, we have been busy traveling and just hanging out enjoying those long, hot summer days! Ellie has gone to "half-time" daycare this summer so that mommy can spend extra time with her while she's off for the summer but then she also stays used to going to school and the routines there too. Frankly, she loves school right now and they do so much that I think she gets bored staying home with me some days!

Ellie turned 15 months old last weekend and is becoming more fun everyday. She runs, she does things purposefully silly to make us laugh, is talking up a storm and repeating most anything we ask of her and understands most everything we say to her. It's so awesome and Brian and I are enjoying this fun stage! She now has 6 teeth and so far they have all come in in pairs of two at the exact same time! She has four on the top and two on the bottom. She continues to be very interested in breastfeeding still although if busy enough she will forget about it until she gets sleepy. I'm okay letting her wean when she wants, so we'll keep going until she let's me know she's ready. She remains a little peanut, weighting 18lbs, 4 oz last week when I weighed her at my doctor's appointment. So, small but definitely healthy and progressing well!

I think I'll try to get more photos in the next couple of entries and not worry so much about the words that go with it. Enjoy the pictures of some of Ellie's summertime antics!

Cutie Pie!!!

Along with spaghetti, Ellie apparently likes pie . . . lemon meringue to be exact! She found our nearly empty pie pan and went to town helping herself to the leftovers. I especially like the licking the pan shot!!

Spaghetti

Recently Brian fixed spaghetti for dinner. I ran out to do a quick errand while dinner was still cooking and when I returned I found Ellie enjoying a plate of spaghetti . . . in more ways then one! Enjoy the pictures and videos!!

Spaghetti Monster, part I

Spaghetti Monster, part II

Birthday Girl

So, it's only been a month since her birthday and I'm just now getting photos up. Beware, there are lots of pictures in this post. Ellie had a great and very busy birthday weekend. For starters the weather was ABSOLUTELY perfect all weekend long. It was sunny and warm, but not too warm

Friday, Daddy finally got to take his daughter to her first Cincinnati Reds game. Ellie has been to a lot of ball games in her life already with cousin Joey's t-ball, mommy and daddy's vintage base ball and the Dayton Dragons, but I think she was a little overwhelmed with her first major league game. She didn't cry, but she clung to me and didn't let go while we were in the stands. She just looked wide-eyed around her at all the people. When the crowed roared and clapped, she would look around and start clapping too. It was cute! After a while though mommy, cousin Joey (who also came with us) and Ellie went to the courtyard area of the park to play on the jungle gym and check out the interactive exhibits. While nursing, the Reds got a home run that sent fireworks into the air. Ellie never stopped nursing but turned her eyes to watch them above her head-dinner and a show!! Ellie also got her second Reds shirt (the first was last summer even though she never went to a game) a black Adam Dunn shirt to match mommy! Here are a few photos from the game.

Saturday we started the day having and early lunch with our friends Jolie and Lily who were visiting from Michigan. Jolie is a long time friend of mine from camp and Lily is her daughter who is just a few months older then Ellie. It was fun to catch up and see each other as our last visit with them was in August.Here's a picture of all of us after our meal.

Next we went to watch cousin Joey's first t-ball game of the season, his opening day. Last year Ellie arrived 5 hours before his opening day parade, just in time for Aunt Amy and everyone else to get home and watch-wasn't that nice of her!! Ellie enjoyed being outside and playing with Emma and Great-Grandma and the rest of the family who came to watch Joey play. Afterward we had to stop and get some ice cream of course!

Sunday was the BIG DAY! Ellie's first birthday. Ellie was born at 4:00 am on April 22nd. When Brian was little, his parents would take a picture of each of the kids at the exact time of their birth. Brian and I thought that would be fun, but we never bargained for a middle of the night baby and even though we set our alarm with good intentions, I'm sad to report we did not get a picture of Ellie at her birth time, although we did get one when she first woke up. Maybe next year!!!

Ellie's birthday party was held at Aunt Amy's house. She has more room for all of us there. Ellie was lucky to have great-grandparents, grandparents, great aunts/uncles, aunt/uncle, cousins, and family friend Uncle Peach there to celebrate with her. She did as I predicted she would with the cake. She poked at it a bit but overall didn't care for her hands being covered in icing and just wanted mommy to wipe them off. I don't think she appreciated everyone staring right at her either. We didn't get a lot of pictures of the cake-eating as we were too busy enjoying watching her. Here are a few videos to enjoy also.

Happy Birthday to You

Cake?

She got lots of fun presents and overall just enjoyed running around inside and outside with her cousins and everyone she loves so much. It was a great weekend full of all the things we enjoy the most-family and friends, baseball, cake and ice cream! The year went by quicker than we thought and we can't imagine our lives without our beautiful baby girl. We love you Ellie!!

The D Word

"Sliding into first and your pants begin to burst . . . " You know how the song goes, right?! That might as well have become our theme song here in the world of Ellie! We just spent the last three weeks dealing with the nasty rotavirus, which for Ellie meant a slight fever and LOTS of diarrhea. She had it for a week, was well for a week, and got it again for another entire week. The entire process was messy and inconvenient as she couldn't attend daycare, but through it all you would have never really known she was sick at all if it weren't for her bottom. She was as happy as could be and enjoyed spending extra time at home with mommy, daddy, Grandma and Grandpa, and Nana who all took turns caring for her. I'm glad to say all is well again.

In the midst of the nasty virus, Ellie started in her new class at school. She is just blossoming in there as she has been opened up to so many new and exciting activities. Her teacher is great, a younger gal named Miss Amanda and Ellie has taken to her right away. We already have quite the collection of art projects and paintings as they do one every day in her class. She LOVES sitting at the table in her own little chair to eat too. I think her favorite thing in the new class however is the outside play time. When I arrive to pick her up, her class is out on the playground. It's so weird to see her out there climbing on the equipment and playing outside like a big girl! Because she loves it so much, it's hard to get her to leave so we usually spend 20-30 minutes playing together on the playground before I drag her off crying. She is doing great though and it's fun to hear the big kids and teachers call her by name now and tell her goodbye. We are just so blessed to have such a great place to take her everyday!



Easter came in the midst of nasty cold weather and snowflakes so Ellie wasn't too keen on the two or three Easter Egg hunts we dragged her to. I thought she would love to pick up the pretty eggs off the ground, but instead she just stood there looking at them and pointing at them, afraid to pick them up and then cried. Aunt Amy and I tried to get her to see the fun in it but she wanted nothing of the eggs or the giant Easter Bunny running around. Her cousins however did enjoy the hunts and Joey was lucky enough to find the grand prize egg which won him a brand new bike at the Easter Egg Hunt we went to on his birthday! What a special 6th birthday!!

Last weekend mommy had a meeting in Cleveland so we took a family trip there and stayed with Aunt Renee and her family for the weekend. Ellie enjoyed playing with her big cousins Sarah, Kristen and Evan and especially loved their big dog Tucker. Their stairs and piano were also a great source of fun and adventure as she hasn't had a lot of experience with either before. The weekend was too short but luckily it isn't too far away so we can visit again soon.

Sunday is Ellie's first birthday and I can hardly believe it! I can still remember almost every detail of the day she was born. Stay tuned soon for lots of fun birthday pictures. Here are a few more videos:

*Self-Awareness

*Perseverance

*Kissing Cousins