Ellie Grace: 1 year!

This post is long (about a month) overdue! We had a wonderful time celebrating 1 year of life with our sweet Ellie girl. On her actual birthday we invited friends and family over to our place for a little shindig. We kept it low key with a meal, cupcakes (of course), gift opening, festive decor, and hanging out. It was a beautiful sunny (and warm!) fall day, which was great to be able to have some of our 22 guests spread outside to eat. Family came up from Eugene, and down from Kalama, and we even had Jake's aunt here from Nantucket. Ellie seemed to really enjoy herself. She wasn't too sure about her cake (I made a no sugar banana cake with no sugar cream cheese frosting) at first, but once she got a taste you couldn't stop her from digging in.

Some highlights from the last month include:
-Ellie blows kisses and makes a kiss face with her lips and leans in when you ask for a kiss
-She has discovered her tongue and likes to make LLLLL noises
-Ellie will stroll around the house with a little walker. At first she looked like a little old lady: booty stuck out and slowly taking giant steps.
-One of my new favorites is Ellie holding up her hands with her palms facing her when you say "where is...."
-I love that Ellie will hear the slightest noise in the hallway and know when Jake is home from work. She starts pointing to the door and saying Dadada.
-She had a little cold that lasted about a week.
-She now has 4 teeth: 2 on the bottom and 2 on the top
-She is still breastfeeding 5 times a day and has two naps.
-Ellie is healthy and sweet as ever. She measured 29 3/8" tall and 20 lbs 6 oz at her 1 year check up.
-Now we're gearing up for our trip to Thailand in the beginning of November

Ellie Grace: 11 months

We are ever too quickly approaching the big 1 year. It blows my mind to think about how quickly time is passing. We have and are still loving every minute we have with our sweet Ellie girl. Here are some highlights of the last month:
-Took a 4 day road trip to North Eastern Oregon. Ellie was a rockstar the whole time-not a single meltdown during all the carseat time she had!
-She has mastered a grumpy frowny face and a fake smarmy laugh
-Ellie learned to climb the stairs- all the way to the top!
-She puts her hand up to blow kisses, raises both her hands up when you say "how big is Ellie?", dances to music
-She says "ava" for avacado, "buh" or "bah" for button, bear, book, ball, bath, baby, baaa, "duck", "neigh neigh", "mmmm" for moo,
-If you ask her where her head or her toes are she'll point to them. We've started giving her directions and she responds to- come here, put your shoe on your foot, give mommy hugs, give daddy kisses, touch daddy's face gently, where's your (...)?, get daddy
-She loves to play peek a boo, round and round the garden, this little piggy, when ducks get up in the morning they always say good day, 6 little ducks that I once knew, play with her activity table, leapfrog animal fridge magnets, cars, books
-Went to Seattle for the weekend for a friends wedding and stayed with Gary & Lisa Halcomb
-Went to her friend Hadley's 1st birthday party
-Went on some bike rides
-Started brushing her teeth
-Ate some beef
-Pulls herself up and cruises around holding onto furniture

 classic grump face

our sweet little one

Ellie Grace:10 months

Time for another post. The fact that I don't post anything else on here except a once a month update tells you A.) I'm a lazy blogger or B.) Life just flies by. I like to think the latter. Seriously, Jake keeps saying that summer is over and although I like to think that we still have a good month and a half (September in Oregon is pretty darn nice), he's probably right. We haven't floated the river one time this summer (our usual favorite past time), the truth is it's just harder with a baby. But on the flip side, we've had some great times doing other things we didn't do so much before we had our Ellie girl. The past month we:

-went on lots of walks

-went to a wedding

-went to a work family picnic at oaks park (Ellie rode a carousel and went down the giant pink slide)

-went bike riding

-hung out with cousins and aunt and uncle from Yakima

-went to the pool

-went to a church play date at a park splash pad

-hung out with our friends Ashley & June, and Mandy & Hadley

-went yard saling

-visited a new friend, Avery at the hospital after she was born

-went blackberry picking

-went paddle boarding/to the river

-spent a couple days in Eugene with Nonna and Poppa, aunts, uncles, and cousins

-went to some bbq's

-attended Jake's 10 year high school reunion

Ellie is still on pretty much the same sleep schedule- naps at 11-1, 3-5, and bedtime from 8-6. She eats at lunch and dinner time consistently, with some snacks and some breakfast every once in awhile. She tried fresh caught tuna, black beans, brown rice, string cheese, blackberries, plums... and still loves her usual avacado, grapes, mum mumms, puffs, potatoes, squash...She likes drinking water out of her sippy cup and can do it by herself pretty well. She is still nursing 5 times a day-6am, 9am, 1pm, 5pm, and 8pm. She now claps, pulls herself up on everything, will do a funny scrunchy smile, can say poop, bear, buh (book), bye, and tries to repeat a lot of what we say. She learned how to climb our stairs, and it's amazing to see what she grasps (ie-asking her to find her fish, or a ball, or her bear, or a book, and watching her pick them out of her group of toys). She is soooo snuggly at night and naptime (I love it, and at the same time don't want her to become dependent on it). She's starting to act shy when she meets new people (snuggling into my shoulder), and becoming more of a momma's girl when it comes to putting her to bed..but she still adores her daddy and he gets the best giggles out of her. We just booked a family trip to Thailand in a few months, so we are both thrilled and trying to figure out what that will look like with Ellie. We applied for her first passport which is super exciting. We love our little Ellie girl!!

Ellie Grace: 9 months

Ellie girl turned 9 months old last weekend. The past month flew by with a lot of traveling and summer activities. We're narrowing in quickly on a year already! Here are some highlights from the last month:
-Spent a weekend in Yakima celebrating a wedding & hanging with some family
-Went on Ellie's first camping trip to Loon Lake. I wasn't sure what to expect (thinking it could be more work than a vacation), but Ellie was truly a happy camper. She loved the water and sand, playing with her cousins, snuggling with aunts, uncles, and grandparents, and slept pretty well in the tent.
-She got her first two teeth while at Loon Lake (7/4 -7/9).
-Visited Jake's parents in Kalama for a weekend where we paddleboarded the river, had bonfires, ate delicious food, and did some archery. Aunt Whit and Uncle Matt joined us for the weekend to complete time as a family.
-Went to another wedding, a family picnic for Jake's work, the pool (a lot!), on lots of walks, worked in the yard, garage saling, story time at the library...
-Went berry picking 3 times
-We got a seat & helmet for Ellie and took her on her first bike ride-she loved it.

Ellie has her moments, but overall she is the sweetest little one! She is so laid back, sleeps well (despite all the trips out of town), and has recently started eating more. We finally figured out that she just isn't into purees. In just the past couple days she has started to really get into the swing of eating. Some of her favorites are avacado, potato, nectarine, blueberries, raspberries, banana, mum mums, puffs, carrot, squash, and blackberries. We have randomly given her some super hard fruits and veggies and she liked to gnaw on those (raw carrots, apple, peas). Her current schedule is: feed at 6am/9am/1pm/5pm/8pm with naps from (roughly) 11am-1pm & 3pm-5pm, and going to bed right after her 8pm feeding.

At her 9 month check up she weighed in at 19 lbs, 13 oz and is 2 feet 3.25 inches tall. She cruises all over by crawling and will now pull her self up to stand or kneel. She likes to say Mamama more frequently, and delight in hearing her response to "what's a dog say?"-to which she says "ffffffff'". Ellie loves people and likes to wave hello and goodbye (when she feels like it). Jake and I are constantly saying to one another how blessed we are to have her!!!


-

Ellie Grace: 8 months

                                                     
Our little nugget is 8 months old today. Some of the highlights from the past month have been:
-going on walks & to library time with our friends Ashley and June.
-going to First Thursday downtown, & First Friday in Newberg
-going yard saling every Friday with friends
-A trip to Eugene to hang with family
-A trip to Bend over Memorial day weekend to visit Jake's grandparents
-going on a hike in the gorge (Angel's Rest) for father's day.
Despite our consistent efforts each evening to get Ellie to eat solids, she still would shut her mouth and refuse. We tried bananas (5/20), green beans (5/27), sweet potatoes (5/29), mum mums (6/9), carrots (6/10), and mangoes (6/17). With no progress, we decided to take a break for about a week in hopes that her interest in eating would grow. Eating after the break has changed slightly in that she will now eat a mum mum (that we dip in some of her food) and maybe take a couple bites if we're lucky. We will just have to keep at it I guess (can't wait for solids to be consistent in her diet so she stops having blowouts all the time!). In the last month we introduced water from a sippy cup, and she also takes great delight in drinking it from a straw.
As far as sleep is concerned, she had a rough patch that started during our trip to Bend over memorial day weekend. She would wake up multiple times a night. Even if we rocked her back to sleep and tried to lay her gently in her crib, she would spring back awake as soon as her head hit the mattress. It made for a tired mommy and daddy for a couple weeks. I am happy to report that she has again fallen back into her "norm" of sleeping through the night from about 8:30pm-6am. She's still on the 4ish hour schedule during the day, eating again at 9 am, 1 pm, 5pm, and 8 pm. Naps are usually from 11-1, and 3-5.
It's been a joy to continue to see her personality develop. She gets super excited when we go in to get her after her naps, and she loves music, songs, and sound. Some of my favorite times with her are right after her 6 am feeding when she falls right to sleep afterward on my shoulder and I get to rock and snuggle her until I feel like putting her back down in her crib (I usually have to force myself). Little things I love are the way she turns her binky round and round as she nods off to sleep, how she rubs her eyes when shes getting tired, the way she'll be playing and all of a sudden just look up and smile at Jake or I, how she kicks her legs like crazy when she gets excited about something,  and the fact that her hair is finally getting long enough to have a little "bedhead" when she gets up from her naps.
A huge milestone for Ellie was when she started crawling (6/11). She had been rocking on her knees for a couple weeks, and then just started slowly moving forward one hand/knee at a time. By 6/14 she was crawling across the room with no breaks.

Ellie Grace: 7 months

7 Months! We're on the upswing to a year already. I swear I blinked and this last month flew by. It has been a sweet month of spending time as a family and watching Ellie learn as she discovers her surroundings. There are more nights than not that we hold our sweet sleeping little girl in our arms and say "When did she get so big?" She's become a pro at sitting up and playing for extended periods of time, and rolls and scootches around (often needing to be rescued from under a coffee table or chair). She started eating solids (5/4), rode in a shopping cart (4/30), sleeping in her crib at night (4/29), went swimming at the pool (4/30), and "waves" (probably just opening and closing her hand to her, but it's still cute). One morning (5/6) she started babbling noises that we hadn't heard before and they sounded an awful lot like mamamamama. I took a quick video on my shoddy phone, and Jake confirmed it. Just a couple days ago (5/19) we heard her start saying dadddaada. We thought her giggles were awesome, but that almost took the cake. We went to storytime at the library, on lots of walks, to First Thursday in downtown Portland, First Friday in Newberg, to the zoo with her cousins, aunt & nonna, to Eugene, yardsaling, and celebrated mother's day by driving to the beach for the day as a family. When we started solids, I started giving it to her in between her 5:00 and 8:00 feeding (at kind of dinner time). Ellie slurped down rice cereal when we first gave it to her, but trying peas (mixed with rice cereal and breastmilk-5/15) and even applesauce (mixed in with the peas, rice cereal and breastmilk-5/18) has been a different story. She keeps her lips pursed and we can barely sneak in any bites. As soon as it's in she makes horrible gagging faces and spits it out. She's having no issues with growing (we're talking belly & leg rolls for miles) so we're not worried about it. Sleep wise she was sleeping through the night from about 8:00ish to 6:30ish, then eating and going back to sleep until 9 for the longest time. During our visit to Eugene a couple days ago she started waking up at midnight and 4 and a few times in between and not settling back in unless I fed her (usually at the 4:00 wake up). We're hoping now that we're back home she'll fall back into her old routine. She's still on a 4 hour routine as far as eating goes- she eats, is awake for 2 hours, sleeps for (roughly) 2 hours, then repeats. It's been working out great for us! We love our little girl and look forward to another great month with her!

A Week of Firsts

This week we had the joy of watching Ellie as she experienced a few things for the first time. On Monday night (4/29) she slept in her crib during the night for the first time. She had been sleeping in there for naps for quite awhile, but was still in our room in the pack'n'play (for convenience sake and so we didn't have to heat two rooms through the night) during the night. She started sleeping in her crib a few nights earlier but Jake wasn't quite ready to have her so far away so we camped out on her floor. She's made the transition pretty easily although right now she's in the habit of waking up at midnight & wanting her binky, and then waking up again at 5:30am to be fed.  Not terrible, but not ideal either. (snuggling with me in the morning)

Tuesday (4/30) she rode in the seat part of the shopping cart for the first time. Aside from her trying to suck on the nasty red strap, she seemed pretty stable.

Today (5/4) was super sunny- we're talking like 82 degrees so we took Ellie to take a little dip in our friends' pool. It wasn't much different than taking a bath (she loved it), but a fun introduction if only because of a cute swimsuit and sunhat nonetheless.

Today we also introduced solids into Ellie's diet. I whipped her up some organic brown rice cereal in our vitamix (mixed with some breast milk), and she seemed to really enjoy it. We offered it to her in the evening, between her normal feedings and she slurped up spoonful after spoonful.

 On top of all this, she's been rolling around like crazy and sitting like a pro these days. Even though I get a little sentimental with each milestone, knowing my tiny baby is turning into a little kid, what a joy it is to watch her as she grows!