Twins

Recently we watched the Broncos game with the Addisons. Unfortunately, it was their last of the season. We had the girls show their support with their Bronco gear.

Love Kate's face here.

Kate looks very concerned, perhaps she was............

.............hungry.   :)

Like a Momma Bird

Josh likes to feed Ellie Grace puffs like he's a momma bird.

So cute!

Sunday, January 22

Here's the cute little dress that Ellie Grace wore this week. 

Greatest thing since sliced bread

Video monitor, video monitor, how I love thee. 

If you have a baby and don't have a video monitor, you are missing out, big time. We got one a few weeks ago and it's so fun. Here are a few reasons you need one:

1. You can see exactly what is going on if the baby cries and assess whether or not you need to go in or wait it out.

2. You get to see how cute they are when they sleep and all the crazy moving they do.

3. We got to see that Ellie Grace will lose her paci and her lovie, wake up and then go find them. If we hadn't gotten the video monitor we would have never known that and it's so fun to watch her look for them. 

I really thought this list would be longer but for us it has been priceless. Here is a link to the one I got and I haven't had any problems. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004VL2VRY/ref=oh_o03_s00_i00_details

18 months old!

I know the title of this post is confusing but Ellie Grace was inside for 9 months and now she's been outside for 9 months, so just for fun, I decided to say she's 18 months. :)

*She weighs 19 lbs 9 oz, not sure of her height. 

*She mostly wears 9 month size clothes, some 6-12 months stuff, depending on the brand, of course. 

*She goes to bed between 7:30 and 8:30 most days and wakes up usually at 6:15, talks for a while, dozes a little more and then I usually feed her between 7:30 and 8. I don't know why she wakes at 6:15, she still acts really sleepy then. I'm really hoping it's just a phase. 

*She eats solids 3x a day and has just a bottle 2x for a total of eating 5x a day. She is not near as interested in solids as I read she should be, not sure what's going on there. I've tried some new things with more texture to see if she wanted that but she didn't like. 

*She really seems to want to crawl but won't do it yet. She gets up on all fours in her crib mostly. She did a semi crawl for Josh the other day but I wasn't present. Not saying it didn't happen, I just can't confirm it. :) 

*I am diligently trying to get her to drink from a sippy cup but she won't have it. I have tried three different kinds and have tried putting water in it and formula. She just will not have it!

*Still just has two teeth in the bottom front.

Side note, I just asked Josh to help me with this. I said, "what would you like to say about Ellie Grace at nine months?" His exact words were, "she's beautiful and she's best while she's sleeping."

*One of the things I have really been thankful for lately is how good she is in the church nursery. She gets excited when she sees certain workers in there and they really seem to love her, which puts this sometimes overly worried mom at much needed ease. I know that separation anxiety might come but I'm really enjoying this phase. Oh, and she gets so excited when she sees we are there to get her. 

*I have just started to implement independent playtime into our day. I put her in her pack and play with some toys and set the timer for 5 minutes. The first time I did it she did really good then she had several times where she would cry the whole time but today she went 10 whole minutes without crying and I was able to load the dishwasher without having to entertain someone! For more on the benefits of independent playtime, click here: http://www.babywisemom.com/search/label/independent%20playtime

*She still tries to sit herself up a lot, especially on the changing table. I guess she wants to see what I'm doing. 

Ear Infection

Ellie Grace has had her first ear infection. I took her to the doctor on Friday, January 13 because she had been spitting up a ton! So much so that two times when I came to pick her up at the church nursery they had changed her clothes. I was concerned because I thought she was supposed to be slowing up on her spitting up as she gets older and it was seeming to bother her when she did it. Any who, the doc said it was nothing to worry about. (I really have a hard time accepting this, it just doesn't seem right.) He checked her ears and said they were fine. Then Saturday night/ Sunday morning around she woke up every 2 hours crying. I just figured she had lost her paci or lovie so the first 3 times I just went in there and gave them to her then the 4th time I went in there her nose was so stuffy. She had no signs of a stuffy nose the day before. She seemed hot to me, which she does a lot and I always take her temperature and she never has temperature so I kind of hesitated to take it but considering the nose I took it and she had temp of 100.9 so I gave her tylenol and used the aspirator on her nose. She then slept until 8:30 which never happens so I knew something was up. Most of the day I just kept sucking stuff out of her nose and it was really thick and yellow so I knew I needed to call the doc the next day. Her temp was normal during the day Sunday but went back up that night so we gave her more tylenol. I called the doc Monday morning and they said to come in. I'm so glad I did. She had an ear infection. I was so surprised that her ears could look fine on Friday and then she could have an infection on Monday. They gave her amoxicillin and the first few times it was a wrestling match when I had to give it to her. She's doing much better now. By Wednesday her nose had really cleared up and what comes out is not yellow anymore. If they hadn't told me I wouldn't have known about her ear because she hasn't pulled it once. Thankfully her first ear infection has not been near as bad as I thought it would be.
Here she is waiting to see the doctor on Monday.

Go Grizz!

My dad is a Grizzlies fan and has been ever since they came to Memphis way back when. So he purchased Ellie Grace some Grizz onesies before she was born and they just now fit her. They aren't girly so I had to pink it up a bit. 

I'm not sure what's happening with her bow

Don't worry, she wasn't injured during this exercise

.....and she's done

Crawling Incentives

I didn't think I would do this but I guess I'm a glutton for punishment. I've been trying to entice Ellie Grace to crawl. I think she really wants to. She has really been enjoying looking at pictures on my phone lately, especially of her bestie, Kate. So I propped it up a few feet away thinking that would do the trick but she didn't budge. She just looked at me like, why'd you put the phone over there? 

Silly Daddy

99% of the time when Josh dresses Ellie Grace something rather silly happens either on purpose or, like this time, by accident. He can't help it, he's just silly. In this case, he put both her legs in one pant leg and didn't realize it until he was getting her up. It was very funny. She's a little mermaid. He was quite pleased with himself. 

A couple of Sundays

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Ellie Grace's first Christmas

Ellie Grace had a great first Christmas. Here are some of the things we did. 

Friday, December 23rd, after arriving home from East Tennessee, we spent the night at Granddaddy & Mia's house with Grandma Fortner, Andy, Beth, Isabella, Hannah & Piper. Normally Grandma DeZonia would be there as well but she had fever and didn't want to get anyone sick. I know she hated to miss it. 

I think she likes Christmas

the cousins

Bella

Hannah

Piper

She was so tired, she's half conscious here

Saturday morning we woke up and opened gifts and then ate a large breakfast, prepared mostly by my brother and he did a magnificent job. Here are some pictures from the morning.

Ellie Grace got her cell phone upgraded :)

I do not approve of this behavior, but that has never stopped him before :)

This is my favorite gift she got.
It's a miniature basketball goal. It was more for me, than her.
She really enjoys trying to eat the goal. :)

Saturday evening we went over to the "big house." That is what we lovingly call the assisted living facility where both of my grandmas live. We celebrated with my dad's side of the family. Of course, I have no pictures of that event. 

Christmas day was on Sunday. We didn't' have Sunday school so we weren't to be there until 10. Ellie Grace took a short nap in her Sunday dress before we left. 

After church we went to Nina's house and celebrated with Whitney, Brent, Chris, Shamecca & Gran.

All of these are not for her, but not far from it. :)

New ball from Nina

Enjoying her favorite past time, eating any and every odd thing.