January 2011

Somehow Ian's picture turned out sideways, I have no idea why, or how to fix it. He loves Ellie! He always wants to kiss her and hold her, and always talks to her in a high baby-talk voice. It's cute. He is still loving school, he just finished a project about Ancient Egypt that was interesting. He likes math and science best. He has some circuits that he loves to play with, and he and his brothers play "Toy Story" all the time.

Caleb is always trying to get on Daddy's shoulders! Or climb on his back, or something. He's a climber. He loves to tie things up, I am forever untying knots or tying rubber bands on strings. He loves to play "Toy Story" too, and fireman, and construction worker, whatever - he's always pretending to be someone else. He's happy to be back home, and not going to preschool. He had fun there, but is happier at home! He doesn't like to go places, if I ask if he wants to come with me somewhere, he will say, "if it's cold outside I will just stay home."

Levi loves his stuffed friends! He takes good care of his baby doll, he tucks her in and feeds her (her name is Ellie). He sleeps with all the stuffed animals he can find. He loves to pretend, too, he and Caleb play and pretend all day long. One minute they are kings, the next construction workers, and then they're hanging up their Christmas lights. He has quite an imagination.

We've been doing some preschool activities in the mornings, and one day we were using yarn to figure out long and short, and they had the idea to put them all end to end and see if they were as long as the yarn. They were pretty close!

Ellie is definitely well loved!

Ellie is almost a month past her due date. She's over 8.5 pounds! She has awake times every day, where she is pretty happy. She also has a fussy time at night. She makes this cute little face sometimes......

....and, she's starting to smile! She is doing it on purpose now, although it's still hard to get a smile out of her. She is staring to "talk" also, when she's looking at you. She can be very intent on looking at you sometimes. She's mostly a happy little girl, and we're glad to have her around!

Happy Due Date

Ellie is three months old today, and today is her due date! So she is now zero, a newborn. Her development and growth will be based on today's date, for the first two to three years, rather than on the day she was actually born.

Ellie has been home for three weeks, and as of a week ago, she was 6 lb, 8 oz and 18.5" long. When she left the hospital she was eating about 2 oz every four hours, and now she's eating about 3 oz every four hours. All the hair on the top of her head has fallen off, Ian keeps saying she doesn't look like a girl without long hair. She does look more feminine with a bow in her hair (these pictures may show lots of bows, but really she spends very little of her life with a bow)! She mostly sleeps, but usually has an awake period each day, often in the evening. She grunts and groans while she sleeps, and so is quite loud, but she does sleep all night except for when she's eating.

All dressed up, with no place to go! Poor Ellie won't see much outside the walls of our house for months. If she gets sick, she could get really sick, back-in-the-hospital sick. So, she stays home to try and avoid germs (the doctor's office is the only place she gets to go, ironically, a place full of germy little kids......). Everyone has to wash their hands to be near her, change their clothes when they come home from work/school/church/the store, and stay away when they are sick. That's a little tricky when there are three little boys in the house who keep getting sick! But so far, Ellie has been healthy.

She's been busy helping me with the laundry since she's been home :). She liked this basket of warm-from-the-dryer clothes!

Ellie spent her first Christmas mostly sleeping, she didn't care much for any of the festivities, but her brothers were more than happy to open gifts for her. She finally woke up at night after her brothers were in bed, looking like a darling little elf!

And, just because I think they're cute.....