Happy 2nd Birthday, Ellie!

Ellie is two! It's crazy that it's already been two years, it's gone by fast, yet there have been many days with her that have seemed to never end. She is 22 lb 4 oz, and 33" tall! She's quite tall and finally on the bottom of the chart for her weight!

New shoes :).

She's not happy about the bear, she's scared of him. But I wanted a comparison - she was the length of the bear, but skinnier, at birth. It's completely amazing how much she has grown!

Ellie loved having everyone sing "Happy Birthday" to her!

She even played with her cupcake! We won't show me trying to get her to try ice cream, she was not happy about that. But at least she touched the cake!

It's still hard sometimes to not think that Ellie needs her hair cut because it's too long! Girl's hair is still novel to me. It can get pretty wild in the mornings after having pig tails the day before!

Ellie does not like to eat. She has reflux, and her stomach doesn't empty as fast as it should. So, her stomach always hurts, probably, and eating is not comfortable. So, she doesn't like to eat. But she has to. It takes a lot of distractions and bribery to get her to eat usually, and she has to be on a strict schedule. She's taking 8 (and it should be 9) doses of medication daily. One medication I put in her bottle, four doses of one med are before meals, and three (should be four but there is not enough time in the day) of a third med has to be on an empty stomach - but her stomach can take hours to empty, so it has to be timed to have enough time for her stomach to be as empty as it can be, but then she needs 30 minutes for the med to sit in her empty(ish) stomach, then time to eat, and then stay upright for 45 minutes (at least) after eating before going to bed, and she still naps. She eats four times a day at the same time every day. Getting off schedule is a very bad thing. And with all that she still loses her food 3-5 times per day. Every day. So, any type of playing with food or even putting things to or in her mouth is progress. She does not feed herself or hold her own bottle. She eats pureed foods and drinks bottles still. But here she is with this huge bottle and she put it to her mouth all on her own! We rarely drink pop, so she's probably not ever seen one before. We had this when everyone - except John - got the stomach bug.

And this was one of her finest moments. You can't tell very well, but she has oatmeal on her face. She took my spoon while I was eating (normal occurrence) and put it in her mouth! And she did it several times! This never happened again, but it was a wonderful thing. I had to email her therapist right away and she was delighted (she has a therapist who comes each week to see her). Her therapist came originally for physical delays, but Ellie is now caught up in all areas except eating.

And this was the same day - she got out these paper bowls and spoon and sat there and put the spoon in her mouth! There is hope she may do this for real, all the time someday!

This was Ellie's first Halloween costume, a hat I made her while she was in the NICU. It was too big for her head at the time.

September 2012

The dangers of canning outside....

I guess they do look alike :).

Caleb's entry into the fair - they had a Mr. Potatohead category with the theme of "Back to School." He made a cardboard school building too. He also entered in his pictures from 4-H.

Ellie loves books! She reads a lot of the day, and I read to her while she drinks her bottles a lot of the time. She has all her books memorized! If you say a line but leave off the last word, she knows them all.

Beautiful! This is right outside town.

One of Ian's entries into the fair. He also made "Orange Cream Dream" muffins, a recipe he and Daddy made up.

Levi's entry into the fair, also in the Mr. Potatohead category. He also entered in his 4-H pictures.

I can't get over how they sleep! And so often when one is in a strange position, the other is too!

Ellie loves her Daddy!

This is the reaction I get when I try to take a picture of Ellie with her bear. Luckily for her she'll be two next month and I'll stop taking bear pictures every month! But you can certainly see how big she has gotten! At birth she was the size of the bear - but skinnier.

August 2012

These got out of order, here is the first day of school (on the last day of the month)! Levi, Ian, and Caleb, big first, fourth, and first graders! All day school for Levi and Caleb, it was a little rough at first. They all three have great teachers. Levi and Caleb were in the same class last year, but are in different classes this year.

 The big walker! She'd been walking on her own for about a month when this was taken.

Caleb wanted to make ice cream sandwiches we made both the chocolate part and the ice cream. They were good, but very messy (which is why he is eating it outside!).

We went for a hike, to look for huckleberries (we didn't find any) and it was beautiful! This was about a 30 minute drive from our house.

Ellie is getting enough hair to do some fun things with!

Huge block structure, using every block!

Daddy with Ellie on our hike. It's a good thing sometimes that she is small!

Mealtimes can be messy! At least she's still smiling....at the end of the meal at least! Ellie doesn't like to eat. I feed her still, and often mealtimes aren't very fun for anyone involved.

Caleb and Levi reading.

Our back to school cake! I bought this pan and started doing this when Ian was in kindergarten....and rode the bus. We moved after Ian's kindergarten year and no more buses. But it's still symbolic of school starting, right?

Happy 10th Birthday, Ian!

Ian turned 10! The lucky boy got pneumonia for his birthday :(. Well, actually two days before his birthday so, thanks to antibiotics, by his birthday he was actually feeling a lot better. He likes chemistry so he wanted a chemistry cake. So we made it a chemistry birthday! We got some dry ice and made homemade root beer. He said that even if he had no presents (they were hiding so he thought there were none) that made his birthday awesome. He loved the dry ice.

I put the molecular structure of sugar on his cake, with how many days old he is. He has been figuring out for weeks now how many days old he is.

I also made him a birthday card that was coded with element symbols, such as tellurium-nitrogen being TeN, that he had to figure out what many of the words were. Before I told him where his presents were he had to do a 10x10 - 10 things 10 times, like hopping on one foot, spinning in circles, etc. I think he had fun. And he's super excited to be in the Webelos group!

Here are some things he said about himself at age 10:
favorite color - black
favorite foods - oatmeal, chicken, rice
favorite books - The Spy Game (Boxcar children book), all genres, but prefers fantasy or realistic fiction
favorite movie - 101 Dalmations
favorite job - setting the table
favorite subjects in school - math and science
favorite things to play indoors - reading, watching movies, playing with Ellie, building with blocks
favorite thing to do outdoors - swing
what he does when he's bored - read or play with blocks
what he's excited about this year - his mom getting to be his Webelos leader

what he wants to be when he grows up - do something with electronics, police officer, or a spy

Happy birthday Ian! We're sure glad you are a part of our family!