Goodbye 2012

I have been on a bit of a blogging hiatus for a few different reasons, but frankly the main one is that I just haven't felt like dealing with what my life has looked like for the past two months. Mom got sick, got better, then got sick again and on November 28th, the day after her 54th birthday, she died. I've had a really difficult time with this to say the least. It's not like I didn't know this day would come, it just seemed so sudden. More on that later probably.

2012 has been one of the best years of my life and also the most challenging. I have loved every second of being a mom and never imagined having so much love in my heart. I have also struggled with feelings of inadequacy and thoughts that I am not worth to be Ellie's mother. I guess every mom feels that way at times.

All in all 2012 was wonderful with the exception of my mom's death, but I am hoping for a fantastic 2013.

Happy New Year everyone.



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Thanksgiving 2012

Ellie's first Turkey Day went off without a hitch! We went out to Aunt Patti's and of course ate WAAYYY too much. I could not believe how much food Eleanor put away. Her appetite is definitely back. We hung out, watched football, Ellie saw the chickens and bunnies, and mommy got to shoot skeet with her cousins. A good time was had by all. Here are some pictures:















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Walking

Ellie has been walking for a few weeks now, but I thought I would share this video of Eleanora the Explorer.

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Shopping

Had a fun day with C and Ellie at the Houston Galleria today. We ate at Ninfa's, watched people ice skating (Ellie loved that!), and did some Christmas shopping. Love family filled weekends!




P.S.- I also saw these delightfully tacky shoes. Seriously. Who buys these??




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RSV

For the past week we have been fighting a terrible illness that was misdiagnosed as pink eye. In actuality it is Respiratory Synsidial Virus which can be very scary for kids under 2 to get. Ellie has had conjunctivitis, fever, a cough, runny nose, vomiting, sore throat, and extreme lethargy. I cannot tell you how incredibly horrible it is to watch your baby suffer when you can do nothing about it. Right now all we can do is pray, try to keep Ellie comfortable, and make sure she's not getting dehydrated. Please keep our sweet Ellie girl in your prayers.










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Eleanor's 1st Trip to the Zoo

On Sunday we trekked downtown to check out the Houston Zoo. Ellie LOVES animals right now so we thought this would be the perfect activity while my dad was in town visiting.

The zoo was packed because it was Zoo Boo (Halloween event), but it was a perfect day to be there because the weather was absolutely perfect. Ellie had a great time and especially loved petting the goats in the petting zoo, watching the elephant do tricks, and helping feed the giraffe. I can't wait for her to get big enough to really understand what she's looking at.

Eating lunch with the giraffes.



Our little family



Exhausted!


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Paisley's Party

Ellie went to her first birthday party yesterday! Her BFF Paisley turned one and had an adorable Minnie Mouse themed party. As always it was awesome to hang out with my "triplets" and the girls were so cute with each other.

Unfortunately Ellie had an accident (somehow more pee got on me than her) so we had to leave early which meant Megan has the only pictures of the group, but I did snap one photo of Paisley enjoying her cake. I can't wait to celebrate our "sweet" Ellie's birthday in two short months!



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Pumpkin Patch

A little late writing this post, but last weekend we hit up the pumpkin patch with my best friend Sara Baker, AKA Auntie Bakes.  Sara is also the amazing friend who did my birth photos.. love her SO much.  Anyway, it was chilly when we left so I bundled Ellie up in tights and a jacket and as it turned out, the tights and jacket were not necessary so the outfit looks a little wonky.  Oh well - the pics turned out GREAT!  We don't often get pictures of all 3 of us, so it was nice of Bakes to come with us to be our photographer.

We usually go to the Old Time Christmas Tree Farm and Pumpkin Patch, but this year we decided to change it up.  There was a Groupon to P-6 Farms for 1/2 off so we decided to check it out.  It was AH-MAZE-ING.... because there was a Corn Maze... get it?  (I apologize for my terrible sense of humor).   There weren't very many pumpkins for purchase, but there were plenty for photo ops and let's face it, that's really all I care about.  Soooo here are our first Fall Family Photos (say that three times fast).

 Mommy and Ellie

 Our sweet little pumpkin

 Family photos with a sleepy lady

 Three Scarecrows

 Trying on Daddy's hat (one of my favorite photos of all time)

We will definitely go back to P-6 next year because they had SO many fun activities for kids.  A tractor pull, duck races with well pumps, the corn maze, a big blow up blob they could run and bounce on, and so many other things.

Chocolate Ice Cream

This is my favorite thing ever right now...

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9 months

WHOA!  9 months?  Really??  

Our little girl is growing up so fast and is doing so many cool things!

First of all- Ellie stats!

Height: 27.5" (50%)
Weight: 19lbs 3oz. (50%)
Head: 16.9" (5th%) - teeny head!

• She is standing all by herself and has taken a step a few times.  She REALLY wants to walk.  She's also in full blown cruising mode.
• She hardly eats any baby food anymore - it's all big people food!  She LOVES pizza, pasta, sweet potatoes, baby cheetos, and of course TOAST.
• Another tooth - one on the top next to her two front teeth.  She's also been drooling a lot lately so I'm sure that means another one coming through.
• She is in to EVERYTHING.  Fireplace?  Loves it.  Dog's water bowl?  Obsessed.  Climbing stairs?  All about it.
• She has mastered the sippy cup, but unfortunately has also mastered blowing raspberries at dinner.  Water goes in, sprays out on to Mommy. 
• Our sweet sleeping girl is back to sleeping through the night.  Thank you Jesus!
• She loves giving "kissies".  Open mouth, super slobbery kissies.  My heart melts every single time.
• She is so interactive these days.  We carry on "conversations" all the time and she really gets that when I stop talking, it's her turn to talk and vice versa.  She also will blow a raspberry if you do it to her first.  SO adorable (unless she's got a mouth full of food).
• She loves to hug and is super snuggly.  Especially with her Daddy.  SWOON!

I am already planning her first birthday party and I am SO excited about the theme!  

Kissies

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Pre-Toddler

Our little girl is growing up WAY too fast. It seems like every day she is reaching some new milestone or just in general acting more mature. She's funny. Oh so funny. She giggles and flirts constantly. She runs from us and laughs when we say "no ma'am!" or "bad girl!" She's both the sweetest thing I've ever known and the most mischievous. She's curious and SO ready to walk. For now she's a "pre-toddler". She crawls SUPER fast and loves to pull up to standing. And.. She can stand on her own. She loves to play and she loves to cuddle (on her terms only though). She's everything to us. She is Eleanor.















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Applesauuuuuce

Being a parent makes you do ridiculous things to make your kid laugh. Example:

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8 Months

Just realized I never did an 8 month update for Sweet Ellie!  Oops!  Better late than never - here is what's going on in Ellie Land.

Height: 27.5" (65%)
Weight: 17lbs 13oz. (46%)
Head: 16.9" (9th%)

• Ellie is crawling and climbing on EVERYTHING.  She started crawling on August 5th and hasn't stopped since!
• She is still eating baby food and nursing several times a day (or bottles of breast milk if she's at daycare), but she is eating some table food.  We had our first choking scare and I had to do the finger sweet to get some apple dislodged from her throat.  SCARY stuff.
• Two new teeth!  Ellie got both of her upper front teeth within 2 days of each other.  A teething baby is not a fun baby.
• Ellie loves textures, especially soft ones.  Her favorite thing to do right now is crawl over to the dogs' bed (which is off limits to her) and throw her face down in it.  I guess it's really soft? It's like those Febreze commercials.  Pretty funny.
• She is sitting in the tub by herself!  No more baby chair for this little girl - she is crawling and scooting all over the bath tub.  So much fun!
• She likes pretty much everything, but fresh homemade Green Beans and Mint is her favorite right now. 
• She still has a hard time using a regular sippy cup, but she is getting better.  We are hoping that she gets the hang of it soon.
• She looooves drumming on things.  Banging can be heard all around the Page household at any given time.
• She is pulling up to standing and loves to hold on with just one hand.  She is such a daredevil!
• She's gone from sleeping through the night to waking up once a night around 3 am.  Apparently this is pretty normal when babies learn to pull up?  I'm hoping it passes soon.
• She claps!  And waves and says heeeeey.  So cute.

Cinemagram

My latest obsession

http://cinemagr.am/show/15050373

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Love bug has the Stomach bug

Sweet Ellie got the nasty stomach bug that is going around.  :(  Yesterday she threw up on the way to work, but me being a first time mom, just thought it was spit up.  Get to day care and realize that she is SOAKED from chin to knees with "spit up" (later I found out was full on vomit).  Changed her at day care and barely got out of the parking lot before they called and said to come pick her up.  Luckily Casey was able to work from home and take care of our girl, but it was a ROUGH day.  Not only was Ellie vomiting all day long and unable to even keep water down, but on the way home from work I got in a car accident and I didn't get home until almost 7.  SO glad that day is over. 

Today I am at home with our little sick baby and she is feeling much better.  A little diarrhea (TMI?) but happy and getting in to everything as usual.  Here she is playing with her shoes!

Pickup truck Part Deux

In addition to the Toyota Tundra we just purchased, we "purchased" another truck yesterday. Say hello to my dad's new '72 Ford Courier! I looooove old vehicles and can't wait to help Daddy restore this old girl. The previous owner called her "Corrina" and let's just say that Corrina is going to need some extra love to get back in tip top shape. The cool thing is that she only has 45k original miles! Esther the Escape has over 50 and she's a 2009!!


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Little giggles

The highlight of my week was last night. As I was feeding Eleanor she bit me. I said "Ouch! No biting!". She looked up at me and smiled. This is how the rest of the conversation went:
Me: "No Ellie, bad girl!"
Ellie: *smiles*
Me: "Ellie, no biting. That's bad!"
Ellie: "HAHAHAHAHHAHAHA" laughing hysterically.
Me: (trying to hold back a laugh) "No laughing... Bad!"
Ellie: "HEHEHEHEHEHEHE"

Then I couldn't help it any longer. We both got the giggles (me laughing at her laughing at me) and we both couldn't stop.

I just can't get enough of those little giggles!

Happy Friday everyone!


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Something women like about a pickup man

Casey has a truck again! Yayyyy!


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Labor Day Weekend

Another fun weekend for Ellie (and us) visiting the grandparents in Longview! We...

Went to Pizza King...






Played under PawPaw's table...




Tried to wake Daddy up from a serious nap...



Then as soon as we woke him up I got really tired...


Then we went out to eat at Fish City Grill...



On Sunday we headed out to Liberty City to see Ellie's great grandparents (technically great great Aunt and Uncle) Meme and Papaw and Ellie's other Meme (my Aunt Karen) and of course Ellie's Nona. We didn't get any pictures while we were there. :( We did get an "after" photo though.



Annnnnd Happy Labor Day to us, we ordered Ellie's big girl carseat!! After months of research, we went with the Britax Marathong G3. I'm so excited!


All in all a very productive weekend. Happy Labor Day y'all!

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Please stay a baby

It's moments like these when I understand people wanting their babies to stay babies. There will come a day very soon when Ellie will not want to nap on Mommy's chest and it will break my heart. I'm soaking in every second I have with my little baby.


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Pulling up

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Andi's Bridal Shower

All I have to say is that I am EXHAUSTED after throwing a lovely bridal shower for my dear friend Andi.  Andi's wedding is "rustic chic" so we decided her shower would be the same way.  Here are some photos from the day!

It was really fun hosting a party at the new house and the flow was really great.  The only thing we need to work on is the air conditioning.  Having that many people in the house, plus an oven going, plus people going in and out continuously = a HOT house.