1/2 Birthday!

UPDATE:  
Height: 26.5" (70th percentile)
Weight: 16 lbs 3 oz (48th percentile)
Head: 40.9cm (8th percentile)

Updates on our Ellie girl - SO many accomplishments.  I am one proud mama!

• She sits up!  I felt like she was never going to sit up on her own, but here she is  sitting up like a champ!  I still like to keep a pillow behind her because she likes to throw herself back sometimes.
• Little girl acquired two, yes TWO, teeth this month.  June 7th we discovered her first tooth had come through and only a week and a half later she cut her 2nd.  No wonder she's been fussy lately!
• Ellie is her "grabby" phase.  She wants to touch, squeeze, grab, shake, and eat EVERYTHING.  You have to be careful when she's in your lap at the table because she will grab anything she can (including the table cloth).
• She LOVES her walker now that she's tall enough for it.
• She LOVES swimming.  I feel like we have been so busy with the big move that we haven't got to take advantage of all the swimming pools at our disposal (including the one at Grammy & Pop's!)
• Still going strong on solid foods.  We're feeding her twice a day and I even started making my own baby food.
• She figured out how to use a straw and is using her Zoli Bot almost every day.
• She wants to crawl SO bad.  She will lay on her tummy and stick her booty in the air and try to push off.
• She loves to bang things against the floor or table.  
• She likes to eat her feet.

Every single day we are truly amazed at how blessed we are to have such a sweet, smart, funny, beautiful daughter.  We still can't believe that we are parents and it's been 6 MONTHS!

On the night of Ellie's 1/2 birthday we had a little celebration with Eleanor's Aunt Shannon, Uncle Andy, Grammy, and Pop.  Here are a few pictures:

Nicknames

When you become a parent you basically lose your mind. You will do any and everything it takes to entertain your baby (and yourselves) even if it makes you look like a blithering idiot. Enter: Nicknames.

We call Eleanor a variety of "normal" nicknames, Elle, Ellie, Elles, etc., but it's the ridiculous ones that make us laugh and think "were we always this insane?". Here are a few examples (most of these are "had to be there" to understand/get it):

Ellie Bean
Bean
Beanie Baby
Elle Belle
Ellie Belly
Smelly Ellie (praying this one doesn't come back in middle school)
Peanut
Peanut Butter and Ellie
Ellington
Elleeeeeeeez
Ellie Ellie Oxen Free
Snoodle
Snugs
Bug
Peep
Peepers
Big Girl
Nugget
And my personal favorite:

Nuggetron the Destroyer.



Doesn't she totally look like a Nuggetron the Destroyer???

Have a great week!



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To Ergo, or not to Ergo

I have been using a friend's Ergo baby carrier for the past two months and at first I HATED it. Too bulky, couldn't get comfy, and I felt like it splayed Elle's legs too far apart. I was CONVINCED I was going to get a Beco Gemini instead. As Ellie gets bigger I am liking the Ergo more and more and I'm wondering if this isn't the way to go. Here's a picture of us shopping at Lowe's today:


Usually she's smiling and being silly, but she was about two minutes away from a nap at this point.

I think Ellie and I might need to take a trip over to the Nurtured Family to try out the Beco.

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Will's Pirate Party

Our sweet friends Val & Tim's little boy Will turned 2 and we had a blast at their Pirate themed birthday party!  Here are some pictures from one of Ellie's first birthday parties to attend.

 As you can see from the pictures, Tim and his brother built an AMAZING pirate ship for little Will called The Becky's Revenge and the coolest part is that they designed AND built that thing by hand.  No plans, no nothing.  That is SO cool.  I can't wait for Ellie to get bigger so we can built her something this awesome.

Val explaining the name of the ship "The Becky's Revenge"

The gargantuan ship

Casey & Ellie trying to beat the heat

Our little family minus the two boys

Our First Home

We bought our first home!  Last week ( June 7th, technically 2 weeks ago now that I'm finally finishing this entry) we closed on a beautiful house in The Woodlands and are SO excited about yet another new adventure for our family.  We made the big move on Saturday with the help of some WONDERFUL family members and friends.  So far our favorite things about the house are the neighborhood (tons of young families AND several of our friends live in the area), the floorplan, and the nice SHADY backyard.  The pups are adjusting well except for a scare on Sunday when Riley saw a cat in the backyard, the cat jumped the fence, Riley found a hole in the fence, and chased the cat.  Luckily we back up to a green belt and Riley is an extremely obedient dog so I just yelled at him and he came right back.

The move was long, but fairly painless (for me at least) and the weather cooperated nicely.

We are settling in and excited about making some improvements, before and after pics to come!  Here are some pictures from the day of closing:

Us at closing with a very sleep Eleanor

Our first picture in front of the house!  (Ellie was still asleep)

WOW!  We just bought a house!

 

Ellie Update- 5 months, 3 weeks

This week in Ellieland: playing her piano, cut her 2nd tooth in 2 weeks, wore her AWESOME Wonder Woman onesie Auntie Bakes got her, eating pears for the first time, and sitting up like a champ.


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Gator Bait 5K Trail Run

Trying to get back into the swing of running again and boy is it hard.  The last time I REALLY ran was when I ran the 1/2 marathon last April when I was (unknowingly) pregnant with Eleanor.  After that I was going to give myself a few weeks off of running, but then found out I was pregnant.  I was SUPER tired during my first trimester so I didn't feel up to running, but I digress. 

Last Sunday Debbie and I did the Gator Bait 5k Trail Run up in beautiful Huntsville State Park.  I'd love to say that I trained for this, but I would be lying if I said I did.  My version of training for this?  Running a half a mile with the jogging stroller and thinking "Jeez... that was hard" and then praying that the Lord would let me finish the 5K uninjured. 

We get to the race in plenty of time and after doing some stretching and prep, we were off.  When I signed up for a trail run I was thinking "Wow that would be fun to run in the woods instead of on the concrete and I'm sure the scenery would be way better!".  I was not thinking "Hmm I should train on some trails before trying to run cold turkey over roots, branches, and up and down hilly, uneven terrain.  Sigh... 

It actually ended up being really fun, and after the first 1/2 mile it wasn't bad.  Just took some getting used to.  Unfortunately Debbie got shin splints during the first mile so we had to walk a lot of it, but I felt good knowing that if I wanted to run the whole thing I probably could have.  We finished in 50 minutes (yikes, I know) and then stuck around for the award ceremony where I ran into my old friend Armando from SFA. 

 

 Debbie and I finishing the race:

I'm not going to lie... I look a little special in most of the photos from the race so I will NOT be posting those.  These are the only ones that were acceptable, even though I do look a little cray with my terminator sunglasses.

Swaddle Weaning

Trying to wean a baby off of being swaddled has got to be one of the most challenging things I have EVER dealt with.  First of all it involves sleep, which we all know is something I am very particular about.  I NEED (not just want) an uninterrupted 5-6 hours of sleep minimum to not be a cranky bee-yotch. 

Having said that, going from Eleanor sleeping through the night (at least 8 hours) to having her wake up every couple of hours like a newborn is NOT in my plans.  Alas we come to the dilemma of swaddle weaning.  We started swaddling Eleanor in the hospital and when we got home we moved to the amazing Halo SleepSack Swaddle.  This. Thing. Is. Awesome.  It wraps our little sweetie like an amazingly delicious baby burrito and not even her super baby hulk strength can break out of it.  According to Halo, you're supposed to use the swaddle sleep sacks until the baby can roll over and then discontinue use.  DISCONTINUE USE.  And how do we just discontinue the use of this magical device Halo?  HOW?  (Can you tell I haven't been sleeping?) 

I tried just going cold turkey, but when you have a kid that takes two amazing naps (1.5-3 hours each) and sleeps for 8+ hours a night, why would you ever want to prevent this sleeping pattern from happening?  Night one: Ellie slept for 3 hours and then was up (and wanting to play) so Mommy gave up and swaddled her again.  Naps the following day: First one I didn't want to even fool with her not napping because I had lawn guys coming that I needed to speak with so I swaddled her.  Nap 2: No swaddle = nightmare.  She refused to nap for longer than 30 minutes and I KNOW that girl was tired.  She was fussy and not her usual happy self and that was not fun for mommy.  So nap 2 was basically nonexistent.  Luckily she got a quick snooze in on the way to dinner and for a few minutes at the table so she wasn't fussy at dinner (Thank you Jesus!). 

Last night (AKA Night 2) I decided after reading some recommendations from some Facebook friends that I would swaddle her with one arm out.  Genius idea - why didn't I think of this?  Well I'm happy to report that it worked!  Ellie slept for 8.5 hours with one arm hanging out!  YAYYYYY!!!!  

Here's to hoping that she keeps this up and slowly but surely I can let the other arm out.

Couldn't find any photos of Eleanor in her Sleep Sack that weren't from the monitor, so here's a picture of a much less cuter baby in the Sleep Sack Swaddle:

Eleanor's Nursery

As we were getting ready to move out of the old house I finally took some time to take pictures of Ellie's nursery.  I worked REALLY hard on this room and I think it was the only completely "finished" room in the house after living there for 4 years. 

Here is some info about the room:

Crib: Graco Lauren in White
Crib Bedding: Custom made by my bestie Sara Baker and her mom Pam Baker! 
Dresser and Changing Table: Ikea
Glider: Craigslist with a Surefit Slipcover
Pillow on Glider: Made by me!  (you know you're impressed..)
Tree Decals on Wall: Target
Mobile: Gift from MIL, Amazon.com
Map Flowers: Gift from Sister in Law, via Etsy
Book Shelves: Ikea
Puffballs above glider: Some made my me, some bought on Etsy by sister in law
Lamps: Ikea & Target
Paint Color: Anonymous by Behr
Adorable Baby: via Sarah & Casey Page

Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all the dads, daddies, papas, dadas, pops, and whatever else people call their fathers! With it being Casey's 1st Father's Day, I wanted to make it really special so on Saturday we went to a Dynamo game






And he got to open some cool gifts from Eleanor


Today while he was out at the old house I made he and his dad (Ellie's Pop) some golf themed cupcakes


Now we are heading over to C's parents for a nice relaxing BBQ and maybe a little pool action.

Happy Father's Day to my wonderful daddy, George Wood



, to my sweet father in law Kevin



and a super special Happy FIRST Father's Day to my awesome husband Casey who is a wonderful dad to our sweet Ellie. We love you!!



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Big Girl

Eleanor is SUCH a big girl these days.  She changes more and more each week and has such a fun and funny personality.  She is all smiles all day long and loves to laugh.  Today we went on a walk through the neighborhood and stopped at the neighborhood park.  We hung out for a while and Ellie got to swing for the first time!  She was loving it, but unfortunately the mosquitoes were too so we had to get her out of there.  We are LOVING our new neighborhood!

Crawfish!

Totally forgot to blog about Ellie's first Crawfish Boil!  The Pages had their annual Crawfish Boil which also served as a pool party to break in their new pool.  Although Ellie didn't eat any crawfish this year, she had a blast being passed around, riding on my back in the Ergo (or I should say napping on my back), and swimming.  Waiting to get pics from Casey's parents, but when I do I will upload them! 

Naps? Who needs 'em?

This afternoon's nap looked like this.


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5 months old

Holy cannoli, our little "newborn" is 5 months old!  This little girl amazes me more and more each day.  Here is all you need to know about Miss Eleanor Marie.

Height: Tall... she is so tall! We can't accurately measure her so that will have to wait until next month's doctor appointment.

 Weight: around 15 lbs!

Here are some other updates.  It's been a big month for our sweet little lady!

• Ellie LOVES toys.  She has acquired quite a few this month including a walker (though she's not quite tall enough to walk around in it yet), a Jenny Jump Up (she's still not sold on it), AND a stand up bouncer.  One thing you HAVE to know about Ellie is that she LOVES to be standing up.  She HAS to be standing up.  If she's not standing up, she's probably upset with you.  This kid is going to be walking in no time....
• She is so curious and has started scratching on EVERYTHING.  It started out with her laying on her back on the changing table and she would reach her arm across and scratch the soft fabric, then the wall, then my arm.  She is soooo curious about textures.
• Ellie has started eating solid foods once a day!   So far her favorite is organic rice cereal and mangos.
• She's also drinking out of a sippy cup!  We have to hold it for her right now because she just started a couple of days ago, but she's already figured out how the spout works.  I'm so proud!!
• Ellie can roll over from back to front!  Not just that, but she's figured out that she can get where she wants to go by rolling.  If you lay her down she will roll across a room!
• She had her first bug. :(  She was sick for a few days with diarrhea (awful) and coughing and a runny nose.  She still has a runny nose and has acquired a sexy raspy voice.  Haha
• She l.o.v.e.s. to SQUEAL!!!!   This girl has a set of lungs on her!  She just loves the sound of her own voice (no clue who she gets that from) and will babble and squeal all day long.