Christmas Pictures

About a month ago, Patti took Christmas pictures of us. These are some of my favorites. Thank you Patti!!!
I love this one because of Ellie's expression. It was actually pretty hard to get her to stay still for the picture. I guess that is what happens with a 10 month old.
Ellie loves this picture! I can't blame her--I do too! I think she looks more like John in the black and white pictures. Probably because you can't see the red in her hair.
This one of her favorite books. She loves looking at the babies' smiling faces.
She now has two good teeth on the top. So I am really glad we have a good picture of Ellie's gummy smile.

I just love her.

Ellie thanks her cousin Jane for the use of her awesome skirt!

Wintertime bliss!

Goings On

I went into Ellie's room after she woke up from a nap the other day and found her like this. This is sure her favorite expression. She really likes to crinkle her nose.
Ellie has also discovered the sippy cup. She LOVES water. It is hard to figure out what end to suck on though. John took a trip to Minneapolis right before Thanksgiving to present the research he has been doing at a fluid dynamics conference. He was gone for four days. My mom came down and stayed with Ellie and me, which was so nice. I am so proud of John for working so hard!

I can't believe it has been 9 months!

I seriously can't believe that little Ellie is already 9 months old! They have seriously been so great! Maybe I have just been spoiled by having such a great sleeper always, but Ellie is such a delight! At her nine month check up she was the following:

15 lbs 8.5 oz -- 5th percentile (Wahoo! Cramming all of that food down her throat has done the trick)
27 in. long -- 30th percentile give or take (The person that checked us in measured 26 in. and the doctor measured 28 in. which is the difference between the 10th and the 75th percentile, so we are going with in between)
17.2 in head circumference -- 37th percentile give or take again
While we were there, the doctor mentioned a couple of times how much she has grown.

Yes, she has grown. I know that shouldn't make me sad, but I really don't know if I am ready to say goodbye to my little baby. :)
Ellie is changing so much these days. Here is what she has been up to:

Just yesterday she started really starting to love to crinkle her nose. It is pretty cute because it makes here look like she is growling a little bit. It also shows off her new teeth.
She crawls everywhere these days and gets into way too much stuff. She has recently had her first pinch of the fingers by playing with the drawers in the kitchen. :(
She got her first two teeth at about 8.5 months. Oh man they are sharp!
For a while now, she has been so afraid of older people (about 65+). It is so funny, but kind of sad. Two weeks ago during Sunday School she caught sight of an older sister in our ward and had a complete meltdown. It also happened when the ward missionaries came over. She also has a hard time with John's parents.
She has started to pull herself up on things. Mostly just people at this point, but if you are sitting on the ground beware her climbing all over you!
She has started to show a preference for mommy to hold her verses daddy. He still gets the best giggles out of her though.
She has been saying da-da for quite a while now, but recently it has turned into da-D. Really big emphasis on the last d. Also, the word daddy comes out sometimes too.
Cords are her greatest toy temptation. It is a constant struggle to keep them out of chewing distance.

Here is a picture of her new two teeth. Click on it to see better.

The Three Bears

I am a bit late in posting this, but it is still fun anyway. For Halloween our little family was The Three Bears. Ellie was super cute and didn't really mind her costume although it did inhibit her crawling a little.
These are our awesome pumpkins that we carved. John did a cool bat, and mine was the cute monster. Ellie didn't carve one. She did try to eat the remnants that were on the floor though. She has this thing about licking the floor. Delicious.

Ellie's two friends, Knightley and Madeleine, also dressed up for Halloween. I love it that the girls both had their hands on his thighs. Knightley looks like he isn't quite sure how he feels about that. Knightley was a chicken and Madeleine was the Stay Puffed Marshmallow man from Ghost Busters. To put it mildly, some people are more creative than we are.

Happy Halloween!

Summer Vacation

Hiking the Y

A couple of weeks ago we hiked the Y for the first time since we had Ellie. Whew! It was harder than we remembered! Ellie was a trooper and didn't mind the hike at all. Of course, she was carried the whole way!

The Y has always been a special place for us because we hiked it on our third date. As we were hiking down John held my hand for the first time, which prompted a DTR conversation (for those of you that don't speak BYU lingo that means 'define the relationship.' So we talked about such things as exclusiveness and what holding hands meant to each one of us). Those are great conversations. Anyway, this time around we didn't hold hands all that much, mostly cause they were too sweaty.
While we were up there Ellie enjoyed a pear. She really went to town on it. It was kind of sad for me because it was supposed to be my pear!

My big 26 year old!

John turned 26 last month. Presents are kind of interesting in our little family. We don't really have surprises. John wanted some new jeans so we went to the store, and he picked some out. I wanted to have something be a surprise on his birthday. So he had to go on a scavenger hunt for his presents.

Here he is opening his only wrapped present. Turned out to be a can of applesauce!! (with a clue taped to the bottom)Food is very important for us in celebrations. :) So he went to Macaroni Grill for his nice meal out. We also had a nice breakfast and dinner on his birthday. Notice we like two different kinds of milk. He is a 1% kind of guy, and I am a skim milk purist!

Lake Powell August 2009

Ellie's first time at Lake Powell.
It was an adventure, but we had a great time!

My awesome grandma is holding sweet James.

Love that Anna!
I was really impressed with how reasonably warm the water was.

Skinny baby! I don't know how much she actually got in the water, but the suit was cute anyway.

Chatting it up with Grandpa Lucas.

Precious Anna! I love my nieces!

I love my husband! He's the best!!

Feeding her and taking naps was kind of an adventure with the life jacket on.

Overall though, she was a really good sport about it.

There are lots of good things to do with life jackets.

Slot canyons are the coolest!

Such cute little girls! Dang, that Anna is flexible!

We went down to the Wahweep area and had a wonderful time seeing a different area of the lake than we normally do. I couldn't believe how gorgeous those cliffs were.

While we were there, a scary storm hit the lake. A bunch of boats sank. I am not sure if it was this houseboat or not, but I know that one caught on fire, which made it sink. I think this one had its runabout boat crash through the side of it. Lake Powell is wonderful, but it really makes you realize how powerful nature is to be out in it. Fortunately, the only casualty our party suffered was a box of shoes that got dumped in the lake during the storm.

The closest I got to a smile while in the life jacket.

The last day I tried water skiing for the first time. I gave it my best shot, but never made it up on the skis. :( However, it was a ton of fun and I am anxious to give it another go. Marc, Miriam and John went out there like pros. It was so much fun!

Ahhh....

I am sad we never got a picture of the campsite. It was great! It was a little walk from the water, but pretty reasonable for the shade and privacy. Ever since we got home we have had the bug to go again. We love Lake Powell!

The '80s

A few weeks ago our next door neighbors were given some baby clothes from the 1980's. Fortunately they have a little boy so the fight over the best one's didn't actually come to blood.
Ellie was thrilled to play dress up.

Michelle Tanner anyone?

For those Christmas festivities that require equal parts pajamas and lace.

The apron top was a little to delicious looking to resist.