While the merry bells keeping ringing and waiting for this post

Yeah, I'm not the best blogger.  I like writing our our lives, but I dislike uploading photos and videos, so I usually procrastinate.  I wish I could say I'm too busy cooking gourmet meals or organizing the closets, but its more like I'm spending my free time playing bananagrams, wii - just dance 2, or reading. 

Anyway, lets see if I can stretch my mind way back to Christmas....

We attended many fun parties.  I always like this time of year because I get to see people I don't get to see very often.  It started out the weekend before Christmas where we got together with Scott's extended family.  The next day we got together with my immediate family for dinner, apples to apples, and gift exchange. 

My bro and sis-in-law are only in Michigan every other Christmas, so we celebrated early with them.

 A few days later we celebrated with an open house style party on my Mom's extended side.  Then on Christmas Eve we traveled to Belmont to my uncle Dan's house for the Bailey extended family.  That one is always the lively one!  I got hooked on Banagrams at this party while Scott and my parents watched Ellie.  She had a great time running all around there house chasing cousins.  Then she talked to my cousin's fiance over Skye who is stationed in Egypt.  She had a really fun time chatting, waving, and showing him her belly.  That was one of the highlights of the season.  On Christmas morning, I made oven french toast (I think this is going to be a tradition) and opened presents with Scott, Ellie, and Odie. 

Scott and I didn't exchange presents (because of our Jamaica trip) but sneaky Ellie got me a gift card to Design 1.  Scott (errr. I mean Ellie) even schedule the appointment for me and remembered my favorite therapist.  Awesome!  Ellie was not enthusiastic at all with her gifts, so that was a little disappointing.  We got her a battery operated atv, Elmo video, busy ball popper, and maybe some other things I can't remember right now.

  Other favorite gifts were her Elmo etch a sketch from Aunt Janice, mega blocks from Ryan/Joy, table and chairs from grandma mars, tea set from Dan and and Linda, and grow with me kitchen from Grandma/Grandpa Bailey.

After nap time, we finished Christmas off at Scott's moms up in Sparta.

We ate yummy ham, hung out, and exchange gifts.  It was the perfect ending to a great season.

18 months going on 8 years

Ellie Bellie is such a big girl!  We just had the 18 month visit and here are the stats: 23lbs 8 oz (38%) and 33 inches (85%).  She smiled instead of screamed at the doctor, but the tears poured out as soon as the nurse walked in with that scary needle.  I asked about her pickiness when it comes to food, but he said it is totally normal at this age.  Overall it was an uneventful appointment.

I can't believe how fast time goes by.  She is a little person walking and talking and not my baby anymore.  This morning she said "more cheerios" and I've never even heard her say cheerios before.  I told her "they're all gone" but she showed me otherwise by pointing to the box in the corner.  She is combining more words and says things like "door open" "snows cold" and "up please"  She loves to color and is getting better at the color names.  She is still climbing a lot and we're not quite sure how to stop it.  Elmo is still her best friend besides momma.  She is in a momma phase right now and is a bit clingy.  Sometimes she'll cry when daddy tries to hold her and beg for me instead.  That part is pretty sad, but it doesn't happen too often.  She also started crying again at daycare drop off which she hasn't done for months, but I'm hoping that is just her getting back to her schedule.  I had her home with me for around 3 weeks during Christmas, and I think she got used to that. 

Yogurt: One of the few things she'll eat

I'm hungry, so hungry!

I've suffered with migraines for a very long time.  They peaked in college, got better in pregnancy, and now they just annoy me to no end with their every other day pattern.  I stumbled upon Heal Your Headache: The 1-2-3 Program for Taking Charge of Your Pain and was very intrigued.  The reviews were very positive, and what did I have to lose?  I was very intimidated by the whole plan, especially the diet.  I have to give up coffee, anything with caffeine, alcohol, hard or aged cheese, nuts, peanut butter, citrus fruit and juice, onions, vinegar, yogurt, sour cream, MSG (and the items it hides in), bananas, avocados, CHOCOLATE among many other things.  What on earth can I eat?  I'm happy to say I've made it FIVE WHOLE DAYS and I'm still alive!  I had major caffeine withdrawal for the first four days.  Not a joy to be around.  But today I woke up headache free with more energy than I've had in awhile.  I'm excited to see how the next few weeks unfold.  Not as excited to come up with meals.

Welcome 2011

I couldn't think of a fun title today. It was my first day back at work after a glorious extended vacation and it kicked the crud out of me. 

We had a whirlwind Christmas and I'll post pictures soon (hopefully), but for now I want to update on what Ellie has been doing.  It is hard to believe she is almost 18 months!

Her speech is really good.  She doesn't chatter constantly, but when she does talk, she has a great vocabulary and speaks very clearly for her age.  She's graduated from "Melmo" into the real deal "Elmo"  some of her recent favorite words are cookies, cracker, open, close, up, down, blue, yellow, elbow, gramma, colors (crayons) and "oooh nooo"

She is quite the adventurous climber.  We had to move our couch so she doesn't climb up and over and then down a whole flight of stairs. She gets "time out" for climbing, biting, and smacking Odie.  She'll even put herself into time out if I tell her to get down from the chair.  She goes in the corner, turns to face the corner for all of 2 seconds and then turns back around and says "aaallll done."  So cute!

Our daycare encouraged us to start potty training so that she can move up to the next room.  We haven't really pushed things, but did get the potty chair out.  She'll sit on it for a moment, say "AHHH", and get up, close the lid, and say "bye bye" to the seat while waving.  So cute!

Anyone try the 3 day method???

Merry Christmas!

Nineteen days of Christmas

I'm in the middle of nineteen days off of work.  That's right, NINETEEN.  I got really lucky with how my days in the office fell with Z's holidays.  I only had to use 3 vacation/personal days to get all of that time off.  If that wasn't enough to put me in a good mood, having a cute little Ellie around to experience the season is more than enough. This morning, we were thrilled to find out that it snowed a few inches overnight. 

We went sledding around the neighborhood (not sure why this won't rotate, sorry!)

After warming up, we made some cookies.  Ellie started her batch with water, paper, and a bag of m&ms.
 
She decided this wasn't very fun so she helped momma make big girl cookies.


And helped frost them too.


She put her heart and soul into the two cookies and even frosted both sides.  One cookie for Ellie and one cookie for Daddy

What, no Halloween Post?

I had the best of intentions to do a Halloween post this year.  I actually thought I wrote one awhile ago, but I must have been dreaming. On occasion, I've been known to incorporate dreams into my reality.

We had a great fall and Halloween.  Fall in Michigan, before it gets way too cold, is one of my favorite times each year, even though it is typically short lived. It must be the vivid fall colors combined with fresh cider and pumpkin spice donuts.  Thankfully we've had gorgeous fall weather this year with plenty of sunshine and a few MONTHS of warmish weather.  I was determined this year to get out and enjoy it more, especially now that there is pressure to create all these family memories =)

Awhile back Scott had the day off so we went to Fredrick Meijer Gardens.  We had a great time looking at the Chihuly exhibit and Ellie enjoyed running around and splashing in the mud at children's area  After playing, we went to Robinettes (my favorite place for cider and donuts) for lunch and a donut.  One donut turned into a dozen and we were on our way home. 

On Halloween weekend, we went back to Robinettes for... guess what? Another donut.  This also turned into a dozen donuts before we even pretended to try to stick with just one each.  We also went on a horse drawn hayride through the orchard.  Ellie loved it at first, but then got bored about halfway through. Thankfully I had a heavy supply of crackers with me so I could keep her happily occupied with eating.  I'm sure that is another great habit I'm teaching her.  She thought the horses were big dogs and enthusiastically barked at them for awhile. When we got close up at the end of the trip, she no longer had the larger than life attitude and shyly smiled at them.

I was also determined to carve pumpkins this year.  We went out the evening before Halloween to Meijer to scrounge for pumpkins, but surprisingly they had a great supply (and cheap too).  So after Ellie went to bed, we downloaded some stencils and cranked up the spooky music on pandora.  We came out with these beauties!

The next day was Halloween. Ellie was an adorable lady bug, I was Odie, and Odie was a squirrel, his arch nemesis. I think it showed a lot of maturity on Odie's behalf.  We went trick or treating at Gramas house, Alison's house, and then a few neighbors.  She didn't really enjoy it but hopefully she'll think the cute pictures were worth it some day!

Happy fall!  Snow is on the way!!!