Ellie's one year pictures

My friend Bev is so great!  She is alwasy willing to take pictures of Ellie for me when I ask.  She took pictures of Ellie when she turned one.  They turned out so great!

Ellie's big birthday bash!

The cookies we made.

 

 

 

I guess I am one of those moms. I seriously thought about her first birthday for an entire year, and I started buying stuff six months in advance. Everything turned out great even though some things didn't go as planned. This little girl of ours is so spoiled it is crazy! Thank you to all those who came and celebrated Ellie's first year of life!

Our baby turned one!

Ellie Grace turned one today. We are still in shock that we have a one year old. she is getting so big and has all of a sudden turned into a toddler. We love this little girl so much it is crazy! On her birthday we got together with immediate family. She shares a birthday with her uncle Shawn so it was fun to celebrate his 40th as well.

At one year Ellie:

• Walks around things like crazy and can sometimes stand on her own.  She seems very unsure of the whole walking thing though.
• Says: Mama, Dada, ow, hi, hello, tickle tickle (not even kidding and it is so dang cute), uh oh when she drops something, OOHHH, moo like a cow.
•  shakes her head no, waves bye, blows kisses, gives kisses, crawls over and climbs up on our legs,  gives high fives, gives hugs, feeds the dog, makes many many noises with her tongue and trys to mimic everything we do.  She also raises her hands above her head when we say so big.
• Is getting a preference when it comes to foods she likes.  Her favorites are: Bread (any), cereal, fruit snacks, vegetables, any fruit, ravioli.  She doesn't like:  Mac N cheese, eggs, and deli meat.  LOVES LOVES LOVES milk.
• Loves reading books.  She loves to sit for hours and flip the pages.
• Loves Sesame Street and the Backyardagnes. 
• Loves music and always dances when a song comes on.
• Is no longer taking a bottle.  Didn't even phase her when we took it away.
• LOVES her pink and white blanket.  She is also still a binky baby.
• Still a big girl although she is thining out.  She was in the 90th for everything at her last appointment.





Food.

It is no secret that Ellie loves food.  She is however getting more picky as she gets older.  Two things she refuses to eat are Mac N cheese and eggs.  We think it may be a texture thing.  Anyway, one day I picked her up from the babysitter and this is how I found her....I couldn't resist taking pictures instead of cleaning her up.

Alexa and B.J. Wedding

 

A.E.'s brother B.J. got married on the 25th. It was a beautiful day and we are so happy to have Alexa in the family. Congrats you two!

Ellie's Eyes

            This post has been a long time coming.  I wanted to make sure things were for sure before writing a post about it.  You have probably noticed in pictures that Ellie's eyes are a little crossed.  At about four months, we noticed that her eyes just weren't straightening out like they are supposed to.  Since things like lazy eye run in my family, I immediately became worried.  I asked my mom and other people what they thought, and they suggest we get it looked at.  I took her into her pediatrician and told her everything we have noticed and how things like this run in my family.  She told me that they don't normally look at their eyes until six months but because of our circumstances we should definitely get a second opinion (thank heavens for good doctors.)  We scheduled an appointment with Doctor Petersen who is one of the best in the state and just happens to be my sisters eye doctor.

            Our worries were confirmed and he told us at the moment her eyes were just far sided (she can't see things up close) but he wasn't too concerned about lazy eye.  He wanted to wait until she was nine months to see how things played out, so we scheduled another appointment and waited. We took her in at nine months and the change was so drastic that he suggested we get glasses.  She is still just far sided and luckily we aren't looking at lazy eye.....yet.  He gave us a prescription and we went to get her glasses ordered.  She got them the weekend I ran Ragnar so I wasn't there to see them the first day but they were sending me pictures to let me know how cute she looked in them. We took her again last week and her eyes are showing so much change with the glasses that we don't need to worry about surgery or patching yet.  This makes us very happy.  We are so thankful for good doctors who didn't just push us aside and really took the time to look at Ellie's eyes.  They sooner we get her in glasses the better her eyes will get.  Hopefully they continue to work and we don't have to worry about surgery or patching.

She does look pretty dang cute in glasses:

Since getting glasses, many people have asked us questions so I figured I would answer them on here.

1.  How long will she have to wear them?  If everything goes as planned and we don't have to deal with surgery or patching, she could be out of glasses completely by the time she is twelve.  Just in time for Junior High.
2. How did the doctors know that her eyes were bad?  I have no idea how it works.  They measured her lens and other parts of her eye.  One thing I do know is that they are excellent at their jobs.  They went to school for it so I figure they know what they are doing.
3. How do you keep them on her?  We don't.  She has to be really distracted or they come off the minute we put them on.  I was working extremely hard to try and keep them on ALL THE TIME.  As you can imagine I was exhausted.  I told the doctor this and he told me I was working way to much and that as long as she wore them for an hour each day, they would work.  Needless to say I am not as stressed.
4. How are we handling this?  I think I am more emotional about it than A.E. but I have surprised myself.  I thought I would be way upset but I guess I figure there could be way worse things wrong with her.  On a scale of bad this is minimal so we are just thankful for that.

Hopefully they continue to work and her eyes get better fast.

Ten Months.

Ellie,
You are now in the double digit months. We can't even believe it.  You are really starting to grow up into a fun little girl.  Just this month we notice that you are not a baby anymore.  You are thinning out and losing your rolls.  You talk all the time and are getting more mobile by the minute.  Your sweet personality is really coming out and you are still charming everyone you come in contact with.  We love you so much and can't believe you have been ours for this long.  We can't believe you chose us and feel like the luckiest parents in the world.  Love you little stinker.
Love,
Mom and Dad

• You started crawling today for real.  You are now a speed crawler and love that you can get anywhere you want to go. 
• You pull yourself up to your knees and love to grab at things that are in your reach.
• Speaking of reach, we have to be fast or anything and everything goes in your mouth.
• You love drinking from a sippy cup and eating everything we give you.
• You now say Mama, Dada, Hi, Hello, Ow.  Your little voice is so cute.  You also wave hi and goodbye and give kisses.
• Whenever you hear Daddy you get SO excited.  You are such a daddy's girl.
• You are so so so ticklish and giggle like crazy when we tickle you.
• You ride in a toddler car seat still facing backwards though.  You outgrew your other car seat.   You love this one way more.
• You are so fascinated with earings and things on people's heads.   You will anything in your power to touch whatever is on their face, ears, head, etc.