Ellie is 1

Wow, a year has gone by so fast!  We can't imagine life without Ellie.  She's sweet and caring, but  yet displays my stubbornness at times. 

Official Stats:

Weight: 18 pounds 3 ounces 10%

Height: 28.5 inches 30%

Other highlights from the past month:

• Sleeping -  Still a great sleeper.  I was worried that giving up nighttime milk would be an issue, but it hasn't phased her.
• Eating - Ellie eats pretty much what we eat, but am still giving her some baby food since she's pretty tiny.  She loves dairy and starting signing for milk regularly just after I gave up nursing and cut out day time bottles.  She shows a lot of passion in her milk signs and will frantically sign with both of her hands. 
• Favorite activities - Swinging outside on the play set.  Pulling books off of her bookshelf.
• Dislikes -  Having things taken away from her. 
• Notable accomplishments -  Says hi when you hold up a phone.  Animal noises - moo for cow.  Says ball (maybe watches a few too many sporting events).  Takes about 8 - 10 steps regularly though isn't walking as her primary mode of transport.  (She is a very fast crawler).  Signs for milk, more and all done.

Happy Birthday Ellie!

Spring 2013 Soccer Party

Spring soccer season wrapped up this week.  Brady really enjoyed playing and did very well.  He is confident that they won every game and I'm pretty sure they did, but no score is kept.  After the game the boys had a picnic and received medals.  Way to go Thunder!!  Brady is already asking when soccer starts again.

Hanging out

Just hanging out on a Saturday!  I can think of anything more fun than a dishwasher and lazy susan?

Chicago Weekend

Cory and I were very lucky to have an adult weekend in Chicago.  My mom came up and spent the weekend with the kids.  We had wonderful weather the entire weekend.  Friday we did a little shopping (new purse and wallet for me Yeah!!) and had a nice dinner at an Italian Tapas restaurant.  Saturday we went to the Cubs game and they actually won.  After the game I asked (maybe forced) Cory to walk to Navy Pier with me.  We confirmed it is still a tourist trap with nothing too exciting unless you're taking kids to the children's museum.  We did stumble upon a very random Guinness Book of World record attempt at the Ferris Wheel.  The man spent 48 hours on the Ferris wheel.  We bumped into his girl friend who seemed very proud.  If you look real close at the picture you can see the one gondola that is decorated.  Don't think I ever will have interest in trying to break a world record, but yeah Clinton!

Crunching Some Numbers

"Look Mom, I found your 1980s style calculator." 

What she doesn't know is I bought this within the last 5 years because I wanted a simple, big button calculator and I HATE using the calculator feature on my laptop.   I am still in possession of my TI-85 and financial calculator just in case, but I'm guessing they are in permanent retirement.



Brady is a Polar Bear

Today was Brady's last day in the Kangaroo class.  He was the first in the Kangaroo class to graduate to the Polar Bear room.  The Polar Bear room is the class for kids one year from kindergarten.  He was very excited to graduate.  Our neighbor, Blake, who lives directly behind us is in the Polar Bear room.  Brady thinks he is pretty cool so was really excited to be in Blake's class.  Blake will only be in the room for a few more weeks because he is going to kindergarten, but I think he will enjoy the few weeks they are together.  We had cookie cake to celebrate the big day!

Look at my Nails

I asked Brady to quietly work on some art while I put Ellie to bed.  After Ellie was sleeping I went to check on him and he said "Mommy, look at my nails.  They are pretty just like yours."  He has mentioned a couple of times he wants to go get his toe nails painted with me so I guess he was serious.