Cupcakes and Maters

A little late in posting this since, once again, I managed to leave my camera bag somewhere. This time it was my sister's in Toledo and not an airport bathroom.

The Friday before Thanksgiving, my parents, Ellie and I went out to Toledo to celebrate SAM's third birthday! I'm still wondering how this kid managed to turn three right under our noses. We're home so rarely for these milestones, so I was soaking up all the birthday fun! There were lots of cupcakes (expertly baked by my sister) decked out with Cars characters and checkered flags. Oh, how SAM loves Cars, especially Tow Mater!

The birthday boy making faces.

Time to blow out the candle!

Alas, Ellie wasn't able to enjoy the cupcakes, but she did have a pouch of yummy baby puree.

And a delicious board book.

SAM clearly loves cupcakes.

We left Toledo right around Ellie's bedtime, and she slept pretty much the entire hour and a half ride home, stayed up for about 30 minutes when we got to my parents' house before conking out and staying asleep the whole night. I almost thought it was my birthday. :)

Wired

The end of Thanksgiving day, the kids all in bed, and this is how the evening was spent.

 

Notice the only one reading an actual book.

Thanksgiving 2011: Ellie's First

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays and I have been looking forward to it with great anticipation because now I can share all the excitement with Ellie! This year is the first Thanksgiving I've spent in Ohio in fours years and also the first time in as many years that all the kids have been together for the holiday; I was supposed to have spent last Thanksgiving in Ohio, but instead spent it in a hospital bed in Tucson, although I did have my mom and Brian there with me. Always something to be thankful for.

This year on Thanksgiving morning I forced convinced my brother to go for a morning run.

After our run, we hit the showers and quickly dove into the kitchen to help prepare dinner. Ellie slept through most of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (a must in our house), but got up in just enough time to see Santa Clause at the end! And yes Brian, I did squeal, "Look, Ellie, it's Santa!" when he came on the TV.

Even though Brian is not here to celebrate with us I have so much to be thankful for this year -- namely this little lady.

Reason #2 to be thankful this year -- Ellie woke up from her morning nap looking like this.

Remember just two short weeks ago when I was said how unlikely it was that Ellie would be pulling herself up anytime soon? Well, in the last week she has become very much aware of the world above her and now does everything she possibly can to get up up up!

Being the excellent eater she is Ellie did not disappoint at dinner, eating just about as much as the rest of us. We had all the classic Thanksgiving fixings: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, yams, cranberry sauce, green beans and my mom's famous dinner rolls. I don't have any pictures of Ellie's tray full of food because she ate it that fast.

The boys loved watching Ellie eat, and Nic even helped feed her--she was obviously very amused by whatever he was doing.

The rest of the day was spent playing games, relaxing and napping (Ellie wasn't the only one!). It was a great day to be with family, stuff ourselves like turkeys, and count the many blessings we are so lucky to have.

Smarty Pants

I swear they were on when I left the room...

Bathing Beauty

Bath time, with few exceptions, has always been Brian's specialty -- giving him a chance to have some quality time with Ellie at the end of the workday and me some quiet time (if only for a few minutes).

I actually thought he was much better at it than me but since Brian's been deployed, bath time has fallen back under my list of parental responsibilities.

Truthfully, I might not want to give it back.



I absolutely love watching Ellie in the tub -- words cannot describe how much joy it gives me to see her enjoy bath time and play in the water. One of her favorite bath toys, besides her rubber ducky, is her set of stacking cups. They have holes in the bottom that allow water to drain out, so I'll fill one and hold it up so Ellie can watch the water stream out. Her reaction is seriously one of the best parts of my day. The wide eyes, open mouth and outstretched hands -- her wonder at the simplest of things. I've wanted to take a picture of her reaction for some time but couldn't in Arizona (not enough hands to be a responsible parent during bath time and take the picture). I was worried, with the way little ones seem to change so quickly, she wouldn't find the water so fascinating anymore before I could capture it. Luckily, I was able to get a picture this week.

It's the simplest of things that makes my heart just about burst.

 

An Exciting New Development!

Life as the ever-vigilant mom just got a bit more complicated... but so much more fun!

Fall Photo Overkill

Did I mention how much I love Ohio in the fall?

Fall in the Heart of It All

Let's face it, fall in the desert of Tucson feels like summer everywhere else. So being in Ohio when the temperatures start to take a dip, the leaves are falling from the trees and the smell of a bonfire is off in the distance has been such a treat! Of course, it does mean some days with gray skies and occasional rain (or snow, which we had the lightest dusting of last night), but the climate change has been refreshing.

Earlier this week, it was wonderfully warm and sunny, so we took advantage of the weather and ventured outside in my parents' backyard to play with the leaves.

11 Months

Ellie is 11 months today, which means we're in the homestretch to a year! She continues to charm the pants off of everyone while still keeping me on my toes.

Ellie's not on her toes yet but has become quite the proficient combat crawler in the mean time! She still rocks on her hands and knees all the time and while playing, and that little push up she was doing a month ago has turned into what looks like the downward-facing dog in yoga. I'm a little jealous of her flexibility.

Every now and again she hitches one leg up in the air, too. It's so cute! She hasn't shown any interest in pulling herself up just yet, but I have this feeling she's going to bypass traditional crawling and skip right to walking, although I doubt she realizes that there is a whole world above her eye level.

I feel like the luckiest mom ever because Ellie is sleeping 12 hours straight every.single.night. Napping is still mostly inconsistent -- she's usually good for an hour and a half nap in the morning, but afternoon naps are dicey. During the last week she took an afternoon nap every day but skipped them the last two days. I do believe we're reaching the point where one nap is not quite enough but some days two naps are too much to ask for. Personally, I'll take the 12-hour nights over inconsistent naps hands down.

Ellie wasn't babbling much a few weeks ago, but there must be something about being at my parents' house or maybe hearing her cousins talking the entire weekend because Ellie has been constantly babbling "mama" to me along with lots of other sounds and syllables all day long for the last five days. Still no new teeth (though I'm loving those lone bottom two!), but I'm continuing to expand her range of food and most of the time am able to give her what we have for dinner, either chopped up in the processor or cut up on her tray as finger foods. I'm also very excited about Thanksgiving this year so Ellie can try all the holiday favorites! Her most exciting finger food to date: kielbasa. That's my German girl.

As an 11-month-old, Ellie is becoming much more energetic and assertive. She wants to put the blocks in and out of the tub. She wants to turn the pages when we read a story. Don't get me wrong, I'm very glad she is interested in and will sit still for a book, but it is slightly challenging -- she would rather turn the pages instead of listening to the story. In an adorable turn of events, she has started handing me things: balls, blocks, sometimes her food.

A day with Ellie can at times be like riding an emotional roller coaster -- one minute she's excited, kicking her legs and laughing, the next she's barely bumped her head and she's crying. My mom says she gets that from me. Hmmm. Still, she is most of the time a very happy baby and definitely shows my level of excitement for things.

As we come to a close on Ellie's first year, I keep wondering where the time went but look forward to what her second year has in store!

Baggage Issues

Traveling with an infant on your own is no small feat, although parents of toddlers often tell me I have another thing coming. While Ellie and I made it to Ohio in one piece last Tuesday, it wasn't without a few bumps in the road.

Our travel day started with a very early morning which involved getting to the airport at 5am. We had our bags checked by Southwest Airlines' Crabbiest Desk Agent, navigated our way through security and to our gate. Our flight to Chicago was very smooth and truthfully didn't feel like the 3-hour flight it was. We had a window seat with an empty middle seat next to us. Ellie slept during and after takeoff, woke up shortly after, but the rest of the time as long as she had something in her mouth (food, toy, sippy cup), she was a happy girl. Someone is teething hardcore.

We made it to Chicago on time and had the perfect layover of about an hour -- enough time for me to buy AND eat a sandwich. Since we had a little more time to kill, I figured it would be a good idea to take advantage of our remaining time and do a diaper change so we wouldn't be doing it on the plane (not easy or fun). To my pleasant surprise, there was a family restroom where I could change her diaper and not be in the presence of what seems like the entire terminal. There was even a chair in the restroom so I was able to set down the backpack (doubling as a diaper bag) and the camera bag instead of having them strapped to my back or over my shoulder the whole time.

Fresh diaper and emptied bladder, we made our way back to the gate and got in line. For those not familiar with Southwest Airlines' boarding system, you are assigned a letter (A-C) and number (1-60) when you check in for your flight and then you line up in order according to your letter and number (A1-60 first, then Bs, then Cs). Once you board the plane, there is an open seating policy so you can pick whichever one your like. For us, I like to get an A and as low a number as possible to get a window seat as close to the front of the plane as we can. That way I have a little more room (hard enough to find on an airplane these days) and don't completely feel boxed in. Lucky for us, our boarding number for our flight to Cleveland was A-45, which is pretty darn good. While waiting in line, I chatted with a lovely woman who grew up in the city right next to my home town -- small world!

The boarding process got under way and I handed our tickets to the gate agent and walked down the jet way. We almost made it through the travel day with no hiccups! Then I discovered, to my horror, that my camera bag was no longer over my shoulder and immediately remembered I had left the camera bag in the family restroom. During the course of changing Ellie's diaper and packing the diaper bag, I had forgotten to pick up the camera bag when we left. I scrambled back up the jet way and explained my situation to the gate agent who told me to hurry as we only had a few minutes until the plane was fully boarded. We got back to the bathroom and I felt sick when I opened the door and found the chair empty. The camera bag was nowhere to be seen. At this point whatever calm demeanor I had left crumbled and I started to tear up. Not only was our point and shoot camera in this bag, but also our dSLR camera and a back up hard drive to pull pictures off the cameras. There were so many pictures of Ellie that I hadn't saved to the hard drive yet -- the main reason for my tears.

Someone passing by saw how upset I was and offered to help; we found some cleaning staff, who hadn't found the bag while they were cleaning the restroom, but did point me in the direction of two TSA agents, one of whom escorted me to the Chicago Police Department office. All the while I kept thinking, "Even if I do find the bag, how are we possibly going to make our flight?" I also felt incredibly foolish for having no identification on the bag because I figured I always carry it when we travel. Trying to maintain composure, we got to the police department office and asked if anyone had turned in a camera bag. They started to ask for a description when I saw, to my immense relief, the camera bag sitting on their desk. I said they could check either camera for pictures of Ellie as proof since . They said it wouldn't be necessary since they believed me, but before handing me the bag they asked me to "Please, please put some identification on your bag." I said it was as good as done, and took off back to the gate to attempt to make our flight.

I honestly didn't think I could run that fast with Ellie strapped to me in the Bjorn (I'm sure people found the sight quite entertaining) -- but run we did, and although I didn't hear my name, I could have sworn I heard "This is your final boarding call. Please come to gate B25 immediately for an on-time departure." We got to the gate only to find the door closed. Devastated and out of breath, I was about to look for a desk agent to see what our options were when the door reopened and the gate agent motioned for us to board the plane. The good boarding number we had earlier did us no good as we ended up with a middle seat toward the back of the plane, but I didn't care -- we had the camera bag AND we made our flight. I also lucked because Ellie napped for the first part of the flight and was content sitting in my lap the rest of the time. I doubt I've ever been so glad to see my mom waiting for us at the Cleveland Airport baggage claim.

The past week has been spent relaxing and watching Ellie bond with her grandparents -- the perfect antidote for a busy week of preparations (and Halloween) and a stressful travel day.

Ellie's First Halloween: A Recap

As a 10-month-old, I'm positive Ellie wasn't even aware it was Halloween or why her mother was making her wear that bulky costume, but she only has one "First Halloween", so we were going to do it right! Still, I'm looking more and more forward to next year's festivities because, similar to our trip to the pumpkin patch, I think it will be much more fun when Brian is here to enjoy everything with us, and Ellie is more interested in and aware of what's going on.

As I wasn't able to get a decent picture of Ellie with the pumpkins at the pumpkin patch, I set up a little display in our backyard after we got our grocery store pumpkin and a few other mini pumpkins (or gourds, to the purists out there). Then I made Ellie sit among the pumpkins while I snapped some pictures. Oh, the things we make our children do for a photo-op.

 

She's such a good sport.  Ellie didn't show any interest in doing any carving the pumpkin on Saturday. In fact, she was much more interested in the newspaper and very non-kid-friendly carving tools, so she spent a lot of time in the jumperoo watching me carve the pumpkin. 

Also on the Halloween to-do list was Howl-o-ween at Reid Park Zoo. I had no idea it was as big as I found out it was. The lines were LONG and there were several of them: members who pre-paid (what we should have done), general pre-paid, members who hadn't pre-paid (our line), and general admission. Dare I say it was a "zoo" at the zoo? We had originally made plans to go with a friend of mine and her son, but it was so crazy, we never did find each other. It was rapidly approaching bedtime as we waited, but we got in surprisingly fast. What I didn't realize was, once you got into the zoo, you had to follow a roped-off route and there was no deviating from that route until you reached the end. There were stops along the way for kids to get candy and see costumed characters, so we spent some time moving at a snail's pace and the other attempting to move quickly past the candy stops. There were lights and fun themes along the way (Disney, Harry Potter, dragons and pirates -- my nephews would have loved that!).

Of course for the occasion Ellie was dressed up for the first time in her Halloween costume -- a ladybug (I loved those tights!)! I got one good picture of her with the lights which perfectly captured her expression pretty much the entire time: tired and mostly disinterested.

At the end of the route was a cute "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" display where you could take pictures, so I attempted a few with Ellie. She wouldn't look at me, but was very interested in the straw on the hay bales. No tears this time. :)

All craziness aside, it was a good time and I can't wait to go back next year -- with pre-paid tickets of course.

Halloween itself was fairly low-key as we were preparing for Ohio. We went over to Brent and Sara's that evening to tag along while Braden and another friend went trick-or-treating. I told them if they came trick-or-treating at my house, I would have given them a carved pumpkin.

My little ladybug.

I got the ladybug home, bathed and in bed on time. Unfortunately for the trick-or-treaters in our neighborhood, I didn't pass out any candy since we had to be up by 3:30 the next morning for our flight.

My sentiments exactly. :)