Watch out world! Here she comes!

Dreaming of summer.
We are planning on taking Aidan swimming for his b-day, so Elly needed a new suit.

This is what happens when Dad and Aidan babysit. She gets so worn out that she falls asleep in weird places. :)

Here she is, attempting to "scoot" to me!

Happy Girl!

Elly is now in the beginning stages of mobility!

A few weeks back we noticed that whenever we put her down into a sitting position, she would start "bouncing" or rocking. Well, now she can literally pull her whole bum off the floor and she has realized if she does this continually she can actually propel herself somewhere.

The other day this consisted of maneuvering herself from her play gym where I had put her down to play to under the Christmas tree which was clearly much more fascinating.

Thankfully she didn't pull the tree down.

We hope you and your family have a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

The Gingerbread Man!

Aidan and his creation

We didn't do the sides because we were already a sticky mess.

Front view

Today we had our first attempt at a gingerbread house. Aidan has been dying to make one, so I bought one of those pre-made kits from Target. Let me tell you, those things make it look easier than it really is.

First of all, the frosting is REALLY thick and even though I thought I cut the bag to the specification provided in the instructions, it still quickly became a unmovable glob.

I just kept repeating to Aidan, "this is NOT going to be perfect nor look like the picture, but we are having fun and that is the point." Thankfully he didn't argue. :) He did however want the candy to be just like the picture. Nothing has changed. He's been like this since he developed a personality. He will sit there for hours if it means getting it "just right". You could call him "determined". :)

We did have fun and by the end our hands were covered in dried frosting with sugar up underneath our fingernails and a white mess all over the table, but we had fun. Mission accomplished.

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas...

7 months old!

You think I'm going to LAY under here anymore?! HA!

Dude, why is your mom making that crazy face?

It's clear who wears the pants in this relationship..

Elly and Ivan=Best Buds!

Wow. It's been a long time since I've posted. Since then we have celebrated Thanksgiving and are are gearing up for Christmas in less than 2 weeks!

Thanksgiving was spent back in Minnesota with my parents and brother's family. We had a great time being back for our first time since moving to IL, but boy is that a long drive! Thankfully our kids did well in the car. We were touch and go there for a minute on the way back with Elly but after we made a stop and got some food in her, she slept the whole way from Wisconsin Dells to our front door!

The pictures above are from a visit we had while in Minnesota. My friend Abbey was pregnant at the same time I was and had little Ivan at the end of July. They made the quite the lunch date. They loved looking at each other and Elly made sure Ivan knew she was boss. She kept stealing away one of his toys. Thankfully Ivan didn't seem to mind, YET. :)

We will have new pictures coming again very soon. I just took the kids in to get their Christmas pictures, as well as Elly's overdue pictures that should have been done when she was 6 months. Oops! Time flies when you have 2 kids. :)

6 month checkup

Look at that happy face! She loves to eat!

Aidan and Elly in the "Speed Racer" car.

Aidan as Speed Racer. He has quite the imagination. He built this car all by himself and the rolled-up blankets in the front are his "wheels". He's even doing Speed's wink! :)

Super Elly! Saving the world, one pink blanket at a time. (Aidan wanted to make Elly a superhero)

Michelle came to Chicago! We love visitors!

Quick post just to give Elly's stats from her 6 month checkup that she had on Thursday.

She now weighs 18 lbs. 2 oz. and is 26 1/2 inches long. Both of these numbers have her in the upper 80th percentile.

Doctor said she is doing well and is very happy with her growth, both physically and developmentally.

Happy Halloween!

Aidan as Indiana Jones and Elly as a Pumpkin, ready to go out Trick or Treating.

Pumpkin girl!

Beautiful Fall Day--Halloween 2008

Daddy with all of his creations. (He had carved the pumpkin this year)

Beautiful girl.

What a beautiful Halloween! We really couldn't have asked for better weather! During the day it got to about 75 degrees and it was in the 60's while we were trick or treating.

Elly was a pumpkin and Aidan was Indiana Jones. It was a busy Halloween week for us, starting with a Halloween party at our apartment complex on Wednesday night. The management held a party in the clubhouse, complete with pizza, pop and different desserts, as well as plenty of candy for the kids. There were costume contests and pumpkin carving. It was such a great time and so nice of them to do something like that for the residents. Aidan had a great time running around with several boys that he has made friends with in our complex while Elly fell asleep about 30 minutes into the party. She's such a party animal. :)

Then Halloween Day, Elly and I went to Aidan's school to see him walk in an all-school Halloween parade. So much fun to see all the kids dressed up in their costumes! Then the night was spent with the whole family trick-or-treating. Elly fell asleep about 5 minutes into that as well. It was a busy day!

A Day at the Park

Our little monkey!

Her shirt says "Elephant Ellie" :)

WHEEEEE!

Big brother giving a little push.

Hello!

We had a great day at the park enjoying our final days of warmth for the year. Elly LOVED the swing. We took turns giving her little pushes in it and she would just grin and laugh. She enjoyed it so much.

We are in constant amazement of all the new "tricks" Elly seems to be learning. Her latest is done when she is sitting in her bouncy seat. She has found that if she shakes one of her legs up and down, it makes the bouncy seat rock up and down. So we are constantly in giggles over watching her shake her leg to make the bouncy seat rock like crazy.

We are getting more and more settled to our new life in Illinois. Aidan is doing great in school and he has now made a new "best friend" named Hunter. It's funny because Hunter is actually who stood in front of him in line for their first day of school and I had a feeling it may work out because they both had the same Star Wars backpack. Now I hear lots of stories about playing Star Wars at recess with Hunter. He has lots of other friends too, and of course, I still hear the stories about getting chased at recess by several girls. I have a feeling I have a future ladies' man on my hands. I'm going to have a keep a close eye on him. :)

Rollin' Rollin' Rollin'

Look at that beautiful smile!

Sitting up, playing with her musical octopus

I love kisses!

Polka-dot Princess

At the Field Museum. We were all pretty tired.

I apologize that it's been so long since our last post. We had some computer issues, so I haven't been able to get to it.

We hit some more new milestones since last I posted. On October 6, Elly turned 5 months old and on that day she rolled over for the first time from back to tummy!! The hilarious thing is that she has been working on this for weeks and she finally did it and then the minute she got on her tummy, she screamed. Ahhh, you can't win.

We have also been working on sitting. She loves to be sitting up and she has such a strong back. She's been sitting unassisted for a few seconds at a time. It's hard to believe how quickly she is growing up. I've been here before, but I seemed to have forgotten how once the learn one thing, it seems to be a snowball effect.

We have been staying busy as a family trying to enjoy the last weeks of the nice weather. Last weekend, we headed into the city and went to the Field Museum. Aidan was a little nervous at first, but he quickly warmed up and we all enjoyed it very much. It's A LOT of walking though and we didn't even make it through the whole thing! But we learned a lot and had a great time as a family.