Ellie's Party

Saturday night we celebrated Ellie's first birthday. I know it is about a week and a half early, but I wanted to do something around Halloween. I could not have asked for anything better. The weather was perfect, the turnout was great, and Ellie had an awesome time. She was a little fussy in the beginning because she refused to take a nap, and she finally fell asleep about a hour before everyone started to arrive. But she quickly came around.

We wanted to have something that everyone who has shared in the first year of Ellie's life could be a part of. We did not anticipate in the beginning that the guest list would be near 50. But is all turned out very good, and Ellie got a lot of great gifts. Thanks to all who has shared in her life and those who shared her special evening. We would also like to thank everyone for the gifts. She loves each and every thing she got.

Two Papaw's and GrandmaMiss Daisy--MarandaNurse Amy drove all the way from IndyDavy, Uncle Scott and Aunt Lissa

Uncle Mel and Aunt Donna
Great Granny

Paul, Joan, and DanielleMemaw, Papaw, and Nick (dad seriously had that face in all 3 pics I took)Meg and Josh (and Baby Emily in her Mommy's belly)Aunt Shannon and Indiana Jones Tyler

Aunt "kitty" Sue, Uncle "hunter" Shawn, and Indian ShelbyDennis and NetteDennis, Billie, and AmandaGina and Irvin

Aunt Trish the kittyMe and two of my BFFs Laura and AmyMy BFF Laura and one of her girls EmmySue and her beautiful kids: Rhett, Blair, and MicahMommy (Sarah Palin) and Daddy (Joe the Plumber)

Ellie really wasn't into the idea of cake

Shelby and Chloe were partied out

Sorry for the long post, but I am turning this into a book and a slide show would not convert. Thanks again to everyone who made Ellie's party a huge success.

Yard Sale Again

We have really been finding good deals at yard sales this fall. Susan went to one a couple of weeks ago and got Ellie a lot of cute clothes (thanks again Sue). Also she picked up this toy. Here is Ellie playing with it for the first time.

I think she likes it

Halloween

Ellie had a great first Halloween. The weather was gorgeous and we got to enjoy being outside. We started the night Trick or Treating on the square. The lines were crazy long, so we just went around to the people we knew. Next we headed to Nanny's. After spending some time with "great-granny" we headed by to Ctown so Ellie could see Mama and Papa Jenkins. Man what a long night.

The little Butterfly princess

Ellie and Aunt Sue

Ellie enjoying Nanny's treats

Happy Anniversary

Today is Bob and my sixth anniversary. He is truely the love of my life and he makes me so happy. We have such a great life and a very beautiful baby. Today was a perfect ending to a perfect weekend. I was on Fall Break and Bob took Thursday and Friday off as well. The three of us spend the entire time together. It was very nice. We topped it off with a day of Breakfast, Church, and nothing. When you have such busy lives a day of nothing is priceless.

Less than a week

...Until Ellie's Halloween Party.

The awesome pumpkin Bob carved

Into everything

I was cleaning the kitchen the other day and Ellie got real quiet. Here is

what I found when I went in search of her.

These are a few of my favorite things...

Ellie is really starting to get her own personality. There are a few things that she really enjoys.

1.) Books. She loves any kind of books. She prefers ones that she can bend and rip the pages. But she will sit in the middle of her books and "read" for a long time. She is so cute. Yesterday, Susan gave Ellie a lot of Shelby's old books. So today we were sorting them out and here is Ellie in the middle helping.



2.) Outside. She loves to be outside playing. Today Bob was cutting up wood and collecting brush for her birthday party. We came down to supervise and take a few pictures.

She is not a fan of the grass, but here she seems happy

She loves her Chloe

Yah, its finally Fall

I am so excited that the weather has finally started to change. I love hot weather, but Fall is by far my favorite season. Not to hot, and definately not too cold. Yesterday I went to my annual pumpkin picking trip Huber's. Normally it is Bob and I, but this year I decided to spare him. He hate going up there (for some reason I don't understand). But this was Ellie first season so I really wanted to take her. So I picked up Shelby and Bob's cousin Jerry's girlfriend Jeanie and we headed to Huber's. Boy was it packed. There were people everywhere. We got carry out (because the wait to get into the restaurant was booked until 7:30) and had a nice picnic by the lake.

Then we loaded up on the trailer and enjoyed the hayride (minus the hay ha) ;) Ellie had such a great time. She picked out her own pumpkin. Since I took her to pick it out Daddy is going to help her carve it.

Also, Ellie's new word is uh-oh. too cute.

Shew! What a weekend!

This month has been so busy, hint the lack of posts. But this weekend has by far been the busy one in a while. We started off the weekend on Friday with a trip to Harvest Homecoming. This is my favorite festival (even though Bob's swears every year that he is never going back). There was so many people there. Ellie was not feeling it, and she was giving everyone dirty looks when they talked to her. We finished up the night with a dinner at Applebees. This was an interesting meal. As we were waiting for our food I turned to get something out of Ellie's bag--when I turned back around my hand came in contact with my water at a high rate of speed. The water went straight for Ellie. Her face was priceless. It went from happy to extremely angry instantly. Ellie was soaked, I was soaked, and it took her about 10 minutes and bribs to sit back in the high chair. Needless to say, when we got home Bob and I could not quit laughing; Ellie not so much.

Saturday started with the Susan G Koman Breast Cancer Wall. My Aunt is a survivor and we all wanted to walk with her.

Me and Nette

The nieces and nephew with Nette

Our entire group (all 13 of us)

After the walk we had a great lunch as a family. Then I picked up Ellie and headed to a jewerly party at Meg's house. Then after a nice party we headed home. Tricia invited us to stop by her house. Johnny was having a few friends over, and Trisha wanted to show Ellie her birthday gift a little early.
Sunday was busy as well. After an afternoon full of events. Bob and I took Ellie to the zoo for the Halloween party there. It was a gorgeous night and Ellie could wear her costume and not any other layers of clothing. She really enjoyed watching all of the people in costumes. I can not wait until Halloween and her party.

Where is my Baby girl?

I have not really updated recently about Ellie and how quickly she is growing up. Once Ellie hit ten months, it is like her personality just blossomed. She has also had her own way about things, but now she is really coming into her own. Here are a few things she has started to do.

*She loves to watch Bob and I am mimic what we do (that could be good or bad). But Bob is always tinkering on something. A couple of weeks ago Bob order Ellie a toy box to hold her growing pile of toys in the middle of the living room floor. So while we were putting it together she was "working" on her project.

* The picture also tells another Ellie bit. She would rather just only have her diaper on. Clothes just get in her way while she is trying to crawl around at high rates of speed.

* She has been crawling for several months now, but she is just a small amount of confidence away from walking (and watch out when she does). She can stand on her own for seconds. And the other day she was distracted by something on TV and stood for 30 seconds plus before she realized what she was doing. She can take one step but is too scared to move the other foot. But she is so close. She will push her baby carriage from one end of the house to the other.

* We still get stopped wherever we are at least once for someone to tell us how beautiful or well behaved Ellie is. I don't think I have told this story yet, but a few weeks ago we were at King Fish and this lady approached us as she was leaving, she introduced her self a Reverend ?. She said that it was a pleasure sitting at the next table to such a happy, pleasant baby. She also said that she was so beautiful and well behaved. We just smiled and said thank you. Bob's cousin and his girlfriend were with us and they looked kinds ackward. They asked us it that happened much, Bob and I looked at each other and laughed--because it happens all the time.

* "This little light of mine, I'm going let it shine" Ellie loves this song and it is so cute when she holds her little finger up. I have not been able to catch her in the act with a picture.

* Books, books, and more books. Ellie loves for me to read her. She has a basket full of books. She will often start pulling them out and "reading" then to herself. It is so sweet.

* She not only loves to read, but she also loves to sing, especially in church. She will start at a sweet little hum with the music, then she gets louder, and louder, until she starts drawing attention to her singing. :)

* She also likes to help me with dinner. See below, enough said.

* Lastly, she has attitude. She is so independent, and strong willed it is amazing that she is only ten months old. She has now started to swat or push us away when she wants us to leave her alone. It is going to be a long 18 years I can already see.

Well I think that is enough info for now. More to come later.

Whew, what a week

This has been such a busy week. I felt like I have been playing catch up all week. I guess that is what I could expect for taking a week vacation in September ;) Anyway, I made it through and all is well.

This weekend was nice. Yesterday, Ellie and I along with Janet and Shelby went to the Northside International Festival. It was a really nice event. Northside's mission groups put on the display. There was representation from many different countries.

Shelby feeding the goat.

Ellie wanted to feed the goat too.

Today we got up early, went to church, and I have been working around the house ever since (minus a hour and half trip to the new Kohls and Meijer). I got a lot of cleaning done, and Bob has started to grade the yard in preparation for Ellie's party.

Ellie shares Daddy's passion for "big" toys

Early in the day she was helping me mow grass.

Yard Sale/Auction

I do not go to yard sales very often. It is not that I don't like to, it is just that I value my extra sleep. But Susan called me last night and told me that several subdivisions in Sellersburg we having their neighborhood sales, so we decided to check them out. We were quite disappointed. There were hardly any homes that had baby clothes. But I did find a few cute outfits at one of the last house before we finished up.Then after yard saleing we went to an auction nearby. The main items that we were going for we the Longaberger baskets. The advertisement said that there was over 160 of them. There was a lot of people there to bid on the baskets, so they were going pretty high. But I did manage to get a few that I wanted.

Day 5- still no power

Friday was again such a disappointment. I woke up still without power. Ellie I am spent a boring morning doing nothing, then we went for a visit with my friend Laura and her girls.

We got back will a lot of time to kill in the warm, powerless house. So we do what we both do best--took a nap.

Bob got home around 6:00 and about 7:00 (still no power) we left for the Ctown Football game. We had a pretty good time at the game, even though Ctown did not do so well. We had already made plans for Ellie to spend the night with Mom and Dad because she was starting to get a stuffy nose and had been sneezing all day. I knew the lack of air and the humidifier was really starting to effect her (Bob and myself included).

We returned home around 10:00 and to our shock we had power. YAH finally. We decided to leave Ellie at Mom's because Bob needed rest and I was leaving bright and early to hit the yard sales.