Carrot Face

Ellie has become quite the good eater over the past week. She is loving her rice cereal and insists on "helping" me put the spoon in her mouth. Needless to say this is a very messy process and cereal ends up from Ellie's head to her toes. Yesterday I gave her carrots for the first time. She took the first few bites, made some funny faces and spit them out. So today I didn't have high hopes for feeding time. However, I am happy to say that she proved me wrong and ate them up. I was pleasantly surprised!

5 Months

Having fun with her feet

Ellie right before her first taste of Rice cereal

Sitting supported

Ellie is getting to be sucn a big girl! I feel like literally over the last few days Ellie has started doing a lot of new things. Here are a few right off the top of my head...

• She is sitting up supported now and is getting better at it by the day.


• It is so fun to be able to see her preferences for certain toys (a small Care Bear and certain teether) now when we are playing together.


• After a week or so of practice Ellie is actually swallowing her rice cereal instead of spitting it out. I also went ahead and gave her a sippy cup to start practicing with.


• She is constantly trying to grab EVERYTHING in her sight.


• She has begun to reach out for us some with her little arms...it melts my heart every time!

I took Ellie in today and she now weighs 13.2 pds. By my measurement she's over 24 inches as well. We are having fun enjoying this sweet time as a family. What a precious blessing we have in our little girl!

Ellie and Daddy

Ellie loves her daddy so much. Every day when Brad comes home she smiles so big. It is the sweetest thing ever! These days she loves for daddy to throw her up in the air..although it's not that high at all she smiles every time.

Fun at the Pool

Ellie and Sawyer ready for the pool

Toby ready for a swim

Yesterday a few friends came for a visit and a swim in our neighborhood pool. It was a perfect day to be outside and we had a fun time together. The kids enjoyed the pool, but little Sawyer was sleepy so he took a nap instead. It amazes me to see other babies sleeping in the middle of all that noise and activity. No matter how sleepy Ellie was she would never fall asleep around all those other kids! Thanks Shelly and Lori for a fun day!

Evidently Ellie doesn't like weddings

This past weekend we went to Brevard for Brad's cousin Jamie's wedding. We had a nice trip and a good visit with family. On the way to the wedding Saturday I made the mistake of commenting that I wasn't worried at all about how Ellie would do at the outdoor wedding. Boy was I wrong about that! Pretty much from the moment we got there she wasn't a happy camper. The best we can figure it was just a bad combination of being hot (the wedding was outside), tired, and having a lot of people in her face and all around her for that matter. We made it through the wedding with me standing under the reception tent but had to leave shortly thereafter. I didn't even get to partake in my favorite thing about weddings...the cake!

A haircut and lunch

Yesterday Ellie and I headed to Wake Forest for a much needed haircut (for me, not Ellie)! My friend Lori graciously came in on her day off just to cut my hair...Lori, you are "da bomb" ! While she worked her magic her husband, Craig watched Ellie and her son, Sawyer. I thought Ellie could keep herself entertained and she did right up until the very end. Once Craig picked her up and she could see the salon she was as happy as a clam. After my haircut we headed to lunch to meet Shelly, Ginny and their kiddos for some Mexican food. We had a great time together!

Craig, doing a great job with the babies

Ginny & Mallory, Shelly & Toby, Ellie & I, Lori & Sawyer

A few new pictures

Here's Ellie during tummy time last week. For some reason she has decided she doesn't like it as much as she used to.

Now that she loves playing in her exersaucer Brad and I can actually eat dinner without her in our arms.

She is sitting up pretty well in the Bumbo now. It's so much fun that she can actually play with her toys now.

Ellie continues to be a happy girl, although she definitely lets us know if she's not.

Here she is in her July 4th outfit. She is really loving her feet!

Here Ellie is in her shorts and shoes. She looks like such a big girl in them!

Sleepy Squirt

This is what happened when I took Ellie for a walk around the block after fighting her 3rd nap for 1 & 1/2 hours yesterday afternoon. I fought her as long as I could until she had to eat again. (Unfortunately it looks like Ellie has her mama's stubborn streak.) It's funny how she can protest for that long in her crib and then just pass out. This has been a trend the last week, especially at bedtime, screaming in protest because she doesn't want to go to sleep, even though she is indeed tired! It has not been fun at all. In fact, it has been downright stressful! She has always fussed a little bit at bedtime but not like this. We have been trying everything to little avail. The last few nights she has cried AT LEAST an hour! I guess we should have expected this to happen at some point with Ellie being such a curious little girl.
It's so hard to know the right way to handle this with her...so many people claim to have the answer but you never know what is best for your child. We have been praying/begging the Lord for wisdom in this. We hesitantly tried to do cry it out a few nights ago but we just couldn't follow through. She got so upset after crying for so long that she couldn't breathe through her nose and therefore couldn't soothe herself by sucking her thumb. I couldn't stand it and neither could Brad. Last night I tried the pick up/put down method and after 25 minutes she was sound asleep. But she had also been up since 1:30 in the afternoon after fighting her late afternoon nap. So more than likely she was just plain pooped! I guess we'll find out tonight.