Saturday, May 29, 2010

Happy Birthday Ellie!

It's so hard to believe that Ellie is TWO today!

It seems like just yesterday that we brought her home from the hospital and yet we also can't remember life without her. We finished Ellie's birthday party about an hour ago. She certainly got spoiled this year with presents- and attention!

Eating Hamburgers for lunch

Opening Presents

Ellie wishes that she got Grandma Sorenson's camera for her birthday. Cheese :)



The Cake & Eating it Too

Talking to Aunt Kristan while wearing the apron Grandma Reynolds made her and riding the "bike" Grandma & Grandpa Sorenson gave her.

It was fun to have everyone over to celebrate Ellie. She has changed our lives in so many ways. We are so glad she is a part of our family and we love laughing and growing with her. I'll post some stats and other things about Ellie later on this week hopefully, but here is how Ellie has grown in two years.

Ellie's very first "Birth" day


Ellie's First Birthday


Ellie's Second Birthday- Our Big Girl
We Love You Ellie! Happy Birthday!

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Ellie's Day at the Salon

Tuesday, I took Ellie to get her "2 Year-Old" pictures taken at JCPenney. I know it's a month early, but they were having some kinda celebration that day with discounts, etc. She did really well at the studio as compared to the last two times of me (and my mom last time) chasing her through the entire store. The photo shoot was fun, but I think getting her ready was more fun. I almost left her in her curlers to have her picture taken. Turns out her hair really did look better before I took them out. :) I gave her a bath, smothered her in lotion, slathered gel in her hair, then put the curlers in. She sat in the sink during the whole process. While we waited for them to dry, I trimmed her finger and toe nails and painted her toes. It was like a mini-salon!


This last picture is Ellie's first successful "poo-poo" in the potty taken April 13th. She's gone before, but it's always after she's done some in her diaper. Not this time though! Yay Ellie! Oh, and the cookies on the towel rack in the other picture are potty rewards. That is not where we store the cookies on a regular basis. :)

Going Postal Pays Off

Yesterday was my first payday! I started back with the post office at the Remote Encoding Center on the 10th of April. I am working four nights a week for six hours a night on top of teaching half time. Most of you may think that really stinks, but I'm trying not to complain. I had tried to figure what my first paycheck would be roughly and last night I was pleasantly surprised to find it was more! Yes, I have had to miss many things like birthday parties and the playoffs. It is hard, but I keep telling myself it's only temporary. We are saving money to finish the basement and pay off our debts. I am really hoping to only be there for about a year, but time will tell.

In other craziness, Ellie was sick all day yesterday. Thursday night, or rather very very early Friday morning, she woke up crying. I figured she would just go back to sleep so I let her cry and turned off the monitor. Normally, if it's bad, she would keep crying and get loud enough to wake us up all the way from her room. The kid has a great set of lungs. She ended up going back to sleep. In the morning, as I went to wake her up, I could smell the cause of her distress before even entering her room. I'll spare you some of the details, but basically she had "lost her cookies" all over in her crib. The bumper, two layers of sheets, pillow and case, two blankets, and two stuffed animals were all covered. She was sound asleep on her giant teddy bear. I gave her a bath and got her ready for daycare. She seemed happy as could be and had no fever or other symptoms so we thought it would be best to just bring her. She chugged a whole sippy of milk and I brought some cereal for her to munch on when she got to daycare.

I was already going to be late to school so I called and asked if someone could cover the crosswalk duty I had to do. I would still be there before the kids got into the classroom though. When we got to daycare, I was hanging up her things and she spewed up all of her milk on their carpet. She also drenched every bit of clothing she had on plus her winter coat that I hadn't hung up yet. So there we were in West Jordan with school starting in five minutes and nowhere to take Ellie. I did the only thing I could think of doing- took her to school with me. On the way, I called Weston and he ended up getting Grandma to watch her for the day. She stayed with me in my classroom for about an hour drawing on the white board and playing in the sink. I would've taken the day off and arranged for a sub, but it just so happens that it was Pet Show & Tell that afternoon in my classroom. I didn't dare leave that up to a sub and I couldn't have them call and tell their parents it was canceled. We are so thankful Mary Kaye could come pick her up and take her all day. Later that night, Ellie hurled again so today we are taking it easy. Hopefully it's just a 24 hour bug of sorts. So far so good.