A perfect day...

Back on Good Friday, Matt had the day off work and since the weather was nice we decided to plan a family day at the beach! We went back to do a hike that Matt and I done a few years ago at Cape Lookout about 15 minutes north of Pacific City. It's about a 5 mile hike out and back and it was the perfect day for it!

It is one of our goals to be an active family and do lots of hiking and other outdoor activities that get us moving! It's never too early to start! We just strap the babe on us and go!! Note to self: next time take more snacks though or just any at all! Thankfully the girl is still nursing :)

I'm not usually one to take scenery pictures but it was too gorgeous not to! Wow!! (and high!!)

The cutest hiking companions a girl could ask for!

We made it!! Not the best family pic but getting the 3 of us in one is kinda rare :)

My turn to carry her! Phew!! What a good work out!!

We celebrated our survival :) with the Pelican Brew Pub

and then it was time to hit the sand!

This was only the 2nd time Ellie had been to the beach

and it was quite different from the chilly November day before.

This time called for cute yellow sunhats and bare feet!!

Matt and I both LOVE this picture above.

It needs to be BIG somewhere in our house very soon!

and I love love love this one of my two favorites!

And a day like that ends perfectly with a nap for the whole drive home!

Mother's Day 2011

being Ellie's mama is my greatest honor!

i am incredibly blessed!

letters to my daughter: Month 14

Dear "Boogs",

Yes, that is the nickname of choice right now! Sorry girly :) Another month, another letter, and late as usual. I just need to accept it! I know you won't care one day when you read these that they were sometimes a little late!

I thought it would be fun to write about a typical day with you right now. It will be neat to do this from time to time and see how it changes. So here goes:

You wake up about 7:00-7:30.....sometimes a little earlier but as long as you aren't crying or really upset, I don't go into to your room and get you until at least 7:00. I am always greated by jumping up and down in your crib! It's super cute to see your excitement. We go straight to the couch to catch up with Matt & Meredith while you nurse for a little bit. When you finish you always sign to eat. I put you in your highchair and cut up 1/2 a banana for you to eat while I "cook" the rest of your breakfast, which currently is a Bob's Red Mill 10 grain hot cereal that the other half of the banana goes into. After breakfast it's a diaper change and then dressed for the day.

I usually leave the each nights dishes until the morning and I do these next while you play in the tupperware drawer or lug around your current "purse" (which could really be anything that has a handle or strap you can hook on your shoulder). You love to put things in and take them out of your "purse" over and over again. You also like to pull my apron down from where it hangs, carry shoes around the house, and check your high chair for crumbs to scavenge during this time!

Then we are either off to run an errand, meet up and play with a friend, go for a walk, or to story time at the library. Some days we just stay home and find new places to play in the house, recently it was the space between the closet and the bed in our room! Anything and anywhere can be fun with you girly!

By 9:30ish most days you are ready for a snack, sometimes a string cheese, sometime some raisins or a piece of mama's homemade bread. I've learned not to leave the house with out rations!

You always seem to be ready for lunch at about 11:15, I think I could even set my watch by you on that one. A little whining and I ask you if you wanna eat? and I always am answered with the eat sign and you walking to your highchair.

At 11:30 your Grandma Miller shows up to watch you. Somedays when I say "bye-bye" I get blown kisses, somedays I get tears and arms reaching for me! I know it's hard but have also found it's best if I just leave quickly and wave back to you when I am out the door. Your Grandma tells me you are always done crying by the time I start the car, so I know you're fine. Besides, I know you always have so much fun with your Grandma! You and I are both so blessed she takes care of you each day!

I know you play a lot while I am gone! I hear about your new tricks all the time! Most recently climbing up onto the shelf of the tv cabinet that holds your toys. I've seen it too and you are always soooo proud of yourself to be up in there. Your Grandma tells me you also are pretty consistently ready for your nap at 1:00. I am not sure how long you sleep to be honest and I think it varies from day to day.

Your dad gets home about 4:45 and spends some one on one time with you until I get there. Somedays when I get home you greet me at the door with a huge smiles and shrieks of delight! Let me tell you that is the best homecoming welcome ever! Other times, I walk in to find you playing next to your dad and just watch you for a second or two before you turn around and realize I am there, but when you do, I get the same response as if you were at the door! It is the best sweet girl!!

By then it's about 5:15 and you are ready for dinner! I put you in your chair and get you started with some food, while I make dinner for your dad and I. You eat most of your dinner while I am cooking ours since you are ready by that time. Sometimes you hang out in your highchair while I finish up cooking or sometimes you get out and play some more but when your dad and I sit down, we always put you back in your chair and pull you up to the table with us. You always want some of what we're eating as well. In fact, tonight you ate almost 1/2 of my dinner!

After dinner, we usually strip off some of your clothes or just let you run around in your diaper for a bit until it's time for jammies. By 6:45 or 7:00, we can tell your tired and it's time to get ready for bed. One of us will change you, double up your cloth diaper and put your jams on.

Then I get to do one of the most special parts of my day, a time when I just really feel like a mama, I soak it up. We plug in your night light, layout your soft fuzzy blanket in your crib that you like to lay on top of, turn on the white noise and I settle us in the chair in your room. You nurse and we rock. I rub your back, you stare into my eyes, and it is nothing but you and I in that moment. It's quiet and full of so much. Our nighttime routine only lasts about 10 minutes but I love every second of it. Once you are done nursing, you snuggle on my chest for just a minute and then I lift you into your crib. I lay you down and you always turn your head towards the wall and position you hand a certain way and I cover you with your baby blanket and my own baby blanket from when I was a baby too. It is the perfect ending to each of our days.

And there's just one last thing I do each and every night before I finally go to bed, which is creep back into your room, turn on your monitor, re-adjust your blankets if I can with out waking you!, and just get one last look of my sleeping Ellie girl. I love to watch you sleep. I love watching you awake and on the go too, but watching your child sleep peacefully is just one of the neatest things and greatest blessings. I can't wait to talk to you about it one day after your experience this as a mother for yourself.

Ellie, my days with you are amazing! Sometimes there're hard, sometimes there's tears but what outweighs all of that is the richness that they add to my life in every way. I am beyond blessed and so privledged to be your mother!

A little bit more about you at 14 months:

-You have been walking for about 1 months now! It is so much fun!

-As of today's discovery, you apparently have 10 teeth! I thought there were only 8 but we discovered 2 more coming through on top halfway back. They do look a little "fang-ish" and I am pretty sure you will need braces one day knowing both your dad and my dental history! We'll see :)

-Your hair is growing so much! Yes, you have a little bit of a mullet but I just can't cut it yet!

-Besides saying mama and dada and babbling ALL.DAY.LONG :) you also say Banana!! It is so cute, and I think we are considering this your official first word since mama and dada are kind of a given.

-You are back to hating bath time, we can't really figure that one out.

-You love to bring us books and sit in our lap and look at them, you don't really sit long enough for us to read them to you, but I also find you "reading" on your own quite a bit.

-You love to give kisses and are getting the hang of closed mouth kisses now though sometimes I still get a big wet one in the mornings :)

-Like I said before, you are all about anything that can be a purse as well as necklaces right now.

-Your personality just comes out more and more each day and it is sooo sweet. You can been serious too and are very observant of people in public and most of the time they have to work for your smiles, but when you give them they always love it and say how cute you are! duh! :)

Baby girl, I love you with all my heart! You are and will always be one of my most favorite favorite things! I love you Ellie June.

love,

mama

Sharing is Caring

one for me....

one for you!

I loved that I captured this! I didn't tell her to do it either.

I was just snapping pictures of her carrying around her baby doll

and she discovered the lid to a sippy and this was what she did next.

Such a good little mama taking care of her baby ;)

Finally a SUNNY day!!

Last week, we FINALLY had a beautiful spring day!

A couple of them actually!!

I knew it was time to put together this little slide

and take advantage of the gorgeous weather!

Ellie loves this thing :)

I am continually so thankful for all the great things people have shared with us,

this slide being another one on the long list of them.

She can't quite get up in the back her self

but with a little help from mama,

she does it and then slides down all on her own.

Melts my heart!

It was so bright that sunglasses were a must!

I was surprised she kept them on the entire time we were outside.

What a cutie :)

Notice the pursed lips in the below picture!

She does this everytime

she's really concentrating on doing something.

Kills me with cuteness everytime!

Cherry Blossom Tradition

Last year we took Ellie to the cherry blossoms!

And we decided then and there it would be an annual tradition.....

here's a reminder of what our girl looked like last year:

And just look at her now!

Walking for about a month and on the go, go, go!

Ah! Face plant! Thankfully in the soft grass!

No tears shed :)

(mama may have laughed a little, it was actually kind of cute!)

(the bruise is from a previous run-in

involving a very willing-to-share little friend

and a fire truck....a toy one!)

This girl has stolen my heart!

letters to my daughter: Month 13

Dear Ellie,

A few days ago your turned 13 months old! Looks like your mama is back to being a little bit late with your monthly letters! A part of me wondered if I should have let your 12 month letter be the last one for a little while and possibly make them yearly letters, but I can't not write to you. I actually hope to write to you more! More often than just waiting for your monthly "birthday". Why do I need it to be a certain date of the month to write to you, I need to just do it anytime I feel like it. So hopefully, that means you'll have even more of these to come sweet girl. They may also just get written in the journal I have for you instead. We'll see. Either way, you'll have them.

13 months!! This last month has been quite interesting and I will be honest here, actually more frustrating and mind boggling and mama guilt feeling than the ENTIRE first 12 months of you life!

Thankfully, after a hard few weeks, I am happy to say you are 100% back to that sweet, happy girl you had previously been. Unfortunately, it all seemed to start following your 1 year immunizations (cue more mama guilt!) After a lot of talking with a trusted mama friend, we are pretty sure that your shots threw off your digestion quite a bit and made you temporarily allergic to cows milk!

This was resulting in lots of diarrhea, massive blowouts, multiple daily and middle of the night entire bedding changes, not wanting to eat pretty much any solid food we offered and most importantly a sad, poor little babe that just wasn't herself. Seeing you not be yourself was what had me all over the place emotionally, especially when we didn't know why at first!

Another change in you was you wanted to nurse like a newborn (every 2-3 hours!) and I will be honest and say that was hard on me too! Knowing that I didn't really have the supply for that (which is why you continually asked-since you weren't getting full!) also struggling mentally on if it was the "right thing" since you were only nursing like twice a day in the month prior. I was torn! And because you had learned to sign for milk I wanted to give you what you were actually now asking for using your signs!

BUT, I can now happily say we made it through those tough weeks and figured out what worked best for us, what we needed to do for you and we are finding our groove again. Sometimes a parent just has to freak out a little bit :)

Don't worry Ellie babe, that is certainly NOT all that made up your 12th to 13th month of life! You are also signing for EAT and we are working on "more" and "please". You love to babble and especially love giving kisses!! I will never turn down that sloppy open mouthed love fest of sweetness you offer me every morning! It is the cutest thing ever! I catch you leaning in towards other kids so sweetly and I know it's because you want to offer them a kiss too! Makes me giggle every time.

You are walking consistently more and more, taking on further lengths every day! You make me a proud mama. We've been going to the library for story time the last few weeks on Wednesday and you are starting to get the hang of the silly song motions and adding in your own dance moves too.

You now have a couple of baby dolls that you like to snuggle up in a hug and also give them kisses. But I would say your current favorite toy is a play school "Little People" house that you like to put all the little people into and take out of and for some reason carry all the furniture that goes in it around the house with you. It's the perfect size to hold.

The days are getting nicer and spring is "officially here" and I truly can not wait for some warmer weather so we can spend even more time outside. Thanks to our trusty clear jogger cover we don't let the rain stop us from walks at least a few times a week, but it will be fun to go to parks and actually get out of the stroller! Also to get to let you walk around and explore. And of course, the photo opportunities are so much better than just another of the same shot in our living room or kitchen. I'm already pining away for taking you to the tulip fields soon!

Ellie, you have blessed my life in immeasurable ways! You bring so much joy in my life, so many chances to learn and become better, so many opportunities to love and grow. You are beautiful sweet daughter! I love you so much!

love, mama