Crazy Stuff

We had a great/crazy time taking family photos with our very talented photographer friend Becky yesterday.

I swear, taking photos with young kids is an adventure. Elliana was running around and refusing to cooperate over half of the time, and we all know how well babies can smile/ look at the camera on command. Ha! I left the photo session just certain that we weren't going to get any pictures of the kids looking in the right place or smiling.

However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was wrong. :) I don't know how Becky does it, because after seeing just a few "sneak peeks", I instantly fell in love with the photos. Way to go Becky!

Want to hear a crazy coincidence? My sister Jenn blogged about the fact that without meaning to, her family had their photos taken one year apart on the exact same day. That made me go and look in our archives to see when we had our pictures taken last year. Although it wasn't a year apart to the day, it was close. Just 4 days apart. Crazy, huh?

So without further ado, I give you just a few of my favorites.



I'm overwhelmed by the cuteness in these two pictures.



The loves of my life. I can't imagine my life without them.



And just for fun, here is a picture of our family last year, and a picture of our family this year. I can't remember life before Ethan.





I can hardly wait to see the rest! Becky, I hope you know how much your talent blesses others. Thank you!

Ellie Funnies 2

I was recently sharing these stories with my family when they reminded me "You HAVE to get these on fb or the blog!"

They were right. I don't document the things Ellie says nearly often enough. I hope you enjoy these stories as much as I did. :)

Our Ellie is such a climber. If we let her, she would climb up anything and everything. One day she was trying to climb up our very large, very unstable dresser. I instantly scolded her and told her never to climb that dresser again. Of course, she asked me why she couldn't. So I explained to her that it could fall on her, probably hurt her badly and she could possibly even die (I know this sounds awful, but sometimes we have to put some healthy fear into this girl so she understands danger). I guess she understood because now when she wants to climb something she turns to me and asks "Mommy, will this die on me?"

Yesterday Ellie and I were talking in the car. It was going to be a long car ride. Ellie was being very inquisitive and was asking me question after question and following each one up with "why?" Typically when we go round and round with her we're able to end the conversation with "because God made it that way." But yesterday she wouldn't have it. Her response to that answer was "No Mommy! Tell me WHY?!" Well, I was running out of answers and the conversation was just going in circles again so I said "How about we put on a movie." And I did just that. A few minutes later from behind me I heard "Mommy, why are we watching a movie?" I replied with "Oh, I just thought you wanted to watch one." Then she replied with "Are we watching a movie because I was asking too many questions?"

I know there's more but I just can't think of them right now. I wish I had a crazy picture of Ellie to put on here but I don't. Good thing we get to take family pictures with the very talented Becky next week. :) SO looking forward to it!

Ethan at 6 Months

I simply can not believe our Ethan is already half way through his first year of life! Where is the time going?!



I'm a week and a half late posting his 6 month update, but we've been busy. Ha!

We had his 6 month well child check Wednesday afternoon and I'm pretty sure he is going to take after his daddy's build. He gained 1.7 pounds since his 4 month check up, but grew almost FOUR inches! Yep, I think he's going to end up long and lean. :)

Ethan, this is what you were like at 6 months of age:

~You weigh 13 pounds, 11 ounces and are in the 1st percentile for weight. You are 26 inches long and are now in the 28th percentile for height. You are officially the tallest baby on mommy's side of the family. I have no doubt you will keep getting taller and taller.

~You are still wearing size 2 diapers.

~You still wear some 3-6 months in clothing but you are beginning to wear a lot of 6-9 month clothes.

~You are still taking a bottle every 3-4 hours. You aren't nursing much anymore. You will typically nurse once or twice a day now. :(

~We tried solid foods for the first time a few weeks ago. You're still getting the hang of it and you push it out of your mouth a lot. I'm sure once you get this down, you will love to eat!

~Over the last month you have become a great sleeper for the most part. Most nights you sleep in your crib 6-8 hours! There's always a few exceptions, but "bad nights" are happening less and less often.



~You are taking either two 2 hour naps, or one long 3-4 hour nap during the day. You like your sleep! When you are a tired baby, it really changes your mood.

~You are teething like CRAZY! You are constantly drooling and chewing on your fingers and hands. Unfortunately, in the last few days, you've acted like you're in pain. I keep looking for teeth but I don't see any yet.



~For the most part, you are a very happy baby. If you are well fed and well rested, you love to smile, laugh and giggle. You still make lots of serious faces too.





~You can now roll from your back to stomach and stomach to back. Since you aren't crawling yet, you have decided that this is how you're happy to get around for now. We will leave you in one spot on the floor and come back to find you have rolled across the room!

~You are sitting up more and more with support. We like to use the Boppy pillow to support you.



~You are becoming more and more content to be on the floor and play.

~You are so curious about your world now. You love to reach, grab and play with anything.

~One of your favorite places to be is your exersaucer. You hardly ever go in the swing or bouncy seat anymore.



~Your relationship with your sister has really taken off this month. Nobody makes you laugh or smile like she does. You have even started "wrestling" a little (she mostly gets on top of you and wrestles you). You love it though and you always giggle when she does this.

~Nicknames: Mister, Little Man, Sweet Boy, Handsome and sometimes EJ.

~You are not as content to sit and cuddle as you once were. I can tell by the way you look around that you can't wait to be mobile and explore the world around you. I guess you're too busy to cuddle. I'll take what I can get though.



~Ethan we love you more than words can say. We are so thankful for you and are enjoying watching you grow and change. We can't wait to see what God has in store for you!

Wordless Wednesday

Just Catching Up

First of all, a big thanks to my sister Jenn for designing another beautiful design for me! I LOVE it!! I especially love the leaves and the colors. I've mentioned many times before how much I love fall and this new design just makes me feel all happy inside. It makes me want to go and drink a pumpkin spice latte, eat some pumpkin bread, play in the leaves with my kids, carve a pumpkin, and watch some football with my hubby. :)

The weather around here has been gorgeous and I've loved seeing all of the leaves change colors. Ellie has been begging to help me decorate for Fall and we are going to do just that this afternoon after she wakes up from her nap. :)

What I really want to post about is my baby boy turning 6 MONTHS OLD this past week. I can't believe how fast that went! I'm waiting until we have his 6 month check up before I post an update about all of his milestones and what he's like at 6 months. I want to know what he weighs and where he's at size wise.





In the meantime, I've been watching some old home videos and thought it's been way too long since I've put some of those videos on here. So I did just that. I think these videos give a really good look into our day to day lives and you can see the family/ relationship dynamics too. Our Ellie just cracks us up. Enjoy!