Sunday, May 29, 2011

Happy 6th Birthday, Rance!

Ellie’s cousin Rance turned 6 on May 16th! I didn’t even take a picture of the Birthday Boy :( Well I did, but I guess the lighting in the shed was bad . . . . because a lot of the pictures I took didn’t turn out! . . . . . so I stole this from his sister, Randis’s Facebook page. :)


rance2
Isn’t he cute?! This was taken for May Day this year. :)

CIMG7099
Auntie M with Ellie
CIMG7100
She loves parties!

CIMG7102

CIMG7111
Ellie got fussy, so leave it to Grandma Ronda to calm her down. :) Cousin Tyler looked on. (Probably thinking this kid is nuts!)

CIMG7117
Uncle Matt and Beans

CIMG7119
Gracie and Ellie

The kids had so much fun. Rance had a bounce house and a pinata at his party – plus lots of presents! I can’t believe that it won’t be long until Ellie is running around playing with them. :)

Ellie’s 1st Baseball Game

Ellie attended her Uncle Jesse’s first baseball game recently :)

CIMG7076 She looked pretty stylin’ if you ask me . . . .

CIMG7072 Onesie complete with wings . . . . a gift from – you guessed it – Auntie Claire!

IMG_0382
Here’s a picture of him batting . . . . but Jesse pitched that night and did AMAZING!

CIMG7075She was so intrigued!

CIMG7077  Ellie met Mama Yaya for the first time . . . a town legend, Leatha Hicks.
Leatha’s house burnt down the following weekend. She has been in our prayers ever since. We love Leatha so much. Driving home on Hwy 89 won’t be the same until she is back on a porch, waving at drivers as they go by.

CIMG7078   CIMG7080
Papa held Kobe throughout the game!

CIMG7086 It got cold . . . can you say wardrobe change?

CIMG7089 Jesse’s team won 12-0 (or something like that!) Good game Uncle Jess! We love you!

Summer Days are the Best Days


…………………..enough said.

IMG_0458

 IMG_0459

IMG_0460

5 Months

Dear Luella Claire,

Each day that you grow older, you amaze me more and more. You are getting cuter and cuter as time goes by. Your personality is budding – and cracking everyone around you up, I might add.

CIMG7141

You love to scream (happily), giggle, laugh, and make other sounds with your mouth. You have chuckled a little bit before, but this month was the first time you have ever really let loose and crack up. We were at Granny Linda’s and your Daddy came in with Kobe. You could not take your eyes off of him and you were screaming as loud as you could and cackling uncontrollably. You were going crazy for about a good fifteen minutes! Luckily, we got it on video. :)



You still love your bath time. You get so ecstatic as soon as you hit the water. You just splash and splash. These days, if you get wetter than your Momma while you’re in the tub, it is a successful scrub session.

CIMG7148

You’re so photogenic. I swear you know exactly what the camera is, and you know that you are supposed to ham it up in front of it. You know that your readers and fans LOVE Ellie pictures. ;)

CIMG7149

You have ate real food for the first time this month. You tried some of Papa’s mashed potatoes . . . and let me tell you, you LOVED them. I couldn’t get you to stop, you kept darting at the spoon! I love it when you smack the food in your mouth – attempting to “chew” it up. It was kind of a relief, actually. I have been trying to feed you baby food for so long. You always just spit it right out . . . I was beginning to think that you didn’t know how to handle the spoon in your mouth. But now I know, you just hated what was on the spoon; because you had no problem at all eating the mashed taters’.

CIMG7156

You went to your first baseball game this month. We had so much fun! Can’t wait to go to the many to come this summer . . . . Hopefully we can go to a Cardinals game, too sometime! The weather is getting warmer and you love it, because you like to go barefoot. You sure don’t like wearing socks – which is fine with me when it’s warm enough . . . but I worry about your little piggies getting cold! It’s pretty good timing, too – because you’re getting pretty good at pulling your socks off!

CIMG7157

I love you Ellie Beans. Looking forward to our first summer together. :)

Love,
Your Momma

Monday, May 9, 2011

I Scream, You Scream . . .

Ellie screams for ice cream! Okay, not really. She doesn’t scream for much of anything; we’ve got a pretty good baby on our hands. I do love this outfit though . . . . especially when she twirls the “ice cream” with her little finger. :)

CIMG7067

CIMG7069 There’s that tongue . . . If it wasn’t so cute, I’d be worried.

Happy Mommy’s Day!

I couldn’t have asked for a better 1st Mother’s Day . . . .

momandels I spent it with this little lady. :)

CIMG7004 We spent more time with my best friend, Luella CLAIRE’s namesake ;) We had to wish her good luck on finals!

reesyandjdub Pictures like these remind me of the high school days. :)

Then we went out to my Mom and Dad’s to spend some time with Nana. I am so thankful for my Mom - - - she has really taught me so much over the years, especially how to be a good Mommy.

CIMG7049 Ellie’s Poppy BBQ’d . . . . it was awesome as usual.

Picnik collage9 Poppy BBQ’d and watched Elle-Beans while Mollie, Jesse, Jesse, and I played wiffle ball – one of our favorite summer activities.

CIMG7045 Such a perfect day . . . . I love this little lady!

Friday, May 6, 2011

“Is that right, Grandpa Denny?”

Lu looks like she is paying some close attention to her Grandpa Denny. She’s really soaking everything in these days. I think we might have one smart little cookie on our hands. :)

IMG_0366

There Are No Words . . .


IMG_0300
to describe how cute this is . . . .

Oopsies!

Okay, sooo . . . .  I don’t know if anyone noticed Ellie’s little pointer fingernail in her four month post. (you might have to sneak back and peek) It was cut; healing . . . but cut – BAD initially. I cut Ellie’s fingernails with the mini clippers. Well, last time I cut them, she jerked really hard and I cut a lot of her finger. It was awful. She cried. Boy, oh boy did she cry - - - I never thought it would end. I cried. Jimmy yelled. He was not happy with me. It bled and bled and bled. I never thought it would end. I even put little band aids on her finger until it was almost completely healed . . . .

Well – I promised I would never do it again. To ensure that I kept that promise, I bought this off of Amazon. It is a fingernail buffer. It takes a little longer to do, but works like a charm and I LOVE IT. Best $25 bucks ever spent. :)

IMG_0361

I Love These

I got a new app on my iPhone that automatically edits my pictures when I take them. These crack me up – edited or not, they’re adorable :)

IMG_0340

IMG_0334

IMG_0348

Fish Out of Water

Isn’t this the cutest little fish you have ever seen?!

IMG_0307 I bought this cute little fish towel for Ellie at (you guessed it) Gymboree. :)

IMG_0306 This picture in particular received 37 “likes” on Facebook and several comments. She’s pretty popular! ;)

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Auntie M’s Junior Prom

Ellie’s Auntie went to prom this weekend with her boyfriend, Jesse Maples (‘Auntie’ Claire’s brother – don’t worry, no relation) ;) Ellie and I spent the day with her – going to get her hair done, watching her do her make-up, putting her dress on, etc. She really looked beautiful. It made me miss prom, myself. I loved getting all fancied up and dancing the night away. Too much fun! :) I can’t wait to help Ellie get ready for her prom!

CIMG6952 Granny helping Auntie M with her earrings.

CIMG6954 Uncle Jesse and El Beans

CIMG6964 Jesse, Mollie, Lu, and Camryn

CIMG6971

moljes They’re too precious.

Happy Easter!

I wasn’t my usual self Easter Sunday – I didn’t take hardly any pictures at all! :( The ones I got were pretty good, though. I just wish I would have got some more of Ellie in her first Easter dress. These will do, I suppose. :)

CIMG6882


CIMG6884

Okay, so these bunny ears are TOO cute. :)

CIMG6873 Someone’s spoiled!

CIMG6897

Our Easter was nice, but we had to do lots of running to spend time with everyone in our family.

CIMG6901 The Vogt Grandkiddos

CIMG6912 Ellie with her Nana.

Special Visit

Soaking up all the time we can before this girl leaves for Italy for the summer. Her last day at Gymboree was Saturday :( I know Ellie will miss it – but I’m sure it will save Auntie Claire lots of money - - - and probably me, too. I can’t tell you how many times I was urged to look at the new lines, and I’m such a sucker . . . . Ellie “had” to have lots of it! ;)

CIMG6920 These “gymmies” are from Gymboree, too! Love the donuts! :)

CIMG6922

4 Months

 

Little Lu,

I’m sorry your letter is a bit late, things have been hectic this month and so busy – I wish I would have made time to post it earlier, but nevertheless, it is here.

You, yourself have had quite the busy month. You got sick again, and gave us quite the scare! We took you to the hospital to have some x-rays done on your chest to make sure that you didn’t have pneumonia. Well, you didn’t have pneumonia but they were concerned by the size of your heart shown in the x-ray. They followed up with an EKG and echo test. Mommy and Daddy were so worried. I personally have never been so scared in my life. Talk about STRESS! After the tests, we went home to wait for the results the next day. I knew I had a sleepless night ahead of me, but thankfully, your doctor (a.k.a. the sweetest lady ever) called me that evening to say the results came back okay and the original x-ray was just a fluke. Shewww!

CIMG6924

You’re eating food (cereal and baby food) pretty frequently now. You are not a fan, either. You gag frequently and repeatedly spit the stuff out. After about fifteen minutes you become completely fed up with Momma and start throwing a screaming fit; this is usually where I give in and pop the bottle in your mouth. Speaking of bottle, I cannot keep up with your appetite. You eat and eat and eat, and since all I do is pump, it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep milk in the fridge/freezer. I have tried switching to formula and mixing it with your milk – but you’re too smart for that. You throw the BIGGEST fit ever. Almost worst than when you get a shot. It’s a total freak out. I guess I would, too if I had to drink that nasty stuff.

 CIMG69302

I can’t imagine that some day you would want to know what I’m about to tell you, but I’m going to tell you anyway since it made such an impact on our lives this month. You became extremely constipated. It was BAD. We figured it was due to a few pain pills I took after I had a root canal. The longest you went was five days. Talk about worried. Your Poppy called me everyday to see if you had “gone” yet. We couldn’t get you to drink apple juice, either. After days of trying, you finally took some majorly diluted apple juice, and it wasn’t long before the problem was solved. You felt much better. Now you have at least one bottle of diluted apple juice a day. :)

CIMG6932 
You are playing more and more each day; really gaining control of your hands. Your little arms and legs are constantly moving so quickly. You’re jabbering all the time, too. It’s almost like you’re trying to talk to us. Another thing you have picked up is sticking out your tongue. It really cracks me up because there’s rarely a moment in the day where it is actually in your mouth! You’re just too cute.

CIMG6937 I love you so, so much, Luella Claire. You bring so much joy to each and every day for me.

Love Always,
Your Momma