Learning to share

What a very nice day! Ellie and I were both in a good mood because Damian is back from the UK -- Ellie couldn't stop smiling at him and Damian couldn't get over the fact that Ellie changed so much in just one week.

In addition to being happy that her favorite person is back in town, Ellie was excited to try a new food -- yogurt! The first few bites were met with quite a face (it basically said "what in the world is in my mouth? And why (WHY?) did you put it there?"), but she quickly decided that yogurt, like every other food she's tried, is delicious.

After spending the morning with Gaga while I went to a doctor's appointment, Ellie had a playdate with Jackson. It was so cute watching them share the toys and, of course, Ellie just loved watching Jackson. He's walking so well now and it just makes Ellie want to crawl even more.

Jackson grovels for forgiveness

I haven't addressed this touchy issue before now because Ellie has been so upset about it, but Ellie's boyfriend, Jackson, has been unfaithful (you can see photographic evidence at http://www.adamsfamily3.blogspot.com/ -- see the entry on August 19). We met Jackson and Hillary at the mall to work through this painful situation. Thankfully, Jackson has seen the error of his ways and he begged for Ellie's forgiveness, throwing himself at her feet (or in her lap, anyway):








Ellie decided that she loves Jackson just too much to be mad at him. Phew!


After the kids made up, we went to the play area in the mall. It has a bunch of soft "things" (can't think of a more eloquent or descriptive term) that the kids can crawl, run, and climb on. Ellie LOVED watching all of the action. She's just dying to join in the fun and she's really trying to crawl. Today, she learned how to get from a sitting position onto her tummy, so she's heading in the right direction. I think it helps that Gaga keeps crawling around on the floor while Ellie is playing -- Ellie watches so intently and you can just tell that she's thinking, "how do I get my arms and legs to do that?"
Here are a few other pictures from Gaga's visit:






Ellie's latest funny face. I think it's her reaction to the horrible blue curtains in the background







Ellie's favorite towel (from Auntie Emma)

Fun with Gaga

What a great day! Ellie is still feeling good and is fever-free. She had a peach with her oatmeal this morning and she thought it was quite delicious. And she thought she was in heaven when she got a big lunch (broccoli, carrots, and peas) in addition to breakfast and dinner (butternut squash, green beans, and avocado)-- she's definitely a fan of having three meals a day! But the best part of the day was not the food, it was playing with Gaga!


















She's finds that family members still make the best teething biscuits:












Working on her John Travolta-inspired dance moves:

Happy Birthday (yesterday), Jackson!

In all of the excitement of having a healthy kiddo yesterday, I forgot to wish our sweet, adorable, super-smart, funny, and charming godson, Jackson, a happy first birthday! It's nearly impossible to believe that a year has passed since he made his eventful entry into the world -- I can't wait to see what the coming year brings for him and his wonderful parents!

Gaga saves the day!

Gaga flew in last night and Ellie instantly started feeling better. In fact, she's been fever-free since bedtime last night. Woohoo! It's so wonderful to have my happy, smiling little girl back! And she is thrilled to have Gaga here to play with...and I'm thrilled to have the company and the help. Thanks, Gaga!

Another yucky day

Poor Ellie is still sick. She's still sick to her stomach, her fever is still around 102 degrees, and she's just generally unhappy. On top of everything else, she's either teething or her throat hurts -- she gnawed on her fist all day. :-( It was a pretty rotten 7-month birthday, really.

Yesterday, she just needed me to sit next to her; today, she needed to be in my lap or in my arms. So the silver lining for today is that I'm going to have sweet biceps from carrying her all day! This is pretty much as far as I got from her today:









Luckily, Gaga is on her way to offer some back-up! It will be so nice to have another set of hands and another pair of arms to love on Ellie and help keep her as comfortable and happy as possible!

Jet lag, and an ear ache, and a virus; oh my!

Well, Ellie and I made it home (unfortunately, Damian had to postpone his return because he hasn't been able to recruit a sales associate in the UK)! It took 24 hours from the time my head left the pillow in England to the time it hit the pillow in Dallas...and then my weary head left the pillow again 3 hours later when Ellie let me know we had slept-in until the luxurious hour of 9:00 a.m....UK-time! We've been home for 3 days now and we're both over the jet lag, for the most part. Now we're losing sleep because poor Ellie has an ear infection and a virus, complete with a high fever, a sore throat, and an upset tummy. ;-( The ONLY upside to this whole thing is that it's made Ellie slow down long enough to let me cuddle her more than usual...of course, as much as I love the cuddles, I would much rather have her feeling better!

A few pictures

I finally took some pictures of where we've been staying for the last couple of weeks. Here is Peter and Sue's house (the one with the white door):

And here is Emma's house (the one just to the left of the big tree):

Damian took some cute pictures of Ellie during dinner tonight:

Unfortunately, in the future, all of our pictures will have baby food smudges on them:

Does she like it?

Ellie got a chance to put her jumping instincts to work in Joseph's jumper and I think she liked it!

We didn't do a very good job of getting pictures of all three cousins together, but here are a couple that we took yesterday:

Oh the carnage!

The scene after a particularly grueling play session:

A moment to brag

I just have to brag on Ellie and Damian for a minute! Ellie is so much fun right now -- she's almost always happy (so funny to think that I used to worry that she was never going to be happy -- guess the first couple of months were just a bit tough for her), she makes us laugh all the time, she's doing awesome on solids and she's even starting to take longer naps! Although it doesn't happen all the time, she occasionally takes 60-90 minute naps -- yippee! And she hasn't met a food that she doesn't like; she's now eating oatmeal, avocado, peas, sweet potato, zucchini, carrots, plums, prunes, apples, parsnips, butternut squash, broccoli, green beans, and pears. Yesterday, I fork-mashed (instead of pureeing) her sweet potato and it was really lumpy -- Ellie didn't even seem to notice, just ate it up! And I'm so incredibly lucky to have such a wonderful husband who works so hard so I can stay home with Ellie and enjoy all of these fun stages -- thank you, Damian! x

Sweet Auntie Margaret

On Friday, we went to stay with Damian's sweet Auntie Margaret. It was so nice to meet her and she was a wonderful hostess! She lives in a gorgeous seaside village, which we explored during a couple of walks. This is the path that she walks down to get to the train (you can see the sea in the background):

This is the beautiful view on the other side of the train tracks (the tide is out):

Some very happy sheep by the seaside:

Ellie just adored Margaret! It's too bad that we were only able to stay for one night -- I think we all would have been happy to stay for much longer.

After leaving Auntie Margaret's we took the scenic route through the Lake District back to Pudsey. It was absolutely gorgeous!
We even had lunch in the garden at Beatrix Potter's house, which is now a tea room! They used the tea room in the movie Miss Potter.

With all of that driving around, Ellie really picked up on some useful skills. Here she is checking her blind spot:

Brrr!

It is chilly here! Granted, I'm a huge wimp about cold weather, but I wasn't prepared for temperatures in the 50's and 60's in August! Today, I decided that I was tired of just rotating the three warm outfits I have for Ellie and I put her in this trend-setting outfit:

So she was wearing a long-sleeve onesie, a sleeveless shirt, leggings, jeans, socks, a sun hat, and a woolly hat. Gorgeous...and so slimming!

After getting her all bundled up, we went to a little town called Otley. We had a picnic lunch (in the car) and then walked around the shops and the beautiful river that runs through the town.

After Otley, we went to Harrogate and visited Auntie Georgina and her crazy pup, Jack. Jack is just a little more active than Gracie and his antics kept Ellie quite entertained. We brought a rope toy for him and he had disassembled within 20 minutes! As crazy as he is, he's so careful not to run into anything or knock anything off of the coffee table -- pretty impressive. He's just a big sweetheart and he definitely made us miss Gracie!

Sand and curry

Today, we took Thomas to the Piece Hall. It's a collection of little shops in a beautiful old cloth market (built in 1779) surrounding a courtyard with a kids' play area. The weather was wonderful -- it didn't even rain the entire time we were outside! We brought a picnic lunch and Thomas played on the "beach," the world's largest sandbox (by my own estimation anyway). Ellie enjoyed watching Thomas and the other kids in the sandbox, but she did not, unfortunately, enjoy meeting Uncle Adrian (one of Granddad Peter's best friends). We can't be sure that it was Adrian and not the sand in her eyes, but she absolutely sobbed anytime she got near him. Could it be that she is starting to become wary of strangers? I hope not...at least not until after our transatlantic flight!

After the Piece Hall, we went over to Emma's for dinner. She made a fantastic green curry and Lesley made three desserts (I do love the attitude towards desserts here!), including homemade ice cream -- yum! I really need these women to teach me how to cook!

Helmsley Castle four years later

Yesterday, we went back to Helmsley Castle, the site of our first kiss! It was so much fun to see the castle and the surrounding village (in the daylight); and it was amazing to have Ellie with us, reminding us just how much has changed in four short years!

Unfortunately, the batteries in the camera died before we got pictures of everything, but we got plenty to document my delicious ice cream cone. ;-)


Here's our original route into the castle (we both think the wall was much higher four years ago!)





















The building where Damian made his big move:













The terrifying security guards that we thought we had run into that night







The village of Helmsley