Ellie's first Thanksgiving

We celebrated Thanksgiving last Sunday and Ellie is a big fan of the holiday! Lots of food, lots of people -- what's not to love?! We enjoyed a big turkey dinner with Gigi, Grandpa, Meme, Wilda (Meme's mom), Auntie Jamie, Uncle Eric and Cousin Alex. And Ellie loved entertaining all of us. She tried turkey for the first time and it did not go well. She buried her chin, blew a raspberry, and spit it out. Of course, we all burst into laughter and from that moment on, Ellie pretty much blew raspberries after every bite (even after bites of food that she normally loves). This doesn't quite capture it, but you get the idea and you can see cutie-pie Alex hamming it up for the camera:

Our little butterball:

Unfortunately, we waited too long to take pictures (it was almost bedtime when we started and Miss Ellie was about out of smiles), but I'm so glad we got pictures of the cousins in my grandpa's old recliner because we have a bunch of similar pictures of Jamie and me in the same chair:

"Paparazzi, please!"

It's raining burning hot shards of glass

We're in Grand Junction now celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas early with Gigi, Grandpa and Meme. It's been wonderful to see everyone, but the celebration got off to a rough start yesterday during breakfast when a light bulb in the fixture over the kitchen table exploded, sending extremely hot pieces of glass everywhere. Everyone escaped harm except Ellie. A piece of glass landed on the inside of her forearm, instantly burning her. She now has two nasty burns -- both blistered. It's so sad to see her perfect, tender skin in such a sad state. But being the amazing baby that she is, Ellie has been smiley and just generally happy to be with everyone -- pretty amazing considering she has a cold, an ear infection and second degree burns. Damian and I certainly don't have to try very hard to think of what/who we're most thankful for this year!

31. Just as glamorous as I imagined.

So, it's official. I'm 31. I can't employ any fuzzy math to say that I'm in my 20's anymore. Jamie lovingly told me that you actually start rounding up to 40 at 31. Isn't that sweet?! So in addition to feeling old, I feel exhausted. I think it might have something to do with being up all night with a sick baby though. Miss Ellie went to bed healthy and woke up at 10:00 p.m. with a ton of congestion and an unwillingness to sleep alone. So, the three of us (Damian arrived yesterday) ushered in my big day while sharing a futon. I think Ellie actually got the most sleep as she was totally unconcerned about who she punched or kicked while dozing, and Damian and I probably ended up with a total of about 3 hours of sleep. This morning, Ellie seemed to be going downhill and spent most of the morning crying, so we took her to Children's Hospital Urgent Care. The good/bad news is that she has another ear infection, so it may make the drive over the passes unpleasant for everyone, but hopefully she'll feel better quickly once the antibiotics kick in. Poor girl! You know it's bad when she watched Baby Einstein...twice!

So this is actually the second year that I've spent a good portion of my birthday at an urgent care clinic. Last year, I was there, seven months pregnant, with bronchitis. Although I really love family traditions, I'm hoping that this is a tradition that we break next year! For now, I'm going to go read up on calcium supplements and water aerobics.

Besties

So after a rough start to the week, the girls are starting to enjoy each other. There are still the occasional meltdowns when a toy is stolen, a body part is touched or Ellie looks directly at Alex, but overall, they're doing well together. Alex is great at building towers for Ellie to knock down and she enjoys being a little helper. This morning, we asked Alex to "help" Ellie take some pictures in the shirts that Gaga and Papa got for the girls, and she did a fantastic job! She not only voluntarily touched Ellie (how cute is it that she has her arm around Ellie?!), but she didn't freak out at all when Ellie grabbed her eyes and mouth!

Look at the bravery!
Checking out the beads on Alex's shirt

I mean, seriously, how adorable are they?!

Ellie also made some big progress today! During the photo shoot, she stood up and tried walking towards me. I don't think she actually took any independent steps, but she definitely took a couple with just the tips of my fingers in her hands!

Bubbles are hee-larious!

This morning at breakfast, Jamie was blowing bubbles, which Alex was popping, and all of the sudden, Ellie broke out in a classic belly laugh. She thought it was hysterical when Alex popped them and said "pop, pop, pop!"

How quickly they change!

On Monday, we walked to the park and watched the girls play. Miss Alex learned all kinds of new skills on the playground. She learned how to climb up the ladder and go down the big slide all by herself! It was so scary watching her...I don't think Jamie or I took a breath the entire time.

I learned a new trick too! My back has been killing me because Ellie wants to walk everywhere, which means that I have to bend over and walk along with her. I figured out how to let her practice walking without me having to bend over -- very handy!
And here are some more cute pics. Alex did a great job of helping Ellie down the slide. She was even okay with Ellie touching her -- brave girl! ;-)

Adios Gaga and Papa

Gaga and Papa left for Cozumel on Sunday and we all already miss them! They'll be down there until April, which is a very long time to be without them. Luckily, Gaga is coming to Dallas for Ellie's first birthday and the Galyons are going down to Cozumel in late February -- now we just need to find some reasonable tickets so we can go visit too!

More family fun

Well, there isn't much to say except, "aren't these kids cute?!"

Alex helping Papa count M&M's on her plastic cookies:
Awh, Auntie Jamie!

I think one of the reasons that Ellie loves Papa so much is that he just seems to "get" her. Sometimes nothing hits the spot quite like a knuckle!

So proud of herself! Miss Ellie is now a pro with the push toy! She needs no help...except when she runs into a wall, chair, couch, TV, toy, etc., and needs someone to turn her around. I guess 'reverse' is the last gear to develop?
Finally I can identify something that Ellie definitely got from me instead of Damian -- she's nearly perfected the part eye roll, part raised eyebrow look!

Training for the 2020 Summer Olympics:

So, Uncle Eric, are you ready for another kiddo? Jamie and I left Eric in charge of the kids while we did some cleaning. Watching the two girls is a bit like herding cats and you have to be within arm's reach of Ellie at all times to make sure that she doesn't sneak a little treasure (a forgotten toy, a leaf, a sticker -- whatever she can get her hands on) into her mouth or touch Alex, but you simultaneously have to pay attention to whatever Alex is doing so she doesn't feel left out. It's exhausting. After watching them for about 15 minutes, Eric asked for clarification on our upcoming girls' night -- he wanted to make sure that one or both girls will be in bed before we go out. Can't blame him there. ;-)

Perhaps I should have told him how handy it is to stick Ellie in the sink when you need a little break.

No, seriously, it's the best one EVER!

On Saturday, we went back to the rec center and enjoyed their amazing pool. It is so awesome! It has a "lazy river" that you can float around (or in our case, chase each other around), two huge water slides, a toddler slide, a huge structure that the kids can play with and dump water on each other, a family hot tub, and regular hot tub. Both Ellie and Alex are serious water babies -- they just love being the pool and both of them went down the water slide -- Alex even went down the water slide that has a waterfall at the bottom (which dumps water on you).

Ellie's first ride on the waterslide

How lucky are these kids to have such a fun Gaga?!

Making our way around the lazy river
How funny is Alex's face?!

She sure does love her mommy!

The family...plus Abby. We met Little Abby in the lazy river and she adopted us for the rest of the day!

I wish Ellie could wear this hat everyday!

The best rec center ever!

On Friday, Gaga, Jamie, Alex and I had some "big girl" time during Ellie's morning nap (poor Alex is being asked to be patient beyond her 2.5 years by sharing all of her toys, her room, her mom, her Gaga, her Papa, etc. with Ellie, so we thought some extra Alex-attention might be a good thing). We went to the indoor play area at the rec center that is about 3 minutes from the house. It is SO cool! Everything is soft and/or padded and there's tons of stuff to climb on, swing on, slide on, jump on, etc. It was so fun watching Alex charging around -- she's such a big girl now! Here she is in the mouth of a bear:

And hitting the ground running (literally) at the bottom of the slides:

It's hard to tell who was having the most fun!

The tush says it all!

Bathtime gone bad

So the sweet little cousins took a bath together tonight. I was a little worried about it because Ellie's a mad woman in the bath -- she likes to crawl all over, stand up, lean over the side, hang off the faucet, etc., and Alex doesn't like Ellie touching her. I was surprised, however, at how well it was going -- Ellie pretty much stayed on her side of the tub and Alex was forgiving when Ellie touched her a couple of times. See how sweet they were:

Okay, so Alex looks like she's doing a little scheming here, but still sweet:

Cute, cute!

And here's the turning point. Ellie had pulled up on the side and cruised down to Alex's side of the tub. Alex was being a good sport and allowing the trespass....

...until Ellie plopped down right next to Alex! Alex had forgiven the occasional touch, but Ellie was now nearly sitting in Alex's lap and it was simply too much for a tired toddler to handle! Alex started crying (some would say 'screaming'), which set off Ellie who also started crying ('screaming' would also work here), which upset Alex even more so she turned up the volume, which upset/scared Ellie who also turned up the volume. The two of them sat there crying/screaming at each other (while Auntie Jamie, Gaga and I tried to stop laughing long enough to rescue them) and in the end, I'm not sure either of them remembered why they were so upset!

"If she's still there when I open my eyes, I am NOT going to be happy!"

"Seriously, what is wrong with you?"

"No, what's wrong with you?!"

Earlier, we noticed that Ellie is a lot more orange than Alex. Jamie said it's probably because Ellie eats so many orange veggies. So do you think Alex eats a lot of tomatoes?!