Well, that's one way to do it

Ellie is obsessed with bubbles right now. She LOVES them! Her bubble bath has a bubble wand, so we blow bubbles in the bath every night. Tonight, Ellie decided that she wanted to blow them herself. There was no blowing, of course, but lots of sucking on the bubble wand (yuck -- at least they're all natural). Towards the end of the bath, Ellie fell and scared herself. She burst into tears and I burst into laughter...as she was crying, a huge bubble came out of her mouth! I felt like a terrible mother for laughing, but it was hilarious! Sorry, Ellie. x

Ellie's latest stats

Ellie had her (belated) 15-month check-up today and she passed with flying colors. She's up to a whopping 27 pounds (now officially tied with her Cousin Alex who is 18 months older than she is) and she's 32.5 inches tall. She's now in only the 91st percentile for height and weight (essentially withering away to nothing, right?!), but still in the 97th percentile for her big noggin! We saw a new pediatrician (and really like him) and his first question for us was "uhm...so, what type of diet is sustaining such...uh...impressive growth?" I think he was basically asking "are you feeding her a bunch of junk food?" We assured him that she's filling up on good stuff...just lots of it.

Her big melon is apparently doing it's job because the doctor said that Ellie's language development is ahead of schedule -- she has the vocabulary of a 2 year old (she definitely doesn't get this from me -- it took me 5 minutes just to figure out how to convey that in a more-or-less-complete sentence!). It's so fun to have a little motor-mouth around the house...although I am acutely aware of the fact that she has started asking, "what is that?" really early. I seem to remember several moms of toddlers saying that they would pull out their hair if they heard "what is that?" one more time...I better start using thickening shampoo because I think I might hear it a lot and for a long time!

Happy Birthday, Auntie Jamie!

Wish we could be there to celebrate with you! We love you!

Baby Hirst 2.0

Last week, we had a level 2 sonogram to check BH2.0's heart and everything looks good! The doc is going to take one more look in a month, just to be safe, but he said that everything looks perfectly normal. Yea!


Although the doctor's bedside manner left a bit to be desired, the sonogram was great -- it was so nice to see our little one. We could even see the baby's lips -- amazing! Here is a picture of his/her cute little feet:

Ellie's first report card

Ellie got her first report card last week. The ladies at church sent home the "report card" saying Ellie is "extremely happy and sweet. A joy to watch!"

This week in words

Ellie is saying new words so frequently now that I thought that, instead of adding to the long list below, I would start a weekly post of new words she's said. Here is this week's list:

1. Row, row [her request for singing "row, row, row your boat"]
2. Bless you [I have to admit that it's hard to tell whether she's saying "bless you" or "achoo" -- but she says one or both anytime someone sneezes...if a dog sneezes, she's too busy laughing hysterically to say either]
3. Doodle
4. Duck
5. Quack
6. Maizy [she was saying "may-may" before, but now she actually says "Maizy"]
7. Night-night (nigh-nigh) [Ellie thinks this refers to her pacifier instead of the act of going night-night]
8. Pop [while popping bubbles]
9. Socks
10. Swing (ohwing)

Misc. stuff from the UK visit

Halfway through our visit, we moved over to Grandad and Grandma Sue's house. Unfortunately, Grandad was in Spain and Sue was only there for a few days before heading back to Spain, but Ellie loved spending time with her Grandma Sue before she left. Thank you so much for letting us stay with you, Grandma Sue!

I thought Ellie was the only kiddo in the world to not be obsessed, at some point, with turning on and off lights. I was wrong. It turns out that she's just not interested in boring "normal" light switches, but she loved the "light switch" in Grandma Sue's bathroom! It's one that you pull on (and it clicks) and pull again to turn off (and it clicks again). Ellie could have spent hours (or at least several consecutive minutes) pulling the light on and off, if only someone could hold her that long!
Here are some pictures of our girl checking out the sidewalk/pavement:

One night, when Auntie Georgina and Nana were visiting, I told Ellie that it was time to go to bed and she scampered over to the couch, cuddled up to Nana and then sat very, very still. She seemed to think that I wouldn't be able to see her (and take her to bed) when she was hidden so well!

We gave Ellie several treats while we were in the UK that we wouldn't have given her at home. One of her favorites was spoonfuls of cream -- now Gemma (Nana's cat) has competition for both her food and her cream!

There is a great park that is walking distance from Grandad and Grandma Sue's. Damian and Auntie Sarah took Ellie up there one afternoon and it sounds like they had tons of fun even though it was cold and raining.

Ellie loved the merry-go-round (called a 'roundabout' in the UK). When I took her up to the park later in the week, I kept thinking she must be getting dizzy, but when I would try to take her off of it, she would fuss and do the "again" sign until I started spinning her again.