Ellie in her traditional garb

This headdress is from Ellie's home country. The red-and-white pattern is reminiscent of her people's traditions of shoveling snow and eating copious quantities of tomato sauce. The square shape helps the hat double as a box for storing the family's goods, which is a very useful feature in her nomadic society. 

More on the floor

Here's another of her on the floor.

Not much else to say, I guess, but "boy is she pretty." Go ahead, say it. It's OK, say it.

There. Don't you feel better? 

El-met part ii

Again, a pretty lousy picture. Trust me, she's fine with it once it's on.

It is way larger than her head, so it looks awfully clumsy, but it's just styrofoam so it's extremely light.

Being the good parents we are, we're setting an example by wearing helmets ourselves on bikes now. 

El-met

Here's Ellie in her Giro ME2 helmet. It's hard to find helmets for kids as small as Ellie - I don't think too many manufacturers or distributors want the liability. But we got the smallest one we could find, and it's pretty adjustable.

I didn't get a great pic of her - she's really not that unhappy once it's on. 

Ellie on the floor

Here's proof of her on all fours. Proof of her cute Crayola shoes, too. 

Physical development update

Besides no teeth, Ellie's sitting up really well. Not crawling, but we think she's getting ready to. She'll sort of rock a little on her hands and knees, put a hand out and then flop down.

She does roll all over pretty well, so she doesn't sit in one place too long. She rolls over a lot in her crib - lately she's been waking up every few nights in a very uncomfy position, smashed up against the edge of her crib, yelling really suddenly and loudly. Kinda funny once you know everything's OK, but scary for the minute until you wake your brain up and go fix it.

She also stands with a little support - she can hold her weight up pretty well, but sometimes decides she wants to sit down suddenly. And she doesn't have any balance (though I don't either, so I don't know if that's development or just unfortunate genes), so we need to keep her upright.

Her hands seem to work pretty well - she can pick up bits of cheese smaller than a raisin and get a few of them actually into her mouth. And she can grab onto guitar strings as I play them. And onto noses, chins, cheeks, glasses, necklaces, hair, etc.

She's been pretty vocal lately too, once or twice doing a "mmmmwah" when "kissing" mama and me. Her kisses are wide-open-mouth deals on the cheek, not really on our command, but close enough for mama.

And, she's still the most gorgeous baby ever. Her eyes are pretty deep blue, especially in natural light. Still not much hair, but she's gorgeous anyway.

Ellie's diet

For those who are interested, Ellie eats green beans, peas, carrots, applesauce, yogurt with blueberries or other fruit, cheese bits, graham crackers, saltines, and Isomil Advance with Iron.

Plus, little bits of ice cream and frozen yogurt.

She's tried chopped-up chicken and turkey, but those don't go over well. Turkey breast slices are better, but that tends to have lots of salt-water injected into it, and we're trying to keep her on real foods.

When she goes to milk, we'll get her organic, hormone-free stuff. We'll start drinking that ourselves once we can afford it. Might as well get real food, not processed, plastic, injected, fake stuff that does who-knows-what to you. If you can afford it.

Almost eight months old...

...and still no teeth. I'm beginning to think she'll just have dentures.

First bike ride

We took Ellie on her first bike ride. She seemed fine with it. She just looked around, taking it all in, as though she were in her stroller. To her, there's probably not a ton of difference.

She wasn't terribly thrilled while we were putting her helmet on, but as long as I don't pinch her with the allegedly pinch-proof chin strap, she seems fine. Not that it happened, of course not, why would you think that?

On the ride itself, Tina had to keep her knees splayed out wide, because Ellie sits up front. (See bike photo below.) That looked uncomfortable, which Tina will confirm. But otherwise, it was a success.

Baby-fied bike

Here's Tina's new bike, Ellie-ized. The babe will ride in the blue-n-yellow seat thing up front. It's a Wee-ride. We'll let you know how it all works out. 

Easter

We went to see my parents and my grandmother for Easter. It was a good time - the weather was beautiful and we enjoyed seeing everyone.

We went to Easter services at The Gospel House in Walton Hills. Nice place. We'll probably go back. It's a little "churchier" than Trinity here in Michigan. A choir with robes, for one thing. An organ for another.

In all, it doesn't really matter where we go...we're there to celebrate our risen Savior, not for whether there are robes or a rockin' praise band. So I hope y'all had a happy Easter and celebrated His resurrection with your family wherever you are.

The family at Easter

Here we are outside my parents' house. Their tree is bloomin' nicely this time of year. 

My parents and Ellie

Gee, it's too bad Ellie doesn't ever smile, huh? 

Two more of my favorites

Here's a nice pic of my angels. 

Papa...

...and two of his favorite girlies. 

Ellie Bellie in her Easter dress

Here she is, beautiful and all that.

Again, while this is a nice picture, it falls short of portraying her true elegance and toothless charm. 

Grandpa and Ellie

Not surprisingly, Grandpa is telling Ellie what to do. Maybe she doesn't want to put the ring there.  

Happy news

Well, it looks like we don't have to get our plumbing dug up. Our first plumber said we might have a broken sewer, which would have to be dug up. Our second opinion said no, it's just a belly in the pipe. (Basically, the pipe doesn't have a nice, steady slope - it goes up and down as it goes out to the sewer main.) He stuck a camera in it and washed it out with a lot of running water, and we could see that there was no break in the sewer. Nice to hear. So we don't have to spend a few grand. We just need to run a lot of water and we'll be fine.

 

The downside is that he also said we ought to wait at least 90 days to get the basement put back together. But at least it's summer.

A girlie and her doggie

Here are Ellie and Snicks, from a couple of months ago.

Poor Snickers has been demoted to dog, and is only slowly getting used to her new position. 

Seven months old

Here's Ellie on her seven-month-old day. (April 6, 2006).

Her clothes are "18 months" size. I guess they shrunk in the wash, eh?

She has "little chickies" on the soles of her shoes. For some reason, her shoes consistently get more compliments than any other part of her wardrobe. 

Lunch

Ellie really loves her graham crackers.

She also loves saltines. She seemed to like a mouthful of cottage cheese too.

We tried some Gerber wagon-wheel-shaped food thingies, but they dissolve too much and make a really sticky sludge all over everything, so we sorta stopped those. 

Not much new here

Our basement's still a wreck. A guy will be here tomorrow to discuss reassembling it.

Ellie seems to enjoy watching balls get thrown and seeing them bounce off of things, including Mama and Papa. We get into little mock fights and Ellie just giggles her head off.

She also likes to pull on her toy box (which is cleverly disguised as a laundry basket) and see what's inside. And she'll giggle if you throw something into it while she's looking. She especially likes to see something bounce off the big ball in the basket.

She'll enjoy watching Wimbledon, I think.

Our basement bathroom after

Too bad about the bathroom...it was pretty nicely painted by Todd & Amanda, the prior owners. I guess someone will have to sit there and paint white flecks on green paint to replace what was there.

At least insurance is paying for all of this, eh?

And we didn't really lose anything of value, so it's really all just an inconvenience (and a deductible). 

Our basement bathroom "before"

 

And here's our basement "after"

After CertiPro came in and took the carpet and walls out.

We had a little sewage backup that apparently contaminated the whole place. So major reconstruction of the basement will be done soon. 

Here's our basement "before"

 

Looks comfy

Here's a new way to sleep Ellie has discovered.

She also does a thing where she talks with her mouth open and uses the back of her hand to make a "baa-baa-baa" sound.

Fun for all involved.