Neato picture collage

Here are some pics of Ellie, purple-i-fied and made into whatcha call a collage.

Photo studios offer similar things - though maybe not purple-i-fied - under the name "portrait study." I'm not sure how it's a portrait, and I wouldn't want to study it so much.

But it's cute anyway.

By the way, that's my finger she's holding.

And her own foot she's eating. 

Dedication dress

Here's Ellie again in her great-grandpa's chair. This time she's in her dedication dress.

By the way, she was five months old yesterday. Happy five-months-old-yesterday day, Elizabeth! 

A-feedin' and a-sleepin'

OK, I'm not really sleeping here. But she is, and it's kinda cute how she's just kinda splayed out there. 

Ellie in her pink chair

Here's Ellie sitting in the chair her great-grandpa (my mom's dad, Dante "Cappy" Caporuscio) made her. It's pink with a white "E" on it. Really cool.

She still needs a little bolstering to sit in it, but she's almost there. She'll fit in it pretty nicely for a while. 

By the way

The message on Sunday was from Joshua 5. That wasn't really planned -- we're going through the book of Joshua as a series, and it just turned out that way. The pastor said he'd rather had almost anything else to teach on, but he had to do it "because God said so."

Kinda funny. Also because five of the seven kids being dedicated were girls.

A closer pic

Thanks for the pictures to our friend Corey -- who doesn't attend Trinity, but he and his wife Beth drove up to Lansing for the service.

Ellie, by the way, was (of course) perfect the whole time. She did get a little jumpy when the congregation applauded after the dedication. 

Dedication photo

Here's Trinity's senior pastor Brad Mitchell introducing the dedication portion of the service. My mom is in black right behind him and Tina's mom is hiding (not really) behind Tina's right shoulder. 

Dedication

We had a great time on Sunday. In the morning, we dedicated Ellie at church. It's a simple ceremony at Trinity -- we don't baptize children or anyone who hasn't believed in and trusted Jesus -- and it's really more for the parents than for the kids. Ellie's not even 5 months old; she clearly has no idea what it's all about. But it's a commitment on our part to raise her in the Lord's way. The rest is up to us -- and Him.

Afterward, we had some friends over to the house...the first time any kind of group has been here. We were a little worried there wouldn't be space for everyone, but things worked out.

My parents and Tina's mom came into town for it all, too, so we got to see them.

All in all, a pretty cool weekend.

Somebody not feeling too good

We're not sure if Ellie is teething or has a tummyache. She's not herself lately, arching her back and rejecting the bottle.

She's gotten some tummy medicine, and that might have helped, so it might be a tummy thing. She was liking barley-prunes, which also solved a different tummy problem, but she hasn't been into eating off a spoon much in the last couple days, so who knows.

She's still gorgeous and still loves sticking her tongue out. But she's been crying more too, with that hard-drilling sound that really hurts my eardrums. It really does. (Moms everywhere are saying "what a wimp." Yeah, well, I'm a wimp I guess.)

Ellie's happy...

and Papa's still hungry, apparently.

"Be careful...don't knock over my chicken." 

Duckie

Ellie on the floor, confiding many slobbery secrets in her duckie friend.

Yellow tinted for dramatic effect (courtesy of Picasa2). 

For old times' sake

Here's an old photo. Well, it's from 4 months ago, when Ellie was just a few weeks old. I think it's still my favorite photo of her.

Ahh, the memories. 

Ellie likes her new bathtime seat

 

Happy mama, happy baby

Ellie's arms look so long sometimes.

So do her ears...horizontally. Let's hope those grow back a little more. 

Oh JOY! Rice cereal!

This is about how happy she looks when she's about to get fed.

Note the 5-point racing harness. She'll drive in NASCAR yet.

Not that I'd vicariously live out my boy-racer dreams by forcing them on my daughter. Never. 

Too cute for words

 

Last few days

Ellie's been kinda tired lately...Tina says that she's going through a growth spurt when she gets that way. That's good...she needs it. There are still 3 or 4 babies her age in America right now that are bigger than she is. She must be zee biggist!

On another front, she loves rice cereal, sweet potatoes and even peas. The peas took a while, but she's gotten used to them. None of this helps her digestion, unfortunately, but she's happy to eat it. In fact, she's quite the greedy little piggy. She grabs the spoon-hand that feeds her and yanks it toward her gaping maw...and whines if you take too long re-loading the shovel.

This is a "before" photo...you should see her after she eats!

No, just kidding, you literalists.

Funny day

We decided for a change of scenery, so we headed to Briarwood Mall in sorta-nearby Ann Arbor. Now, we're not really Ann Arbor-type people, but we figured we'd give it a shot. (Don't know what Ann Arbor-type people are? They wouldn't cite National Review favorably on their blogs, for starters. Though Tina thinks I paint with too broad a brush.)

Anyway, we stopped at some chairs and gave Ellie a bottle, then got up and did some mallwalking. (It's too dang cold around here, even with our plant-induced heat wave, for Tina to walk outside more than absolutely necenssary.) After we went around the plus-shaped and hilly mall (there were these odd undulations in the floor, making us seek stroller-friendly ramps) two or three times, we stopped back at those tables and found our bottle still sitting there. Apparently we'd left it, and so did everyone else. So we popped it right into Ellie's mouth and she finished it off.

No, not really. We'll boil it in alcohol before we'll let her use it. But nipples are like a buck each, man, we're not gonna let them go to waste.

She's still a big girl

I forgot to mention this earlier. At our last trip to the pediatrician, Ellie was 26 inches tall and 14 libbs and 3 ozzes. That puts her in 90-95th percentile heightwise and 75th weightwise. A bit long-n-lean, but mostly a whole lot long.

Ellie after mama mistook the "special" egg nog for formula

Come 'ere youshe guysh. I really love yoush guysh. You're my fav'rite guysh, yoush guysh.

I can't feel my fashe.

Hey, I don't have any teef! Who shtole all my teef?

(Ellie's grandmother will disapprove wholeheartedly of this post. But I think it's too funny a picture to pass up.) 

Ellie's true nature revealed!

"I vill seet een my giant high chair und try to take over zee vorld!" 

Ellie's cousins

Nicholas is presumably doing something educational.

Luke is educating us about what Doritos do to the inside of one's mouth. 

How do you get the batteries into this thing?!?!?

 

Ellie helping her mama read

The books with words are mama's favorite, but the ones with the pictures make Ellie happy. 

Grandpa bogartin' the baby

Someone didn't like to share...until crying, spitting up, or anything else slightly unpleasant spoilt his fantasy-baby-holding world. 

Sophie & the baby

Sophie was very disappointed that we got snowed out of Cleveland for Thanksgiving. So she spent virtually all of Christmas week angling to hold the baby.

She was largely successful. 

Great tonguey smile

She smiles with her eyes and her tongue. 

Indulging papa

I took literally 20 pictures of Ellie sitting in her bouncy seat, smiling at me through the rings and other paraphernalia.

Nobody else knows why I'd need 20 of them. Hey, they're free, and she was smiling. 

Grandma Mastilak

Here's my other grandma with Elizabeth a few days before Christmas. Grandma calls her "Lizzie Beth." Grandma gets to call her that. 

June Elaine Caporuscio

Here's why we were so preoccupied during Christmas week. My grandmother, seen here dancing with my grandpa at Tina's & my wedding in 1997, passed away on December 27. We learned shortly after we got to Cleveland that she was not long to be with us, and so we spent the week seeing family but waiting for the inevitable.

She's probably met a third of the people in heaven already. And has offered them something to drink. We'll miss her until we see her again.