9 months... already?

Yesterday Ellie turned 9 months old.

How is that even possible?

My baby will be one in just three short months. Woah.

My Ellie girl has been such a sweet addition to our family.

She is such a good tempered little lady. She is almost always in a good mood.

She LOVES Abigail.

She kinda likes mommy and daddy too :)

She doesn't like baby food much, so we are constantly trying new things to see if she can gum them down ok with her 2 little teeth.

She puts everything in her mouth.
She really fights me when I try prying something out of her mouth (all the time).

Yesterday, on the way home from her checkup, she managed to pull the bandage off of her toe, and get it stuck to the top of her mouth. Yuck.

She laughs at Abigail and just about anything she does.

She is on the move, all the time.

She crawls.

She pulls up to stand.

She has 2 teeth.

She wears size 12-18 month... and even a few 24 months.

She weighed in at a whopping 22lbs yesterday.

27.5 inches tall

Her rolls are plentiful.

She loves playing with Abigail, but Abigail isn't quite ready for that...

She loves story time at the library.

She takes two good naps every day- at least 2 hrs each.

She sleeps about 12 hours at night. (can I get a hallelujah?)

Her chubby smiles brighten my day...

and our family would not be complete without our chubby little Ellie Mae

The Experienced Traveler

We spent the weekend in North Texas for a few different reasons.

We had fun visiting family, as we always do.

Abigail is always really excited to go visit anyone, or to have visitors come to our house. She looks forward to it for a long time. She packed her suitcase for me this time. I opened it up and she had a few toys, the entire contents of her "bottoms" drawer (skirts, shorts, capris, pants). And a shirt. She was all ready to go.

I had to secretly repack for her, and then we were ready to go, just waiting for Daddy to get home so we could leave.

Before we drove back, I was trying to get Abigail to go potty. She insisted that she didn't need to, and I kept pushing it. Explaining that we would have to stop at a yucky gas station if she didn't go now. She stuck to her guns, and I knew there was no reason to keep pushing it.

Well, we made it home, without a stop, then while she was going potty- she looked at me and pointed her finger at me and said,

"See, I told you we wouldn't have to go at a yucky gas station."

While she was sleeping...

After Ellie went down for her nap today, Abigail wanted me to take some pictures of her doing "silly things." After that, I got her to agree to a few of her doing "happy things."

This girl loves to be silly. Don't know where that trait came from...

She took the camera and made me do silly things.

Those photos were deleted as fast as they were taken :)

A new era...

Today I looked in the baby monitor and saw something new.

Tell me she's not up to something...

Abigail was so excited about Ellie standing up in her crib, that she wanted to go check it out for herself, so I grabbed my camera and we had some fun.

First Abigail climbed in with Ellie, very gracefully...

Luckily, this resulted in hysterical laughter from both girls, and no one was hurt.

These two are really starting to have fun together. I love it.

Beat the heat

I have taken a little break from blogging and taking pictures. We have been doing a lot of playing around the house- getting back to normal life after a few crazy months. I am excited for the "fall" weather to come around so we can start doing things outside again. Abigail has always had an abnormally high tolerance for heat. It has been a bit of a burden as she could just go, go, go outside all the time no matter the temperature. The last two days I think it is finally starting to get to her. Yesterday, we didn't even do anything outside, but just getting in and out of the car- by the time we got home, she stripped down all of her clothes and told me she needed to cool off, cuz she was sweaty in the back.

Girl- I know all about that.

Guess we will keep it inside for a few more weeks until we drop below 100 again.

Team Jaylie 5K and Fun Run

10 weeks of planning.

Nearly 100 volunteers.

40 Sponsors.

More food than we can count.

One very sad balloon arch.

750 T-shirts.

75+ raffle prizes.

907 registered runners.

2136 Miles run for Jaylie.

Over $30,000 raised for Jaylie.

Lots more pictures of the event at teamjaylie5k.smugmug.com

Team Jaylie on the news

Fighting cancer at 5 years old: kxan.com

A Day of Laughs

Abigail is at an age now, where she makes me literally crack up every single day. Today was one of those days that by bed time, I thought, I HAVE to go write down the things she has said to me today. So here you go: A day in the life of Abigail. Each story will come with a bit of background.

We have been teaching Abi about privacy; letting people go potty all alone, get dressed, take showers, all of that with out an audience. I've also been trying to teach her, that she should not just strip down wherever she pleases. She has a tendency to be a poolside stripper. Anyway, now she insists that I close the door and give her some "pridacy" when she goes potty. As soon as I shut the door, she started singing a song she made up about privacy. I opened the door a few minutes later to check on her, and she looked appalled- "Mommy, I'm not all done with my pridacy!"

Last night, I closed the door to get dressed after a shower, and Charles tried to come in, Abigail intervened, arms out, guarding the door, and reprimanded him- telling him that Mommy needed Privacy.

Last week Abigail got bit by two ants on the way back from the pool. I don't know if she will ever fully recover. Today, for some weird reason we had an endless train of ants along the wall in our front room. Abigail saw them, her jaw dropped, eyes widened and brought her hand to her chest, then looked at me and said, "Poly cwap! Why are der ants in our house?!" I was so taken off guard that I burst into laughter so suddenly that I scared Abigail. I have been laughing about it all day picturing her expression in my head.

This morning after breakfast, I was trying to get her to get dressed. She took her jammies off and was just hanging out in her panties. I told her to go get dressed, and she, of course, asked why. I said, because you are naked, you need to get your clothes on. She looked at me like I was crazy and said, "I'm not naked Mommy, I'm not hiney naked." I guess naked is ok, hiney naked on the other hand...

Charles, in a stroke of genius one night, helped Abigail get all her wiggles out before bed, by using a little massager that we have. He did it on her feet, legs, arms, hands, and head. We call it our wiggle machine. It has become part of the nightly routine for bedtime. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it makes matters worse. Tonight, we forgot to do it, and just before we finished tucking her in, she gasped and said very seriously, with wide eyes,"Mommy! My wiggles are here. I need the wiggle dachine." I busted out laughing again, and she joined me for some good giggles. Then we got her wiggles out, and even sang a wiggle song, and she went to bed.

Days like this, I sit back and think- Life is good.

The big Event.

For the last couple of months, I have been working on organizing the Team Jaylie 5K and Fun Run for my good friend's five year old daughter, Jaylie.

Back in May, their lives were turned upside down when sweet Jaylie was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of brain cancer. She had a baseball sized tumor on her brain. Since then, she has had surgery to remove the tumor, and has completed 6 weeks of daily radiation of her head and spine. In about 2 weeks she will continue treatment with 6 months of chemotherapy.

On August 13th, here in Austin, we are holding a 5K fundraiser for Jaylie and her family. We have had lots of community support. We have had 3 newspapers do stories on Jaylie, and Sunday morning, KXAN news here in Austin will be interviewing Jaylie and her parents on their morning news.

If you want to check out more about what I've been working on, go to teamjaylie.org. You can follow the registration link there to see more info about the race. It is going to be a fun event.

Please come be a part of it. Register for the race and come support Jaylie, or if you can't make it, consider making a donation to the cause. Our $25,000 goal will only cover their deductible. It doesn't take into consideration all the other things that are coming up as an expense through all of this. We want the Nielson's to be able to focus on Jaylie, and not the financial ramifications of her illness.

They are an amazing family, and Abigail loves these girls dearly. They are close to our hearts, and hope you will help support our cause.

Cedar Park Citizen Story

Leander Ledger Story

Hill Country News Story

Appearance on Freefuninaustin.com

Look for the live interview on KXAN.com this Sunday.