3 months!

My lil girl is three months old today! She now opens and closes her hands and stares at them a lot. She also recognizes Eliot and me and cries when she doesn't recognize someone. She's growing like a weed, and she will probably be in 9 month clothes in a month or so. Right now she and I are fighting thrush, so she has a purple mouth from the gentian violet used to treat it. But Ellie is as sweet as ever with smiles and laughs. :-)

Ellie "talking"

Eleanore loves to coo and "talk" a whole bunch... when she's not smiling. She's really a quite pleasant little person! I thought I'd post this video as an example... though she's usually even more chatty than this!

Finally had a moment...

To upload some photos. Here is a slideshow of our Winter album!



If the slideshow viewer (and the family pics below) aren't working then you can see all the pics in the winter album here:

> Winter 2012-201:

Christmas with the Family

 This past week we went up to my dad's house to celebrate Christmas with our extended family. It was crazy and chaotic with four children running around, but we had a lot of fun. We even had some snow! James liked playing with his cousins and his new play kitchen that Grandpa made for him. He didn't nap though, so he got very cranky and didn't want to open presents. Oh well...

Ellie slept through a lot of the noise and chaos and also got to be held by her great-grandma for the first time. We also got to see my cousin Nicole who recently moved here... how awesome is that?

The kids got some wonderful gifts from the family, from the play kitchen and accessories to go in it to books to clothes and some lovely momentos made by Aunt Lindy.

Overall we had a blast. But traveling with the little ones was hard... really hard. As in I was so exhausted from chasing James all day and being up with Ellie all night that I had a bit of an emotional breakdown. And it reminded us why we can't fly with them for awhile, which is a hard thing to admit. It's just too difficult for us and for them. Maybe in another year or two? :-/ Till then, car trips with a LOT of breaks is all we can handle I think. Oh well...

Merry Christmas all! We are so happy to have our family of 4 despite the exhaustion. :-)

Zoolights 2012

 We took the kids to Zoolights for the first time ever this year, mostly so James could ride the train since he loves them right now (I think the Polar Express movie is to blame). It was a cold, rainy, and windy night, but we are so rarely up in Portland that we decided to brave it. I'm so glad we did! James said "Wow!" when he saw the lights, over and over again. Every time he heard a train whistle, he said, "I sit on that!" meaning he wanted to take a ride. Eleanore slept peacefully in the Ergo as we rode the train and walked around seeing the lights and a couple animals. James liked the giraffe lights the best besides the train.

We were wet and tired when we trudged back to the car, but a good time was had by all and I'm so glad we did it. It's important for our family to get out together and for us to enjoy our children, especially in these long days when they don't seem to sleep and James is into EVERYTHING all the time. That boy never stops moving!


Here are some pics and video from our trip!

Ellie is 12 weeks old today!!

My little girl keeps growing and growing...

Busy busy

--EDIT-- This was supposed to be posted on the 14th! oops!

Life with two kids is just ridiculously busy. There's always someone that needs something. Ellie is now 11 weeks old and growing like a weed! She was 12lbs 2 oz this past week at her 2 month checkup. James is trying to put together more sentences, which is great. And Eliot had his birthday on the 12th, which we celebrated together as a family.

Here are a couple pics from recent activities.