Countdown to Christmas...

The lights are hung, the stockings are dangling and Ellie's got at least one gift under the tree...We can't wait!

Ellie and her "almost' crawling...

A Weekend at Home...

Before:

1/2 Way Through...we still have to paint the bottom half and install the light fixture...

My favorite part of it getting colder outside...decorating for Christmas!

We DO still have a stocking for Pip, just haven't unpacked that box yet...Notice Ellie's stocking (on the far right) is already a little heavy...

And the best feature of the weekend...the star of OUR show...

Fun with Ellie

I had some fun with Ellie tonight and captured some new moments on film...

This is Ellie's new fun trick, we're not sure if it's a laugh or a "sound effect", but it's mostly a "monkey see, monkey do" trick. One thing's for sure...we think it's pretty cute.

Ellie's still not crawling, but this week has made progress in that area...pulling?

Chris...the world traveler...

This past week, Chris got the opportunity to travel to Santiago, Chile for work...funny thing is, once he got out there, they didn't end up needing him to work, so it ended up being a six day vacation in the Andes mountains! Poor thing...

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Our little lamb...

Well, our little pumpkin's first Halloween came and went! First celebrations came with Grandma bringing her up to mommy's school to parade around in her costume. She left the house in her lamb costume but in protest, threw up lunch all over it. So...out came the pink poodle costume. Yes...mommy had two Halloween costumes for her. Saturday morning she started off pretty misreable and only wanted to lay with mommy because her incoming teeth hurt so bad. Mommy didn't mind... But, before the end of the weekend, she was tough enough to be able to visit the cider mill, meet second-cousin Aubree, and go trick-or-treating with mommy, daddy, Papa and Nana who came to celebrate with her!

True Teething

Well, I think teething has truly set in. We actually noticed Ellie's two top teeth and left incisor tooth coming in the other day. We didn't have to really deal with any of the "side effects" for the first two little bunny teeth that Ellie sprouted....but, tonight I think it's here. She hasn't really been that enthusiastic about any food for the last couple of days, but has been taking her bottle as normal. Today, though, she only took one full bottle and wouldn't eat any solids except tonight when I was rocking her before bed, I tried some bananas as those are usually her favorite and she took about three bites but nothing else. That on top of the other typical teething signs, lots of drooling, keeping her fingers in her mouth, playing with her tongue more often and some other "diaper" symptoms...I think it's kicked in. Poor little baby...you would never know it though from these smiling pictures!

Everyday moments with Ellie...

Nothing too exciting around the French home these days...just enjoying life and snuggling together! Recent developments:
1. As I'm sure you're all wondering, the first picture is of my hilarious husband in a child's lion costume. One of our hopes is to finish our basement someday and one use would be for a play room. My thought is that I would love to have a collection of costumes and dress up clothes to inspire the imagination and creativity of our children...or my husband. He found a costume that I picked up at a garage sale just too irresistible. Although he found himself stuck for a moment or two once he got it on, I had to get a picture.
2. Ellie's the biggest fan of her silkie teddie blanket as the picture above shows.
3. Rolling is also still her number one form of transportation. She can make it all the way across the room when she's interested in something.
4. She's also starting to have quite the inflection in her voice! It's been really cute to listen to her "ask questions" of daddy and mommy with her voice.
5. She's continuing to have the stranger danger every now and again....It's really funny how quiet and still she gets in new situations.
6. Our little girl is actually quite a big girl! We had to transition out of the travel system carrier and into a convertible car seat! This means she'll be sitting in the high chairs and shopping carts now too!
7. I'm just starting to try to interest Ellie in table food, she much prefers her bottles over anything else, but the verdict regarding Gerber sweet potato puffs is still up in the air... Speaking of eating habits, if anyone has any suggestions for constipated babies, Ellie would be embarrassed if she knew I was asking but...poor thing...she could use some help. After doing some reading today, I'm going to cut out the rice cereal, applesauce and bananas for awhile and load up on the prunes, peas and water.

And...we're back!

After much deliberation, I've decided to continue the blog...The pictures above are from two weekends ago visiting Uncle Jonah at his work's Family Day and petting zoo! Ellie didn't know quite what to think of the pig and llamas, but the donkey was my favorite! Today I'm home from school with Ellie as she has her first full blown cold. Her poor little nose has the "runny elevens" (as the Doc yesterday said, the two rivers streaming from her nose every time she sneezes) and she's got an tinsy fever and cough to go along with it. Poor little baby...I'm just having her sleep as much as possible and keeping her off solids to push the liquid, water and bottle. As far as an Ellie update, all else is well...She's been desperately trying to crawl...She can do the 360 degree turn hand over hand, and can scoot backwards, but hasn't gotten the vehicle in drive yet...All in good time. I'm personally counting my days of being able to turn my back when she's around instead of babyproofing everything and keeping her from crawling into the great unknown... School is going well - first quarter down and parent teacher conferences are this week! Chris is going to have to take over after being in New York for the past week and take her to her babysitter in the morning and pick her up in the evenings since I'll be staying late to meet with my little darlings in the classroom. All in all, the French family is doing well and enjoying our first fall together! Regarding the format of future posts, in order to still protect our privacy, readers will need to receive an invitation by request. Then, they can view the blog for 30 days without a gmail account. During these 30 days, in order to keep reading, they will need to create a gmail account (free, just go to www.gmail.com) and have a gmail account in order to sign in indefinitely. So sorry for the hassle, but this is how we feel better about posting pictures of Ellie...

Change in the updates...

Chris and I talked this evening about the reality that we have no idea how many people (if any...) are checking this blog and viewing pictures of our little girl...So...for the time being, we are going to try to send out periodic email updates with pictures instead of posting for all to see. If you would be interested in getting these emails - just shoot us an email or leave a comment with your email address and we will try this for awhile!