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!

Family Weekend!

With school back in session, our weekends together are pretty precious! Friday night was my grandma's 75th birthday party. Lots of fun which jumpstarted a wonderful weekend outdoors! Yesterday we walked from our house to Chick-Fil-A to get breakfast and home again which was about an hour walk! Ellie loved it and smiled at all the trees, birdies, doggies, grass, sky...anything and everything... Today, Chris and I took the jogging stroller out to the park and jogged with Ellie until I was worn out so I took her back while Chris finished his twelve miler! WOW! All in all, our little family is loving our time together - no other news except that Ellie has now feasted on butternut squash and carrots to supplement her rice cereal...Two veggies down, caviar, sushi and fondue to come soon!

Ellie and her Aunties...

A true Daddy's girl...

Not quite the birthday girl...

Getting ready for a run with Daddy...

Our little girl...pretty in pink.

Strength Training

Ellie's been working out lately with her sitting and standing practice... She needs a little back-up help most of the time, but as long as she has something to drool or chew on, she's good!

A Thousand Words...

Between summer evenings walks, painting Mommy's new classroom, trimming tree limbs with Daddy (or staying out of the way at least), growing two little toothies, hanging out with Pippy and meeting my new friend, Cindy who I'm going to stay with while Mommy's at school...summer continues to be quite a blast!

Family, First Tooth and Funny Belly Laughs!

Summer continues to fly by with visits from Papa and Nana, meeting Great-Papa Taylor and Ellie loving to laugh! In fact, she's such a big girl that when Papa and Nana were leaving on Sunday, we found her first little tooth popping through on the bottom! So far she hasn't acted like it bothers her too much except at night she seems to be wanting a little Children's Tylenol to help her fall asleep. All in all....summer's been a blast!
Daddy decided Ellie wanted to wear her bib like a cape and fly around the house. Ellie's blowout...so bad Daddy had to wear a mask to change her. Enough drool to go around... Strategically placed bottle or holding it herself? You decide.
Three generations.

Four generations. Playing with mommy.

Ellie's First Three Months Slideshow

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Newest Updates

Post-June update...

Chris's accomplishments: power washing and staining the back deck,continuing to master landscaping around our yard, finishing a six-foot privacy fence, and all in all maintaining professional stellar husband and dad status.

Pippy's news: exploring her backyard for the first time completely unhibited by a leash, snuggling up with a pillow AND blanket for movie nights with the fam, and hanging out with her new cousin Molly, Andrea and Jonah's newest golden retriever addition to their family, and officially stealing Ellie's socks (this is her sign of affection, you're truly in with Pipsters if she steals your socks.)

Allison's discoveries: G.T. and the Halo Express sing alongs for Ellie (excellent scripture memory song set to stories...she grew up on the cassette tapes of these, but discvored them on cd!), devouring spinach, stawberry, blueberry, feta cheese and poppyseed dressing salad every day for lunch (yum! thanks to Jolene!), Love Dare (an excellent book), surfing www.etsy.com for completely unnecessary but extraordinarily darling accesseries for Ellie (seriously worth checking out! my husband has Miss Katie to thank for introducing me to this!), and a continued love for Jazzercise (mostly because she gets to take Ellie and have all the grandmas and other moms love on little Ellie-boo).

Ellie's developments: becoming quite a finger enthusiast, sucking and drooling all over her pointer and middle finger, improving and increasing the volume of her belches, chatting it up with her "buggy" and "poodle" on her car seat and to herself before getting up from bedtime and naps, maturing out of being swaddled completely, is almost in all six month clothing, lovig her silkie teddie blanket and growing fond of her rattle, starting to giggle and laugh on a regular basis, and becoming an expert tummy timer, pushing up to look around at her surroundings. In fact, when I placed her on her tummmy this morning to show daddy, she proceeded to roll right on over from her tummy to her back! A first! She did it three times this morning, after which, she promptly forgot how to do it. Either that or she is teasing mommy and daddy and won't do it for the camera...