Happy New Year!.....a month late

OK, so I realize I'm a few weeks late in posting this, but instead of starting over again I'm just going to finish this one and get it posted. I have such a hard time getting a blog finished and posted in a timely manner anymore...as if that wasn't apparent. Also, this post is very picture heavy, but that's what you get when I do a once a month post, so bear with me :)

31 December 2009
Here we are at the eve of another year. It's just amazing when I think back to all that this year has held for us. This time last year I was pregnant and wondering what it would be like to have a baby of my own. Now Ellyanna is almost 8 months old and such a joy. She gets cuter and more fun every day.

We're spending a quiet evening at home. Early on we talked about having some people over tonight, but after having a houseful for Christmas I just wasn't up for it again. One thing's for sure, we don't have to go anywhere to have a nice fireworks display here in Germany. We've been hearing them go off in our town for the last 6 hours and it's just a little past 11:00pm. At midnight we'll go up to the balcony and see the show. Elly is sleeping for now, but I expect she will wake up as the fireworks increase. Oh joy!

7 January 2010
OK...so now it's a week later and I'm just getting back to this. Elly actually slept better than ever on New Year's Eve. As I've said before, her sleeping has been messed up since returning from the states and I'm up with her every two hours most nights. Occasionally she gives me a wonderful night's sleep when she goes 4-5 hours before waking up. You never know how blissful sleep can be until you can't get it.

This last week I've been trying to work her back into her crib for naps. It hasn't been going real good. She just does not want to sleep in there. She much prefers our bed...can you really blame her?? Anyhow, my hope is that once she's used to napping in her crib then I can start putting her in there at nights. I believe if she was in a separate room from me that she wouldn't wake up every two hours and need to be nursed back to sleep.

What a little joy she is though! She's so much fun! She claps her hands all the time now and loves to get into the trash, open the kitchen cupboards, tear leaves off the plants and dig in the dirt of a big potted plant we have. Just this last week she's actually taken an interest in food. She really likes mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and banana. She's finally gotten the hang of drinking from her sippy cup too and threw her first fit the other night when I put it away. You would have thought the world was coming to an end the way she screamed. I'm already wishing I had more wisdom when it comes to raising Ellyanna. Like the other night when she threw that fit. I definitely told her "no", but it's sometimes hard to know what the right thing to do is. But I keep coming back to the thought of having a 3 year old terror on my hands if I don't discipline when she's this little. I believe it starts at this early age. Right now she's learning what is and is not acceptable and it's up to me to teach her.

12 January 2010
Once again, I didn't get this posted last time I was working on it. If I don't use my time wisely when Elly's sleeping I just don't get the chance once she's up.

We've been getting so much snow here for the last week. I think we were up to 6.5 inches when Sam checked last night. It's really beautiful and the weather's been staying cold enough so that it doesn't just melt off. I really enjoy having snow outside. The German road crews need to step it up a bit though. All the primary roads are clear, but if you get off of them you could likely get stuck. Sam and I took a back road to Obi on Saturday and were lucky we didn't get stuck. It was a day we should have been in the truck, but we haven't figured out how to fit Elly's car seat in there yet.

A few nights ago it was snowing quite a bit, so Sam decided to shovel the sidewalk and driveway that evening so there would not be so much to do in the morning. Elly and I got our coats on and went out with him. Actually, I wore one of Sam's coats and put her inside of it next to me. She really enjoyed our little outing. She's such a happy little thing. She's almost always smiling and laughing about something. She's just a little doll! I love her so much!

21 January 2009
Ok, so now it's been three weeks since I started this. Bad....I know. I need to at least do a monthly update, but I really do aim for more. Things certainly are not as simple with a baby, but I wouldn't trade her for anything :)

Ellyanna's finally taking her naps in the crib. That's a relief, because it gives me hope that eventually maybe we can move her in there at night and she'll sleep for more than 2 hours at a time. She's still up to that trick. A couple of nights she went for 3 hours at a time, but last night it was back to 2. Then today she would not take her normal nap. She only did 3 half hour naps. She was rather fussy all day too, so I'm wondering if she's not teething again.

I feel like I got nothing done today. My goal was to get the house cleaned. Some friends are coming down from Heidelberg on Saturday, so that's my motivation :o) It really shouldn't take that long, but it's amazing how little I get done when I keep having to stop to tend to my little monkey.

Well, I could ramble on, but the few people who read this blog are probably more interested in pictures anyhow, so I'll just get those posted so I can actually get this finished today. Here are a few pictures from the past month.

Christmas Eve in front of the tree. (I put the tree up right after Thanksgiving this year and will never do that again. It was so dry and ugly by the time Christmas actually got here.)

I love her toothy grin :o)

Christmas morning before opening gifts

Ellyanna's first stocking

She was more excited about eating the wrapping paper than seeing what was inside it.

Gabby hiding in the wrapping paper and ribbons.

Elly with her gifts

~I LOVE her~

Tummy time

Posing with the new slippers that Aunt Kristy sent for Christmas

She loves brushing her teeth. She's not so happy when I try to brush her two little teeth, but she loves chewing on the brush.

Pretty girl - all ready for church

Toothy grin

Playing with Daddy. She almost looks like she's posing for this picture.

Me and my sweet baby

Oma and Opa Thompson sent Elly a jacket for Christmas. She'll grow into it...

They also sent her first baby doll.

Little Steeler's fan

Bundled up together to walk out to the garage with Sam.

I think Elly's trying to give kisses these days. She comes at our face with her mouth open. I love her kisses :)

She loves it when Daddy gets home from works. She knows it's her time to play with him. If he doesn't come fast enough she starts yelling for him.

Ready for church and just waiting

The result of walking to the store for milk. She was cozy in her stroller and sound asleep by the time we got back home.

I love how she crosses her ankles when she' sitting.

We recently got quite a bit of snow. Sam was out shoveling the driveway.

Meanwhile, Elly and I stayed out of the snow and wind inside the garage.

Elly and I headed back inside, but Sam was still busy for awhile

Silly girl has learned how to pull herself up on the side of her playpen. That day I took the insert out, so she can't fall over the side.

Daddy and Ellyanna ready for church

Ellyanna and Mama ready for church

Trying to get up on her hands and knees.

Having fun in her playpen

~My sweet, sweet girl!~

Playing peek-a-boo with me

~Peek-a-boo~

Still trying to figure out this crawling thing

She is such a happy baby.

She loves getting into things while in her walker

We've been standing her by the couch. She loves standing, but hasn't quite figured out how to move around much....yet.

~My ornery little girl~

So cute and chubby :)

Gabby does great with Ellyanna, but usually just tries to stay away from her. She was hiding in a box in this picture. Elly loves Gabby and is thrilled when she gets close enough to touch her.

Playing with the laundry I was trying to fold. She managed to get tangled in one of my shirts. Silly girl.

Christmas rush

Our life seems to be a blur of activity lately. I want it to slow down, but that's just not how life works. I love the holiday season. It is truly my favorite time of year, but this year I'm so behind. Being gone almost the entire month of November gave me a very late start. I've been busy decorating and baking, as well as, trying to find the right gifts for those I love. That's always a bit of a challenge for me here in Germany. I really miss American stores like Target, Walmart, Sears, Kohls, Macy's, etc. I especially miss them at this time of year when I'm trying to buy for people.

Ellyanna just seems to be doing new things every day. A couple of Sunday's ago (13 Dec) she started playing Peek-a-boo with us. She was sitting on our bed while Sam and I finished getting dressed. She was dressed and ready to go meet Santa in her festive little red dress. Sam threw a shirt over her head and she worked hard to get it off. When she finally slid it off we said "Peek-a-boo", as we've done countless times before. Somehow this day it registered though. You could see the wheels in her head spinning as she lifted it back up over her head. We said "Where's Elly?" and she slid it off her head as we said "Peek-a-boo" again. A huge smile spread across her face.

The other morning (when Elly decided to get up at 5:00am) I was talking to Mom on the phone and looked over at Elly sitting on the living room floor. She was non-chalantly sitting there holding one of her cloth diapers over her face. I knew what she was doing. She likes the reaction she gets from playing peek-a-boo. It really is adorable.

I keep trying to get a good picture of her two little teeth. She has such a big gummy grin, but occasionally I see those two little bits of white. So cute!

We were working on feeding her solids, but she just has no interest in it. It had gotten to the point where she would just close her mouth tight and fight the spoon, so I quit trying. She's getting all she really needs from me and she'll learn to like food at some point.

She is just so precious and I love her so much! She is an absolute doll all day long, but she still refuses to sleep anywhere but in our bed and even at that some nights she just tosses all night long. I think she must have gotten scared at some point, because she used to have no problem taking a nap in her crib, but now wakes up crying anytime I try to lay her down now. I've decided to just keep her in our bed for as long as it takes for her to get comfortable again. Thankfully, just last night she finally slept well all night. No tossing and turning all night. I'm thankful for small steps right now :)

I don't know why I find it so difficult to get updates posted on this blog. I've been working on this one for a couple of weeks now. I have so much to do and should be using Elly's nap time more wisely, but thought I would try to get this finished and posted.

I have a lot to do before Christmas day, which is just two days away. That's unbelievable! I love this season and always wish I could extend it somehow to enjoy it even longer. We're having a few friends over for dinner on Christmas. Not a big deal, but I do need to get the house cleaned a bit and then I have some baking to do. I figure I'll get what I can done tomorrow and try to keep what I have to do Friday to a minimum.

Something I need to remember for next year....don't put the Christmas tree up the weekend after Thanksgiving. At least not if it's a real tree. I haven't given into getting an artificial tree as of yet, so I need to remember to put the tree up later next year. I have to say our tree is looking pretty sad at this point. It's rather droopy. I've even kept it watered, but it doesn't seem to have helped any. Anyhow, I think I'll take it down between Christmas and New Year's because it's just not looking so pretty these days.

It's really hard being away from family during this season, but I'm so thankful for the ways we have to keep in touch. I love the webcam and often will just be sitting on my couch visiting with Mom. She's able to see Elly alot that way too.

Today we had our New Parent Support group. We all got pictures around the Christmas tree. Needless to say, that was interesting. How do you get 12-14 babies all looking at the camera at the same time? Yeah, I don't know either, but we tried. Of course, I didn't take my camera, so I'm hoping to get some pictures sent to me.

Well, I better quit rambling and get some pictures posted, so I can get this finished today. I take a ridiculous number of pictures of Ellyanna, but how can I not? She's just so cute and I love that little girl so much. I see how quickly she's growing up and I want to capture every cute little thing she does. Thankfully, for you.....I don't post nearly as many as I take, but here are a few recent pictures from our life.

This was the first time she woke up with actual "bed head"

Her hair was sticking up all over.

Playing in a basket

She LOVES bouncing on Daddy's knee!

Getting ready to go out one evening I just thought she looked especially cute :)

Nothing is sweeter than having a baby fall asleep on your chest

Sam had both of our babies sleeping on him.

"Hi Mom!"

I looked everywhere for these deer. We finally found some at the greenhouse in our town.

Ellyanna's really been enjoying her sippy cup lately

I love how she sits on the floor with her basket of toys. She'll get them out one by one by tipping the basket toward her. So cute!

Cheesin' for Mama

She always has a ready smile (well, almost always)

She LOVES bathtime!!

I love her rolls :)

Nah, she's not ornery!

Figuring out how to get into the kitchen cupboards. Thankfully, at this point, her walker doesn't allow her to actually get into the cupboards.

But, she has no problem reaching the curtains. She loves getting lost in them and just recently started sucking on them. That's kind of gross.

Chewing on an apple in her mesh teether. This was the first time she actually seemed to like it.

Visiting with family in the states

We arrived back in Germany 2 weeks ago, but I've just not taken the time to finish this blog and get it posted. We've been having quite a time getting Elly adjusted back to Germany time. It hasn't just been the jet lag, but also teething. Her first tooth popped through the day after we returned (11/24)!! I found it when we were walking through the PX and she was chewing on my finger. I felt something hard in there and sure enough it was her first tooth! It was the bottom left and just last night her second one popped through (bottom right). We had a rough night with very little sleep. I ended up sleeping in the recliner in the nursery while Sam snuggled Elly to get her to sleep. I was banned from the bed because with me beside her all she wanted to do was nurse constantly. When I finally left she went to sleep.

I think taking two stateside trips so close together really messed up Elly's sleeping schedule. Before we started the trips she would take a 2-3 hour nap each morning and sometimes an afternoon nap. She was also sleeping pretty well in her co-sleeper at night. Unfortunately, that's not the case now. For some reason she will not sleep without me physically staying with her. She will fall asleep right away when I nurse her, but as soon as I lay her down she wakes up screaming. The other day she cried for over 2 hours and the next day it was 1 1/2 hours. That was rough on this Mama!! It is so hard to hear my baby crying and not go pick her up. It's so hard to know what is best. We had several very hard days with me trying to get her to sleep again by herself. Finally, after talking to Mom (who is so wise, by the way ;) I just decided to work with her for awhile and let her get totally adjusted back to Germany time and move past the teething then slowly we'll get her back to sleeping by herself. I'm ready for her to be out of our room, but I have to just take it slowly. For some reason she has anxiaty about sleeping without me right there, so it'll be a slow process, but we'll get there eventually.

Even though we enjoyed our visits with family, I'm so glad to be done with travelling for awhile. It's truly exhausting and I'm happy to be home and getting ready for the holidays.

When we arrived back in Germany we discovered that several of our suitcases, along with Elly's car seat, were missing. We didn't have much of a choice, but for me to hold her on my lap for the drive home. I really don't like doing that, but our friend who picked us up drove all back roads, so at least we were not out on the Autobahn. Thankfully, the luggage was found the following day and delivered to our house.

Ellyanna is such a great little traveler. She's really wonderful on the plane trips...even as long as they are. For the longest stretch on our way home, Atlanta to Paris, we made a little bed for her on the floor out of airline pillows. She actually slept for several hours like that so at least she got a little rest. Otherwise, the only time she slept was when I was nursing her.

That last Friday at Fort Leavenworth was Sam's graduation for the class he was taking. Ellyanna and I attended that and then we were off to the airport. I was concerned about having enough time to get checked in, but everything worked out great. We even had time to grab some lunch before boarding the plane. We got into Pittsburg that evening and then drove on down to Fairmont, WV to spend a couple of days with my Grandma. We had a really nice time there, although Elly was not feeling her best. Friday morning she started coughing. I was so concerned that she was going to get sick because I had been sick almost the entire time in Kansas. Thankfully (and I think in large part to nursing) she only had a few days where she didn't feel real great and had some chest congestion.

Saturday we spent with Grandma. We went out to eat for lunch then went for a drive and ended up out out Prickett's Fort where we walked around a bit. Grandma had some Cream Horn cookies that I helped her fill since she has a hard time doing it with arthritis. That evening when we got back to the hotel Elly wasn't feeling very good. I gave her a bath thinking it might help her congestion. It really hurt my heart to see her so listless. She just sat in the tub with her head leaning on my arm. She was such a sick little girl that night. Thankfully, that was about the worst of it and she started to get better from there.

Sunday morning we went to church with Grandma. I was surprised to see Uncle Roger and his wife Ruthann there. It had been quite a few years since I'd seen him. It's always nice to reconnect with family. After a nice lunch at Grandma's and spending a few hours there we got ready to leave for Sam's parents place in Somerset, PA. It's always hard to have so little time, but when we have family spread out we have to share the time we have.

Once again on the way to Somerset we were so thankful for Tom-Tom. Several places the roads had changed and he redirected us. I'm sure we would have been quite lost if it hadn't been for that handy little contraption.

We had a wonderful time with Sam's family in Pennsylvania. Of course, one week was not enough, but we enjoyed the time we had. Ellyanna was able to get to know her Oma and Opa and I think they all enjoyed the visit. One day Sam and I, with Elly of course, drove to another town to do some shopping at Target and Kohls. That's something I really miss with living in Germany....the shopping. I'm not really into shopping that much, but I do miss the American stores.

The Friday evening before we left, Sam's Aunt Linda had us over for dinner. It was a nice evening spent with family. One of his cousins had a baby just a couple month younger than Elly. It was cute seeing them interact.

Sam's parents introduced Ellyanna to her first concert :) One evening we went to a Michael W. Smith concert. It was very nice, however, none of us thought about how loud it would be for Elly....we ended up leaving early.

Well, I could ramble on, but think I'll just post some pictures from the second half of our trip.

Ellyanna and I before leaving the room we stayed in at Ft. Leavenworth

I love her in this little outfit. She's such a doll!

Elly, me and Grandma at Prickett's Fort

Grandma, Ellyanna and Sam

Sam's parents, Elly and I out for a walk in Hidden Valley (Sam was there, but taking the picture)

Trying peaches

She's really not into food much yet

Aunt Linda with Sam and Ellyanna

Sam and Higgins trying on some clothes

Ellyanna taking it all in

Being silly

Sam and I took a picture with his "famous" Mom. (this poster of her is hanging in the lodge at Hidden Valley)

Ellyanna with her second cousin, Isabelle

The babies were so funny. They both were on their bellies yelling.

Opa and Ellyanna watching a football game

Ellyanna with Oma and Opa Thompson

Sam and Elly with Oma and Opa

All of us together