Well, this Momma has set a record for late posting of blogs. But oh well. Part of me thinks I'm crazy for doing this whole board/blanket/blog/outfit thing and wants to quit, but the other part of me has to finish it! When I had the idea to do this in the beginning, I apparently thought that being a stay-at-home mom would include large amounts of leisure and free time. Who was I kidding? I love my "job" though, and so grateful to everyone in my life that had made my dream come true. Everyday isn't sunshine and rainbows, you know what I mean? But everyday I get to be with my girl through her smiles, her poopy diapers, her naps, her non-naps, her playing, her crawling, her nursing, and her experiencing everything for the first time. This is what these past couple of months has been all about: watching her experience those firsts, which may be the reason it's taken me so long to finish this. I'm okay with that, because that means I've been living. And living with Ellie has changed me in ways I never thought possible! As always, thanks for reading all about the love we have for this little girl. We know; this love is kinda ridiculous, in all good ways.
9 Months Old!
Weight: 16 lbs.
Length: 29 inches
2. Sleeping? She is a still a great little night sleeper, but has had a few hiccups with our holiday travels. Thankfully, she is back to sleeping 10-12 hours at night, and taking at least one longer nap during the day. Thank you baby!
3. Milestones?
This has certainly been a noteworthy month with many firsts with all our adventures! Ellie learned to wave while we were at Target doing our weekly grocery shopping. I think it's funny that she's learned to wave "hi!" first, while most babies first learn to wave "bye bye!". Silly girl.
With more hand and wrist control, she also learned to give us fives. She basically pats our hand when we put it out but we're calling it giving us five. What a sweetie! She pulled up for the first time (sorta) inside one of our new ottomans, but hasn't really done so much by herself.
Like I said, she got a highchair, which is a fun and new place for her to play and hang out while we eat dinner. I think she also might have said "Dadda" for the first time this past month, and does so off and on when she sees Chris. I am not 100% sure, but she sure does know who he is! Little Ellie has been cracking us up with her big smiles and giggles, as usual, but recently she started this little dancing thing that she does when she hears good music or gets excited about something. She is too cute, whatever it is that she is doing! Eloise got her first real sickiness this month, which we thought was spurred by an impending tooth. Very congested, a slight fever, and not wanting to nap, which may have also been due to the excitement of the season, and also possibly because we discovered she and I were exchanging thrush. And we found the suspected tooth finally on New Year's Eve! Whew! The reason why she was making us so crazy! But it's cute and tiny and sharp. And I love it! Except the part that means she's growing more and more.
Lastly, she just learned to crawl just in the days before she turned 9 months. She's been scooting, rocking, and rolling for awhile, but she made it to crawling, wobbling uncoordinatedly while making tiny forward movements. The look on her face is something I will always remember too... She looks so proud of herself!
Lastly, she just learned to crawl just in the days before she turned 9 months. She's been scooting, rocking, and rolling for awhile, but she made it to crawling, wobbling uncoordinatedly while making tiny forward movements. The look on her face is something I will always remember too... She looks so proud of herself!
4. Activities and adventures?
While just before Thanksgiving we had a light snow, we had our first big snow WITH snow days for Ellie! Oh how lovely it was and made it really feel like Christmas! It was the earliest I remember snow here in Oklahoma too, so we were very lucky. What we weren't lucky with was the extremely cold temperatures, which made our house quite frosty feeling too. Something we need to work on for next year, but at least it's beautiful!
The past few years, Chris's mom, Tess, has taken us shopping for our Christmas gifts. It has been so much fun spending the day together, and this year we got to take Ellie-girl with us! She was pretty good most of the time, with just a little fusiness here and there, and we even got to go eat at The Cheesecake Factory! Yum! What a fun tradition we have!
While just before Thanksgiving we had a light snow, we had our first big snow WITH snow days for Ellie! Oh how lovely it was and made it really feel like Christmas! It was the earliest I remember snow here in Oklahoma too, so we were very lucky. What we weren't lucky with was the extremely cold temperatures, which made our house quite frosty feeling too. Something we need to work on for next year, but at least it's beautiful!
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| snow Snow SNow SNOw SNOWWWW!!!! |
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| Our litte polar bear |
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| She wasn't too sure what to do with it except just lay there. It might also be due to being bundled up like the kid from "The Christmas Story". :) |
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| Even more beautifully Christmasy! |
The past few years, Chris's mom, Tess, has taken us shopping for our Christmas gifts. It has been so much fun spending the day together, and this year we got to take Ellie-girl with us! She was pretty good most of the time, with just a little fusiness here and there, and we even got to go eat at The Cheesecake Factory! Yum! What a fun tradition we have!
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| A girl with the same fashion sense as her momma. :) |
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| Yay shopping! |
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| Ellie's first visit to meet Santa! |
After Ellie met Santa Clause, we went to celebrate Chris's birthday with Mimi, Papa, and the Harris family at Upper Crust! It was fun to have three babies with us, and Chris had a great time eating some of his favorite food and opening gifts!
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| She sure does love her Daddy...I love watching her look at him. The purest form of love! |
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| Just one example of his selflessness: on his birthday, he let ME go to the English Christmas party! He is such a good man. |
The weekend after Chris's birthday, we finally got to celebrate with a date to a Thunder game and half-off Melting Pot afterward! It was such a fun night, just the two of us. Of course, we talked about Ellie the whole time and how much we missed her. We're ridiculous.
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| Kiley & Chris! |
Every month or so, we get together with two of my favorite mommas, Jennie and Joellen, and do something fun with their kiddos, Hazel & Jacob, and Gretchen & Joseph! Sometimes Mimi comes along too! It is crazy, exciting, funny, exhausting, and good for all of us. I really enjoy the time with them and their kids; can't believe we are old enough to all be mommas! :) This month we went to the Myriad Gardens' Crystal Bridge and ate at Kitchen No. 324.
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| Four of the five babies. So cute! |
Ellie showing off her new trick, waving, and my fried chicken pot pie. Yummy!
This is the only picture of the Christmas parade we have this year because it was so dang cold! We went with Emily, and only were outside for about 10 minutes before we decided to go ahead and just eat at Syrup! Funny, but glad we did it.
As you know we've had a fall festival for our friends the past couple of years, and used to have a big friend Christmas party, and I've really missed that. So I decided to try my hand at a "Favorite Things" party again, despite the business of the holidays, and there was a great turnout! Many friends from all parts of life came, we shared delicious food, and our favorite things. It was a fun experience, and I think I'll do it again next year. Or maybe even earlier!
You can see all the smiling and laughing faces from the evening.
My home feels the warmest when it's filled with friends like these celebrating life together.
We hit the jackpot this winter with early frost and light snow, then a real snow in early December with snow days, and then ICE! It was kind of scary initially, since it could have meant damage to our trees, house, or cars, but now that it's past, I can look back at it and call it beautiful. Ice covered everything: blades of grass, tree limbs, Christmas lights, and our roof. It made everything look sparkly and Christmasy. Thankful for such a gorgeous Christmas season!
A very important person in our lives celebrated her 30th birthday this year too, our dear Auntie Fran! And since we've known each other all our lives, you could count it as our 30th friendship anniversary too. She has always been there for me, when I'm nice and when I'm not, throughout the years of my parents getting a divorce, those boy crazy summers she endured with me, high school fun and trips to visit me, an adventure of a lifetime to Europe, the maid of honor in our wedding, the first to know if Ellie was a boy or girl, our house and doggie sitter in times of need, and a faithful friend through all those little moments of everyday. She has the most pure heart of anyone I know, and I love her dearly! I couldn't have hand-picked a better best friend for me!
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| She's 30!!! |
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| Celebrating Fran's birthday with friends! |
After dinner to celebrate, we took a chilly but beautiful walk to the Myriad Gardens and Crystal Bridge. A fun way to celebrate a great gal!
Last year, when we were still pregnant with our tiny girl, we decided we would start a tradition of going to look at light in our new Christmas pjs on Christmas Eve Eve. We brought hot chocolate and goodies, of course, picked a pretty neighborhood, and drove around looking at all the lovely lights. I'm not sure if Ellie had any idea what we were doing but we had fun nonetheless. Oh and even Lucy-dog got to join us!
And then, just like that, it's Christmas Eve! Wow! Each year we spend Christmas Eve at Grandma and Grandpa Cash's house eating hot d'oeuvres and sharing gifts. And this year was just the same! It was so much fun, and we look forward to more of our family being there next year!
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| The grandkids and greats too! |
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| Ellie did a great job opening gifts with the help of Mimi! |
Our sweet Memaw!
After we all left, Grandpa went to the hospital with chest pains, and had to stay there all Christmas Day. Though he is okay now, this reminds me to enjoy each and every time with our family, because you don't know when it will be the last one with them. Thankful he is okay though!
We were pooped already when we got home, but we had to stay up and start some of our own family traditions with our little one. We put on our pjs, played with the baby, set out goodies for Santa and wrote him a note, all while taking pictures along the way. We had so much fun, and had to savor the moments with Eloise on our first Christmas Eve.
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| Christmas Eve at home under the mistletoe! |
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| Our note and treats for Santa |
This girl might love our Christmas tree more than her parents.
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| I adore this one. |
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| One of her new tricks...wallowing mommas face. I love it. |
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| "There's just one sleep til Christmas Day..." |
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| What a beautiful one we had this first Christmas with Ellie. |
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| A gift from Santa..vintage blocks we found at an estate sale! |
Christmas morning was fun with our girl: we checked out our stockings and Santa's note first, discovering lots of fun goodies, even for Lucy and Dexter. Then we had Ebleskievers for breakfast, and finished opening our gifts. Chris's "big" gift were new boots; mine was a beautifully vintage picnic basket full of picnicing goodies. Ellie got some Charlie Brown books and stuffed animals, "Monsters University", and a tiny Boo, Mike, and Sully. She really did help open each gift by ripping the bow off or grabbing the tissue paper, and surprised us with her interest in each new item.
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| Checking out the note from Santa! |
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| Pretty girl on her first Christmas. |
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| She looks like she got caught doing something naughty! Haha! |
What a fun morning with our little family!
We then headed to our first Christmas celebration of the day at Lola and Grandpa Tom's house! There were many smiling faces there to greet us, and many hugs for Ellie. Oh, and of course, TONS of delicious food! We stuffed ourselves, opened gifts, and just hung out.
We came home for a little while, to rest and let Ellie do the same, before heading to visit Grandpa, who was still in the hospital. After a short visit with him, we headed over to Mimi and Papa's for our last late Christmas celebration of the day. Ellie did a great job all day, and showed her sweet smiles to everyone!
The day after Christmas, we began our journey north, late as usual, with our first stop in Wellington at Aunt Jayne and Uncle John's. They had quite a full house, so we didn't stay the night, but we did get to eat dinner with them and share some gifts. It is always a nice, warm place to stop on our way to Nebraska and 'stretch our legs", especially now with a dog AND a baby.
We finished our trip for the day by driving north about 45 more minutes to The Purdy's house in Andover, which again, we arrived later than we intended. Though the twins were already snug in their beds, we did get to sit and visit with Sara and JP, and they offered a nice little guest suite for us to rest our weary heads. When we woke up the next morning, we found friendly Emma and Rylie, ready to give hugs to all three of us, and even hugs and paci sharing from Emma to Lucy. They were the cutest, and we had such a good time playing with them!
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| Three babies in footy pajamas with their three pacis |
Ahhhh...We finally arrived in at Grampa Larry's in Kearney, Nebraska on the night of Decemeber 27th! Hooray! Even though we were royally exhausted, we had to go eat some Amigos and Dairy Queen that night too, and of course, we stayed up too late watching Ellie play. The next morning we would have our Christmas morning to open gifts and check out our stockings. Ellie even got one too!
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| Grampa Larry sure got a kick out of watching Ellie rip those bows off! |
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| Great Grandma Ginnie was so excited to see our big girl! |
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| They had a fun time playing with Ellie's new toys. |
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| The Hunt Gals and Valentas Gals |
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| I love this picture. Great Grandma sure does adore Eloise! |
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| She was a sweetie to Grandma and let her give her bigs hugs and kisses! |
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| After much delay because of Momma and baby's sickness and need for meds, we were finally headed home! |
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| Big smiles for Grampa! |
Well, since we were beyond exhausted, I was fighting mastitis and thrush, and we discovered a tiny Ellie tooth on New Year's Eve, we decided to make it a New Year's Eve to remember with pjs and pizza. It was an excellent choice and just what this Valentas family needed.
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| New Year's Eve Family picture! Wild animals! :) |
On New Year's Day, we had a belated Christmas celebration at Mimi and Papa's with delicious food and relaxation. We were so glad to see everyone, especially Grandpa, and are so thankful we had the opportunity again to be with our family.
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| Looking quite coy with Mimi & Papa |
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| Happy New Year! |
Ellie did a great job at her nine month appointment because there were no shots! Woo Hoo! We asked Mimi to go with us, since Dadda spent the previous day with us taking her 9 month pictures. We were so glad to have her go with us! Afterward, we went introduced Mimi to Whole Foods, and ate lots of delicious food after revelling in all the beauty inside the store. Such a fun day with my two favorite gals!
After all the hustle and bustle of Christmas, we realized we had never taken a family picture by our beloved Christmas tree! So before we took it all down, a few weeks late than most, we took a few with our friend. I miss it very much, and am counting down to next year!
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| That was one good tree. :) |
5. Favorite baby item? With all the very cold temperatures, ice, and snow this month, our best buddies have been a warmer fleece swaddle and footie pjs for our Ellie. Poor girl will just get too cold without them! And since she doesn't keep socks on, those pjs help keep her warm during the day too. Besides she looks too darn cute in them!
6. Favorite moment this past month? Each one of her milestones this month have proven to be pretty special, because we were both there to witness them. Watching her experience her first Christmas was really incredible too, and I've loved all of the crazy busy-ness of it.
7. Looking forward to this next month? Hmmmm...Gettting back into our rhythm? Maybe? But I'm not sure...I've loved having Chris home with us and getting to relax a little more, knowing he's here, and I don't want it to be over. It has been such a fun month and I'm never ready for the Christmas season to be over.
8. Visitors?: No new ones really, but just lots of time with friends and family Ellie has met before. And we were so thankful for it. We were exhausted by the end of our holidays, but that means there are so many to love on and so many to love on us. We are always grateful for that.
9. One thing I've learned:
Decrease any and all expectations of what I thought I was going to accomplish in a day, a week, a month, or ever as a mom staying home. What did I do with all my time before she was here? All I know is that I didn't use it very wisely or appreciate it enough. But I digress...We had a really fun, REALLY crazy busy, but still really fun month celebrating the holidays with our girl. I planned ahead, bought gifts ahead, crafted ahead, and wrapped ahead, but somehow at the end of it, I was still stressed, exhausted, and overwhelmed. And the month seemed to just slip through our fingers. My favorite month of the year is gone, and we have to wait another whole year (almost) to do it again. So I hope to think of ways to let things go next year and simplify, so that I can focus more on just the time together. There might be more store-bought items, both gifts and food, in our near future.
10. My message to Ellie:
Watching you experience so many firsts this month has been quite a delight for us, sweet girl! You are growing quickly so it seems, but we look forward to what you will do next. We love how interactive you are now...reaching for us, waving and smiling at us, dancing, crawling, eating real food, and showing off your first tiny tooth! You know who we are for sure now too, and that makes this time feel even more special. This first Christmas with you has been wonderful too; we've loved showing you all about Christmas and finally getting to share our family's traditions with you. The wonder in your eyes at the newness of the Christmas tree, the gifts, and snow has been amazing to witness. So many first firsts with our first tiny one. I can't believe how beautiful you are, and we aren't the only ones to think so. Anywhere we go, people tell us how pretty and friendly we are, and you give them a big grin to thank them. You bring so much joy not only to our lives, but to so many others around us too. You are such a happy baby, and we sure do love you so! Can't believe we're only a few months away from your first birthday...This momma of yours is certainly going to be teary-eyed for that!
Watching you experience so many firsts this month has been quite a delight for us, sweet girl! You are growing quickly so it seems, but we look forward to what you will do next. We love how interactive you are now...reaching for us, waving and smiling at us, dancing, crawling, eating real food, and showing off your first tiny tooth! You know who we are for sure now too, and that makes this time feel even more special. This first Christmas with you has been wonderful too; we've loved showing you all about Christmas and finally getting to share our family's traditions with you. The wonder in your eyes at the newness of the Christmas tree, the gifts, and snow has been amazing to witness. So many first firsts with our first tiny one. I can't believe how beautiful you are, and we aren't the only ones to think so. Anywhere we go, people tell us how pretty and friendly we are, and you give them a big grin to thank them. You bring so much joy not only to our lives, but to so many others around us too. You are such a happy baby, and we sure do love you so! Can't believe we're only a few months away from your first birthday...This momma of yours is certainly going to be teary-eyed for that!
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