ellie's 11 month pictures

I know, I know...I'm behind in posting these.  We all know there's nothing new about that.  But this time makes me feel a little extra like a slacker, because...Ellie turns one next week.  Thursday, to be exact.  And here I am, just barely posting her 11 month pictures.

It's no secret that kids growing up brings a lot of mixed emotions for parents, and I'm no different.  There certainly is a part of me that wants to slow down time and savor every step, every smile, every slobbery kiss to the nose.  But there's another part of me that is just absolutely loving watching her achieve each and every milestone.  She just gets more and more fun every day.  Every age she reaches is my new favorite.

She stopped what she was doing and posed for this picture.  I swear she did.

This month brought a few hard days for Ellie.  It involved her first fever, and a few days of feeling absolutely miserable and barely eating any solid food.  Ellie is already petite enough, and I worry every day that she's not getting enough calories in her.  I think she lost some weight those days.  When took her to the doctor [as paranoid first-time parents are prone to do], she weighed 15lbs, 9oz, but she still had a few more days of sickness to go.  And then there was the 24 hour period she couldn't nurse because I had just gotten a HIDA scan.  Talk about drama!  Poor thing.  That day she spent most of her time swatting away any time we tried to feed her and arching her back when I would try to hold her.  Now, according to our bathroom scale, she is closer to 14lbs.  I hope it's wrong, I really do.  But regardless, these days I offer her food pretty much 24/7 in a very dedicated effort to make sure she's not hungry...like, ever.  She doesn't get very enthusiastic about any of it, and sometimes I wonder if the girl is even my daughter!

And I don't know that turned into an entire paragraph, but there you go.

Within the past week or so, Ellie has become quite the little proficient walker.  She's been taking steps for over a month now, but just recently has it switched from takes-a-few-steps-and-falls to barely-falls-at-all.  She looks a little like Frankenstein, with arms outstretched to keep her balance.  [Or was Frankenstein the doctor?  I never know.]  With each step, her grin gets a little wider and her eyes gleam with excitement.  She also repeats monosyllables over and over with increased volume.

oh oh oh oh Oh Oh Oh Oh OH OH OH OH OH!

Excitement has never been more obvious.

She is still our little dancing diva, and she has an obvious love for all things music.  I hope that never changes!

HA!  This picture just cracks me up.

More and more often, I see understanding dawn in her eyes and I just know that she is picking up on so much more than she can express.  She has two little phrases she likes to repeat at the appropriate times: "Want mama!" and "Hi, dad!"  Her new favorite game is sitting in my lap while I show her my eyes, and then show her her eyes, and then go through every facial feature like that.

Hahaha!  The funny thing about this picture is that she wasn't even angry - just telling me something very seriously!

After months of a colicky baby, I am always pleasantly surprised - all day, every day - at how truly sweet my daughter is becoming.  One day, I was feeling particularly down and a few tears trickled down my cheeks.  She looked up at me, very concerned, gave me a hug and then a big, slobbery kiss!  It's hard to feel down after that, let me tell you.  And that's just one example.  She loves giving us unsolicited hugs and kisses and trying to share her food with us and smiling almost constantly.  My heart is a constant puddle.

Other than the two times I mentioned above when she wasn't feeling well, her sleeping has drastically improved!  The last few days, she has gone to sleep about 10pm, woken up around 7am to eat, and gone back to sleep until around 10am.  And she's even getting better at taking naps in her own crib!

Does it make me a bad mom that I let her carry around the Orajel tube for a few minutes?  I promise she couldn't get into it. :)

Ellie loves - and I mean loves - her stuffed animals this month!  I honestly think one teddy bear in particular is responsible, at least in part, for her better sleeping.  She cuddles with him almost all night long!  And she carries various stuffed animals with her most of the day.  And sometimes her socks.  She loves to carry her socks.

Oh, and just one more for good measure:

It gets cold on our walks, okay? :)

Ellie girl, I can't believe you turn one next week.  We are absolutely in love with the little girl you are becoming!  You truly make every day better.  Thank you for coming into our family.  We are forever grateful for you.  Love you, baby girl.

valentine's day

Valentine's Day is great.  I know people get bent out of shape about the whole thing, but I think it's so fun to do something extra special now and then for the people you love.

I woke up to find hearts taped around our room and flowers on the kitchen counter.

Tim had even left a cute stuffed animal for Ellie - a monkey, because he always calls her that.

She loves it and carries it with her everywhere.

Tim and I must have been on the same wavelength, because it had been my plan to heart attack our room for him, too.  I wrote reasons I loved him on each one.  [Yes, we're that cheesy couple!]

[Don't judge the decor - I still have a long way to go!]

I found a groupon for a metallic "canvas" print of Ellie for his desk at work, and I borrowed someone else's idea for the bottled soda.

`
That night, we hung out with some of our cute nieces and nephews, and the next day for lunch, we went out to eat at one of our new favorite places: Tandoori Oven.  Indian food!  It's fabulous.  It's attached to the side of a gas station, but I truly feel that sometimes hole-in-the-wall places have the absolute best food.

[Tip: If you ever go, make sure to get the Chicken Tikka Masala.  AMAZING.]

This year was drastically different than last year, when I was nine months pregnant and eagerly awaiting Ellie's birth.  I'm so grateful that this year, I was able to celebrate with both of my sweethearts!

bowling and kitchen remodel

Let's play catch-up for a few minutes, shall we?

A couple of weekends ago, we met up with my BFF, Cait and her cute family.

First we went bowling.  Tim and I hadn't been for a couple of years (painfully obvious), but we loved it!

Love this girl. 

 Good thing you can't see our scores on those screens.  You would be embarrassed for us.

Favorite people on the planet. 

In our house, we call this the cheeser smile!

And then we all went to Cafe Zupas!  I'm usually not much into soup/salad/sandwich places but I could literally eat at Zupas every day and be totally happy.

 And our babies were pretty happy, too.

Look at their eyes.  Just look at them.

I wish this family lived closer, and I'm sad to report that they're going to be moving away soon for grad school!  Let's just all take a moment to pray that they don't end up moving out of the country.

We've spent the last week or so painting the top row of cabinets in our kitchen.  It's tedious work, but the results make it SO fun.  We decided that we're going to just do the bottom row of cabinets little by little so it doesn't completely incapacitate our kitchen.  Because that's exactly what it did this last time.  [Hello Dollar Menu, goodbye nutrition.]

Want a sneak peek?  Don't judge too harshly; we still have a long way to go!

 Before

Mid way through

And we put down some cute contact paper inside the cabinets:

Before 

After

We still need to paint the bottom row, put up a backsplash, and take out the light fixture.  And, well, get new appliances and countertops, but we need to save our moneys for that!  It'll be awhile.

And now my sweet baby is crying, but at least we're mostly caught up!

[Have any of you redone your kitchens?  I would love to see before and after pics!]

ellie's 10 month pictures

That little baby of mine somehow manages to get cuter every month, I swear.  Oh the things she does to my heart.

This month she:

+ Takes 1-2 steps by herself before tumbling to the ground.

+ Carries a book with her wherever she goes.

+ Giggles at everything.  Sometimes I swear she thinks she's telling jokes.

+ Says "mama" and "dad" and really understands what they mean.

+ Says "up" when she wants to be held.

+ Says "uh-oh" (which sounds more like "uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-oh") when she drops something on the floor.  Which is all the time.

+ Attempts to say "duck" ("dah") and "fish" ("ssh") whilst playing in the bathtub.

+ Signs "more" when she wants more food.  And sometimes whenever she feels like it.

+ La-la-loves tangerines.  And pretty much all fruits.

+ Hates all vegetables, except for very occasionally sweet potatoes and green beans.

+ Still dances about 90% of the day.

+ Claps enthusiastically the other 10%.

+ Blows kisses (which is more like smacking herself in the face repeatedly).

+ Drinks out of a straw.

+ Still nurses every 2-4 hours.  It just depends.

+ Sleeps better, only waking up somewhere between 0-3 times per night, depending on the night.  Huge improvement.

+ Loves to mimic everything we do.

+ Gives the best hugs, kisses, and endless cuddles.

+ Becomes totally entranced by the Barney Sing-A-Long on Netflix.

+ Has six teeth.

Ellie's oh-so-sweet side has really emerged this month, and I just can't get enough of her.  She's the best entertainment and the best little buddy.

the reluctant utahn

"Your news stations in Utah are really weird," my sister-in-law commented during our long drive back from a family dinner.

I was stunned.

My news stations?  I thought.  But my news stations are down in Arizona.

And that was when it hit me.  We've lived in Utah for an entire year.  A year and a week, to be exact.  Maybe they really are my news stations now.

I'm still kind of in denial about the whole thing.  I still feel like an Arizonan through and through.

But what a year it has been!

We moved to Utah, had a baby about a month later, and bought our first house.  And that's just the cliff notes version.

And, if pressed, I might even say that Utah isn't such a bad place to live.

Ok, ok.  It's pretty great most of the time.  And I'm even getting used to this whole freezing-my-butt-off-for-months-on-end thing.  I don't always like it.  But I'm getting used to it.

And truth be told?  My life is beautiful.  And it has very little to do with where I live.

failed campout turned las vegas trip

Since the dawn of time, it has been a Sparks family tradition to go camping for New Years.  Or something like that, anyway.  I've never been very good at history.

This year we wanted to keep up that tradition, so we planned to go straight from my grandma's house out into the Southern California desert.  I think it is safe to say that if something could have gone wrong with planning and executing this trip, it did.

First it was finding a place where Ellie wouldn't freeze.  Then it was finding a campground with potable water.  And then it was finding a place that wasn't totally out of the way for everyone involved.

Finally, we thought we'd found a place that fit all the criteria: Hole in the Wall Campground, near Barstow, CA.  We've been there before and it's gorgeous, and we'd checked the weather and were just sure it was going to be perfect.

We got to the campground when it was already dark and cold.  It was a little windy, but nothing to be concerned about as we set up our tents.  Surely the wind will die down, we thought.  It won't last all night.

WRONG.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

It lasted all night.  And not only did it go on for hours, but it got worse as the hours wore on.  My heart is still singing grateful praises that Ellie slept as well as she ever does - aka waking up a few times but generally going right back to sleep.  The wind was literally so loud that we had to shout to hear each other one foot away from each other.  The tent was flat as a pancake on top of us.  Tim spent the entire night holding the tent up from Ellie's face.  Our tent ripped.  My parents' tent was in shambles.

The next morning, the wind showed no signs of stopping.  We made the very reluctant decision to call it quits on the camping.  We didn't want to say goodbye and we'd so been looking forward to the camping, but we didn't think we could handle any more of that ferocious wind.

I think I spent the first hour of the drive back totally depressed that it hadn't worked out.  And I just missed my family.  Aaand we all very closely resembled Zombies from the lack of sleep.  But the more Tim and I talked about our alternate plan, the better I felt.

We decided that we weren't ready to go home, so instead we planned that we'd spent a night and a day in Las Vegas.  I'd never spent any time in Vegas before, so I was excited.  It took forever to get checked into our hotel and get showered, but once we had, we went out immediately in search of dinner and some entertainment.

It was a bit comical because we were so out of place.  We don't drink, we don't gamble, and we had a baby with us, for heaven's sake.  But we had so much fun.  That night we found ourselves in the middle of a bunch of masquerade-themed street performers.  One of them had a particular fascination with staring at Ellie, which was a bit disconcerting for Tim and me because you couldn't see her face at all through the mask.  Ellie, however, was totally not phased by the mask and stared right back.  Hilarious.

The next day we started off by eating at Señor Frogs in Treasure Island.

Ellie spent the first twenty minutes or so snoozing away.

We loved the view of the pirate ship, and the atmosphere was so fun.

We felt pretty sure that people probably took one look at us, shook their heads, and grumbled, "Mormons."
I mean, could we be any more obvious with our baby carrier and backpack?

Later we stopped by the health-food store for some snacks.  Or we got cream frappucinos and pastries.  I
can't remember for sure.

Our Macaron and Kouing Amann.  Yumm.

I'm not sure I'd want to spend an extended amount of time there, but we had a really good time.

We got home just in time to drink a glass of the bubbly - er, sparkling cider - and ring in the New Year!