Salmon and Souvlaki

Embroidery and Lady-like Behavior

Posted on February 4, 2011 by Laura

Dear Cousin Kaitlyn,

Thank you so much for the dress you gave me for Christmas. I love it. I don’t love it exactly like I love Cousin Ezra’s dress but perhaps you should be grateful for that. Yesterday, I wore it for the whole day and got lots of compliments on it! Mama’s even going to hang it up again without having to wash it! Maybe I don’t puke on this dress because you were so nice to me at Christmas! (Of course, I don’t mean to say that Ezra was mean to me at Christmas. He wasn’t. But he loved telling me where to puke. So maybe I just took his advice and that’s why I like to puke on his dress.)

Love,
Cousin Eliana

Posted in Ellie, family, movie | 1 Comment

A few pictures that I will never turn into blog posts

Posted on February 4, 2011 by Laura

So here they are with the titles!

Loving the Moby wrap! (Thanks Kelly and Steph!)

Not loving spit up down my back – but Ellie didn’t get a drop on her!

Totally loving the little feet

Rockin’ the leopard print pants!

Posted in Ellie | 2 Comments

Happy Birthday Andreas!

Posted on February 4, 2011 by Laura

We hope you had a good first birthday as a dad of two!

(This was the first picture that I could find of Andreas, from June 2008! Yikes! Either we have done a horrible job of making sure that Andreas is in pictures or he’s camera-phobic! 🙂 )

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Peacocks and Puke

Posted on February 1, 2011 by Laura

Dear Cousin Ezra,

I love the dress you chose for me. In fact, I love it so much that I like to puke on it as soon as my mama puts it on me. I’ve worn it twice for a total of less than 10 minutes. This has made my mama sad because she thinks I look so cute in the dress. I really do like peacocks and ruffles. I’m not sure why I puke on the dress so much. This last time, my mama was sneaky and asked my daddy to take these pictures about 1 minutes after she got me dressed just in case I puked. Good thing she did! But anyway, thanks for choosing it for me. My mama is going to try to make me wear it a few more times before I outgrow it and one of these days, I might let her take me out of the house wearing it!

Love,
Cousin Eliana

Posted in Ellie | 7 Comments

In negotiations

Posted on January 26, 2011 by Laura

Ellie is nursing, mostly, thankfully. Thanks for all the encouragement everyone. She still seems to have some issues and just this afternoon went almost 4 hours without nursing and then would only nurse while swaddled and almost asleep. So things aren’t perfect. But then again, when is parenting ever perfect right? We are just figuring out how to parent the [almost] 4-month old Ellie. At least she sure is cute! 🙂

Posted in Ellie, nursing | 2 Comments

Ellie joins the AFL-CIO*

Posted on January 24, 2011 by Laura

*Association For Little Children in Opposition

In her quest to support organized labor, on Saturday afternoon at around 1:15, Ellie decided to join the AFL-CIO. When a child joins, he or she decides what to be in opposition to. The choices are endless really – potty training, solid food, sleeping through the night, wearing clothes, etc. I’m sure every parent out there can name at least one. Once a child chooses the particular item to oppose, he or she goes on strike.

Ellie chose nursing.

And she stuck fast to her principles, refusing to cross the strike line, until around 9:45 Saturday night. And even then, she was only swayed by nursing when almost asleep after crying off and on for about 2 hours.

On Sunday, she conceded to nursing but only lying down, and only when mostly asleep.

Today, she’s actually decided that it’s OK to nurse while being awake but we have to be actively rocking in the rocking chair, something we don’t normally do.

Lord willing, by tomorrow, she’ll have decided to turn in her strike card, cross the labor line, and join in fully in being a contented nursing pair with me.

I have never been so grateful to call Ellie “a little sucker” than I was Saturday night when I felt that precious little mouth move again. Praise the Lord.

Posted in Ellie, nursing | 6 Comments

Oh the cuteness! Oh the tinyness!

Posted on January 23, 2011 by Laura

Last summer, we looked like this:

Now, we look like this:

(Only, we switched babies.)

Welcome Luke William, born last Wednesday! Good job Nikki!

He’s so cute! He’s so tiny! He’s a boy! (And it’s impossible to believe that Ellie was ever as small as he is – in fact, she was almost a pound lighter than he is now. And he feels so amazingly light and small. 3 1/2 months makes a big difference!)

Yiayia is in heaven with three grandchildren now!

Posted in Ellie, family | 4 Comments

Captain Literal

Posted on January 19, 2011 by Laura

I have to be careful what I say around Ellie these days, because she takes me literally.

For example, last night I said to Nik, “Wow, Ellie hasn’t been talking very much today,” and immediately, she started cooing.

Or yesterday afternoon, I said, “Baby, you’ve already blown out at least two outfits in the diaper region today. Why don’t you just puke* a bunch on top to complete the job?” (Note that I was using a fairly sarcastic tone at this point!) So literally (not exaggerating) 10 seconds later, she did – a big puke*, all over her and me.

I’m learning early on that I’d better watch what I say!

*These days we prefer to say “puke” pronounced as in the name “Luke” – it’s the Ezra way and much cuter!

Posted in Ellie | 1 Comment