Ready, set...

Go!
Brian, Ellie and I are off to the race tomorrow. We're making the trek up to Green Bay for the half marathon I'm running on Sunday morning. That's right, we're going to Packers country!
I'm very excited, especially since I've never been to Lambeau Field -- which is where the race finishes :)
I'm sure this will be quite the adventure. I'll post more when we return. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Another one...

Poor Ellie has yet another ear infection. She had a low-grade fever Monday evening that we attributed to teething -- which seemed logical since we can feel one of her top teeth coming through. But an hour into day care on Tuesday, I got a call with the news that her temp had spiked to 102. I got her into see the doctor Tuesday afternoon, and she discovered the new infection in her left ear. (The one from just three weeks ago was in her right ear... but it has to be some sort of record that she got a new ear infection within five days of finishing her antibiotics for the last one.)
We were lucky to get some help last night from a friend, Holly, who I work with at the newspaper. I had a special nighttime assignment for work that I couldn't get out of and Brian had his monthly Science Cafe, a program he organizes for Purdue. We had originally set up for Ellie to go to the neighbor's for a couple hours, but we didn't want to expose their son to Ellie's germs. So Holly came over at the last minute and watched Ellie. It sounds like they had a pretty good time, considering that Ellie was sick and cranky. And we were SO grateful for the last-minute help! Last night was one of those times that we realized how hard it is not to have any family in town. We're lucky to have friends we can impose on in a jam :)
Ellie's fever is still raging today. It was 101.8 this morning, but seems to have gone back down with a new round of Tylenol (generic, since the name brand stuff has all been recalled).
Not only is it heartbreaking to see Ellie hurting, she's not allowed back to day care until she's been fever-free for 24 hours. I'm at home with her for a couple hours this morning and then will head into work when Brian gets done with a meeting he had to attend. He's taking the rest of the day off to run daddy-day-care.
The new ear infection means we have an appointment to see an ear, nose and throat doctor at the beginning of June. Ellie may have some tubes in her future... but we'll see. Since we're at or near the end of the cold season, there's still a chance she might not need them. But we hate seeing her with all these ear infections.
Here's hoping for a quick recovery for our baby girl.

Photo shoot

I haven't had time to get Ellie in for new professional photos anywhere recently, so I tried to do my own photo shoot with her in our front yard last week. I absolutely love the photo above.
And these next ones are just fun and cute. I'm going to keep working on my photo-taking skills with our new camera. It's not super fancy, but it takes good pictures and I just need to keep experimenting with different light and settings.


I've set up a photo page through Shutterfly that I believe anyone can visit to view/buy prints of our pictures. Hopefully it works. The site is: http://schneiderheimer.shutterfly.com

Oh, and we had a great Mother's Day weekend. I had to work Saturday, but still had some fun with Brian and Ellie before going in to the office. And on Sunday we met our friends Rob and Mary for a great picnic. I'll post pictures later. Hope everyone else had a great weekend and made sure to say "I love you" to mom! Ellie hasn't quite mastered the phrase yet, but she said a lot of "ma-ma" yesterday. I'll take it :)

Feeling like a mom

I got to spend some time at Ellie's day care this morning because the teachers in her room hosted a Mother's Day brunch for the moms. It was very sweet! And I got a painted flower pot from Ellie as a gift. I'm pretty sure Ellie painted it all by herself :) I love it and already showed it off to my co-workers.

I've been thinking a lot this week about how much I feel like a mom — which I suppose is good since I've been one now for quite some time!
It really hits me sometimes, though. One such occasion was last week when I was battling a cold. As I fished a Kleenex out of my purse one day I thought, 'Wow... I'm officially there.'
I will forever associate Kleenex with my mom because she is never without one! If I went into her house right now and borrowed a coat, I could almost guarantee I'd find at least one tissue in the pocket. Even most of the sweatshirts probably have a spare tissue hiding out inside the cuff of the sleeve. I guess she's always had bad allergies — and had a lot of kids' noses to wipe! — so Kleenex became her constant companion over the years.
I had another mom moment last night as I shared food with Ellie. We're trying out new finger foods with her, so I cut up a few pieces of banana for her tray and then ate the rest of the banana myself. I know it's not a big deal, but I felt like I'd "arrived" as a mom who eats her kid's leftovers while running around trying to do a dozen other things at the house. I know, how exciting.
I'm sure this will probably change over the years, but I'm still in the honeymoon phase of mommy-hood right now. I don't mind having to wipe Ellie's nose, hands and hair. And even when I'm starving, I don't usually mind having to figure out her meal before getting to eat my own. OK, there are times when I get frustrated — usually when I can't even find a moment to hit the bathroom. But the rewarding and "wow" moments of being a mom FAR outnumber those frustrating moments.
Right now I can honestly say that being a mom — in all of its unglamorous glory — is about the best role I've ever had. And I'd probably say that even if Ellie hadn't given me the flower pot this morning.

Ellie's first wedding

Even though the reception was too late in the evening for Ellie, she came with us to her first wedding ceremony on Saturday. Linda took this family picture for us before we left and I think it turned out so cute! I love the look on Ellie's face — like she's thinking, 'Yeah, I know I look good!'

Here's Ellie being super cute and fun at the church. We were worried about her having a total meltdown during the wedding because she refused to take her afternoon nap Saturday, but instead she was hamming it up for the people around us. We actually got scolded by some strangers at the reception for not bringing Ellie with us... I guess they didn't get enough of her earlier in the day. She IS very fun.

And even though Ellie is squinting like a pirate, I had to include this one of her and her friend Jacob, who was a ring bearer in the wedding. Such cuties!

And here's a couple pics of Jacob and Ellie playing together on Sunday. Jacob, who's almost 15 months, is giving kisses now... though Ellie wasn't too sure what she thought of it!
At one point they started talking (i.e. babbling and shrieking) to each other. Wonder what they were saying...

Weekend trip

We went to St. Louis last weekend to visit Brian's family and attend a friend's wedding. It was a very fun weekend. Ellie got some quality time in with her grandparents and great-grandparents, although she is still a little fussy sometimes when Brian or I hand her off.
Still, she was a great traveler in the car and had some good visiting time. Above she's playing with great-grandpa Joe's hand.
And below she was playing in Grandma Linda's wash basket. Ellie is lucky that her grandma and grandpa love her so much... because she was very fussy on Saturday night when Brian and I left her to go to the wedding reception. I believe the report was that she cried and screamed basically until she passed out for the night. Not exactly the fun night of babysitting that the grandparents were hoping for. Sorry again, Linda and Bob!

Here's the happy great-grands holding Ellie. And below is a double-take: Two Ellies!

And I had to throw this one in because it's such a cute picture of daddy and Ellie playing on Saturday morning :)

9 months

Happy 9-month birthday to our little girl! Ellie is showing so many signs of being a "big girl" these days. We looked at some pictures the other day of Ellie in her first couple months home... and we can't believe how much she's grown. Here's a look at Eleanor Anne at 9 months:

1. Laughing and smiling, SO much!
2. She's right on the verge of crawling and walking. Ellie can rock and hang off the edge of furniture with the best of them :)

3. Scooting. Ellie is really good at going backwards, so far...

4. Covering some ground: Just in the past couple days I realized how effective she is in getting to toys and non-baby things that she wants to grab, even though she doesn't use any traditional techniques of crawling or rolling yet. She's unique.

5. Pmphlpmphttttttt!! She loves making farty noises, especially at the least appropriate times (i.e. church)

6. Clapping about anything and everything. Apparently mom and dad are very applause-worthy.

7. Waving, just a little. Brian has been working very hard on bye-bye with her, and Ellie is finally starting to wave with some consistency.

8. Eating some new foods. Just today she had bits of bagel and a couple small pieces of black olives. We're hoping to keep expanding her diet.

9. Putting blocks in a bucket. She's not quite fitting them through the right shape holes, but Ellie is good at dumping out her bucket of blocks and then slowly dropping ones back in.

10. Sharing? She just started reaching toys out to us when she's playing, as if she's offering to share. Sometimes she'll let go if we reach to take them and say "thank you".... sometimes she hangs on and pulls them back to her. Either way it's cute! But we'll keep working on sharing.

That's the top 10 we can come up with for now... but stay tuned, as she's growing so fast every day!