Ode to Ellie

There are lots of things I should be posting about - our Memorial Day weekend (lots of BBQ's and rain) and cute Austin stories, but right now I'm watching Ellie crawl all over the place with her happy squeal and I just can't help myself - I have to post about how incredibly cute she is.

How could you not love this chubby, happy face? Every morning I wake up and she's sitting in her bed with a big smile. She sees me and gets the biggest grin. I love it. The only time she's cuddly is when she's tired or just woken up, so Randy and I love to get her and have her put her head on our shoulders.

Here are some fun facts on Ellie:

• She has the softest, chubbiest cheeks which are great to kiss and munch on.

• She loves the dog. Truly, she loves to crawl over to Safari and play with her tail. The dog is so wonderful, she'll just lay there and occasionally give me a look that says, "Does she really have to crawl all over me again?" Ellie will squeal like nothing I've heard before, its pure joy.

• She HATES her car seat. She screams as soon as she 'goes into position' to get in the car. She pushes against the straps the entire time and grabs at them, hoping one time her efforts will be successful.

• Ellie also HATES being late on meals. As you can tell from the above picture - this girl means BUSINESS when it's meal time. She gets very cranky if food is not on her tray when she gets in her highchair. She also likes to eat immediately when she wakes up. If she wants to eat and you aren't ready - watch out. She'll turn angry and it's not pretty.

• She loves being entertained by her brothers and sister. She'll just sit there and laugh at them. They dance around her, they sing to her, they hold her and she loves it all. It's quite helpful when they play with her in the car - she'll have moments when she'll forget she's in her car seat and really let out a few laughs.

• She's nine months old and still won't hold her own bottle. Confession: we've propped her bottle up in the car since she was two months old. It seems as though we're always in the car during a feeding, so I've just propped her bottle up with a blanket. She knows the drill, when her bottle comes and we happen to not be in the car, she'll put her arms down by her sides and just drink. We try to coax her hands up to the bottle and place them there but they inevitably fall to the sides. I'm not worried - it's more of a reflection of how often we are in the car.

• She LOVES Ian. She has to catch his eye whenever he is in the room. She'll look at him and smile. It's so cute. She won't stop staring at him until he acknowledges her.
  

• We call her Tyler Jr. because she looks so much like Tyler when he was a baby. She also has his happy personality too. Tyler likes that someone else in the family has blue eyes.

• She never tires of kisses - which is good, given that everyone in the family kisses her cheeks a million times a day.

We LOVE our Ellie and are so happy she's part of our family. Pardon my indulgence...

We are alive...I promise

I know, it's been almost two months since I posted. I keep meaning to, but the only time I have is late at night and I'm too tired at that point since I am up at 5:15am every morning. I do have some free time tonight - I think anyway, so I'll update on what has been going on in the Shumway Family lately.

Right now I'll touch on what I remember of the past two months. Time has flown by. It's busy right now and has been for a while - I think that's how families go. I've realized that the older my children get, the busier we become because of the activities and school schedule we have. It's hard to find time to do things other than home maintenance and preparing for the next 'thing' we have to do.

Here's our two months in a nutshell:

• Watched several soccer games and finished the season last week (not a moment too soon...ok, it actually could have happened earlier)

• Watched two school programs and went to a few 'fun' days at school (Teddy Bear day, etc.)

• Coordinated the kids summer activities (which is harder than I thought, and it gets more complicated every year - I am constantly trying to find the balance of being not too scheduled and having not enough activities - plus trying to find coordinating times for three kids swimming lessons is impossible. I felt so proud that I was able to pull it off and now I have to switch things up again).

• Hosted a wedding reception at my house. My sister Mary was married on April 26th. We had the reception outside and had my entire family here for a few days together (7 siblings and cousins, etc.) It was fun to see everyone and reminded me of our growing up days - wow, it was energy filled - we must have been super fun as kids b/c we are super fun as adults! :)

• Had strep throat up until two days before the wedding. I don't know about others, but strep throat as an adult STINKS!!! I felt HORRIBLE and am so thankful for good health.
  

• Celebrated 12 years of marriage to Randy. Every year I love him more and am so grateful and happy to be married to him. I really married a gem (to use my father-in-laws word) and had no idea how truly amazing he is (well I thought I did when we got married, but really didn't have a clue).
  

• Celebrated McKell's 3rd birthday. It was fun to have family around for that. My dad was supposed to fly out early the day of her birthday and his flight was cancelled, so he spent another extra day with us. He spoiled her with gifts and a Baskin Robbins cake. Those grandpas!
  

• Successfully pulled together a "Narnia" party last night in preparation for Prince Caspian today. Randy has been reading The Chronicles of Narnia with the boys for the past few months. Tyler is obsessed with Narnia (as those of you who know him can attest). The movie Prince Caspian comes out today and you'd better believe we are taking the family to it - we are picking the kids up at noon and then going over to the theater. So, last night we had a party where we watched the first Narnia movie, grilled pizzas, and ate cookies. Ian made a collage of pictures from the Prince Caspian movie and put them together for Tyler. He hugged the poster board and looked happier than on Christmas morning. Around 2am this morning, Tyler comes into our bedroom and says, "Dad, we need to go to Prince Caspian". He was so excited he had gotten himself dressed in clothes and wanted to go see the movie right then. He is darling. I'm excited for him to see the movie today.

• -Ellie learning to crawl. Yikes - she can get anywhere fast and is VERY opinionated when she can't reach something or if you are delayed in any way getting food to her.