Ellie at 11 mths

Elliana is 11 months old today! How can we be only one month away from her turning one?!? We can't even believe how fast the past year has gone. Ellie is at such a fun stage right now. She is busy crawling around and getting into everything. She loves to chase us around and just giggles and giggles when she finds one of us in a different room. She LOVES to play with shoes and is often found digging through her shoes and playing with them. She and Micah play very well together, until she knocks one of his towers down. Micah is very helpful with her and will bring her toys or play games with her. She lights up whenever he comes around. She also loves Cooper and he tolerates her quite well. She doesn't really have any words yet, but does chatter quite a bit and is working on it. She is a great eater and does quite well with almost anything I put in front of her. Last week she even ate chili and enchiladas (on separate occasions)! She will even eat most vegetables, which I still can't get Micah to do. There are no signs of walking yet and she is just able to pull herself up to her knees. She is a pretty good sleeper and is still taking 2 naps a day (praise the Lord!). All in all, the past 11 months have flown by and we are loving our dainty (OK, chunky) little princess.

First day of preschool

Yesterday was Micah's first day of preschool. He was sooooo excited for it and could hardly wait to go. We met his teacher and saw his classroom a couple of days ago. Sending him off to preschool was hard on mom, and I drove away a little teary-eyed! I hadn't really thought much about it until the time came, but it made me very anxious to leave him. Now it's not like we never leave him anywhere and he loves to go places and do things. But for some reason, this was a big deal to me. What was I worried about? I'm not exactly sure, but it had to do something with wanting him to do well and make friends and not get picked on or feel insecure or unsure. It probably was one of my hardest moments as a mom. A wise aunt told me that it's kind of like a butterfly leaving the cocoon. The butterfly needs to struggle to get out and is strengthened through that process. If we help the butterfly out it isn't able to build the strength it needs. Micah was not struggling about preschool, but I know those moments will come and it will be very hard to watch those struggles. Anyway, too serious of a post for our usually upbeat blog!

Go Vikings!

Ellie's new chair from Gram.

Micah at 3 1/2 with his hand that he traced. He was so proud of it and wanted mom to take his picture with it.



Our family in Vikings gear. The kids and I in the only Vikings gear we own....AJ in one of several items that he owns. And you can't see them in this picture, but he even has Vikings socks on! Go Vikes!

Micah's prayer

Yesterday Micah prayed for the new baby of our neighbors. Here is how his prayer went:
Dear God, Thank you for Megan's baby...
I hope she doesn't cry...
I hope she crawls soon...
I hope she gets out of her mommy's tummy. Amen.

How precious is that!?! It was a very heartfelt prayer for that new little baby.

She's crawling....

So here's one of our first posts on YouTube. Ellie is crawling now and loves to chase the puppy in this video. She also gets such a kick out of crawling from the living room into Micah's room and finding Micah in there. She gives a high pitched squeal all the way in there, and then just squeals and giggles in delight when she finds him. It is very fun to see them interact!