22 Months! Photo with a dolphin photo!

So, for Ellie's 22 month portrait, we were in Chicagoland visiting Nick's side of the family. In an effort to get Ellie and her dolphin in the same picture, we posed Ellie with a collage of previous monthly dolphin photos from her first year (which she actually really enjoyed looking at).

She also enjoyed looking at daddy baby (well photos of Nick as a baby)

Christmas in Boston (aka Christmas #1)

Ellen is a fortunate little girl. She was able to celebrate Christmas not only three times, but in three different time zones with different family members, and different traditions.

In Boston, we had a quiet little celebration. Prior to our celebration, we experienced different traditions within the city. The day after Thanksgiving, Ellie and I headed down to see the "Enchanted Village", which is a display of animated scenes which was first installed in the 1960s in a now defunct department store. Ellie loved the displays and even the faux-snow which fell on the visitors. We also took Ellie to experience her first Tuba Christmas and to see Santa twice (see post below).

For our celebration at home, Aunt Susie came over and we opened some presents. We then had a nice brunch of french toast. Ellie made out like a bandit with puzzles, a Playmobil farm house, a basketball hoop, and other fun toys! She also loved our afternoon craft project of stringing jingle bells on a ribbon, which then became her jingle necklace!

  

As we finally started getting cold weather in the middle of December, Ellie also got to try on her new winter coat...which she wasn't that happy about.

"Hi, Santa!"

Two Santa visits so far this season.. two successful excursions.

Ellie gets very excited to see the big man.. waving, smiling, laughing, sitting politely and contentedly, and saying "Hi, Santa!" and "Bye, Santa."

Hopefully we can get a couple more Santa visits in before Christmas: one in Illinois and one in California.




Above: Ellie and Santa outside near Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market in downtown Boston. Afterward we enjoyed the music at the annual Tuba Christmas concert.

Below: Ellie and Santa at the Natick Collection (an upscale mall in the western suburbs).




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Boston & Natick, MA

Happy Thanksgiving!

We hope that everyone had a safe and happy Thanksgiving! Aunt Susie came over and cooked a turkey and some side dishes that we all enjoyed. Cooking a Thanksgiving dinner with a toddler running around was quite an adventure this year. As usual, Nick had to work on Thanksgiving so he wasn't around to add an extra pair of hands. However, Ellie did pretty well, she was just fascinated with the turkey and made sure to show all of her "friends" the "hot chicken" in the oven.

When Nick did get home from work, everything was done and all that was left was for Nick to carve the turkey!

 

I think Ellie was really excited that she got to sit at the table. We set with her own place settings, and were careful to keep the rest of the food away from her reach. She enjoyed the rolls, turkey, and mashed potatoes (with her hands...what a mess), but her favorite thing to eat were green stuffed olives (which are my favorite too)!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

ILL-INI!!

 The last week of October, our clan headed out to Urbana-Champaign for some tailgating, family, Papa Del's, Halloween fun. We stayed with my parents at their retirement house in Urbana just off campus. It was a week of Awesome!

 Friday we hit the ground running by showing Ellie the campus and seeing the Homecoming parade. We even watched the Marching Illini practice which Ellie really enjoyed. However, much to her saxophone and trumpet playing parent's dismay...she seemed to enjoy the drumline the best.

Illinois versus Indiana, the 100th anniversary of Homecoming, Ellie's first Illini game, Ellie's first tailgate...how much pressure could we put on one day and one game? It was awesome. Illinois won. Ellie is an expert tailgater. Ellie, wth a short nap during the 3rd quarter, lasted the whole game (not always in the stands). We got to hang out with old friends. Ellie made new friends. It was a lot of fun.

We stayed in Illinois for the rest of the week. My good college friend, and co-worker, was getting married in Springfield on the 30th so vacationing in central Illinois seemed like a good plan! My parents were there. Nick's parents even drove down to hang out. Nick, due to work, had to leave in the middle of the week. 

We experienced all that Urbana-Champaign has to offer. We went apple picking. We checked out Urbana's finest playgrounds. Ellie had Papa Del's not once, but twice. She now asks for pizza at every meal. Ellie got to see the neighbors chickens in their yard (its Urbana).

One day, we drove down to Olney in southern Illinois to catch up with some of my dad's family that we hadn't seen in years. We saw a sword used by my relative during the Civil War. Ellie got to run around a family farm. We kept our eyes open, but didn't see any white squirrels.

 The weekend of my friend's wedding, in which I was a bridesmaid, Ellie spent with my parents while I hd a blast with friends in Springfield. My parents drove me to Springfield on Friday and we took some time to see the sights. Ellie met a Lincoln impersonator...but she was much more excited to run around the streets of Old Springfield. My parents said Ellie was awesome for the two nights that she stayed with them. My mom said she even helped clean out a pumpkin which my dad later helped carve. I'm sure, bribing her with more Papa Del's pizza didn't hurt! Note, my 20 month daughter ate a full slice (including some of the crust) of a Papa Del's pizza. This is deep dish Chicago-style pizza! She ate the same amount that most adults eat...that's how "pizza awesome" this pizza is (quote by Ellie).

 The last full day we were there was Halloween. Ellie dressed up as a duck and I took her trick-or-treating to the neighbor's houses and to some friends who live in Champaign and Urbana. When I took her to a sorority house and 15 girls ran to the door and ohhhed and ahhed about how cute Ellie was. Ellie was a little freaked out...but once they offered her candy she warmed up to them. Ellie was very considerate and picked out mommy's favorite candy at each house.

The flight home was an adventure. Well not the actual flight, she was good on the flight, but going through security, boarding the plan, setting up the carseat, packing up the carseat, leaving the plane, and getting to baggage claim by myself with Ellie, Ellie's stroller, Ellie's toddler carseat, and two carry-on bags...that was interesting! Fortunately through the kindness of strangers (including the pilot) we survived and weren't the most obnoxious people in line at security!

It was such a great trip. It was so much fun seeing old friends, making new friends, seeing family (some I hadn't seen since I was probably Ellie's age),and remembering the good times of college. Its pretty ironic that Ellie now will say "Go Illini" and "marching band"...next Homecoming, she'll be ready!

 

21 Months - Night Night Dolphin

Every night Ellie has to put her "babies" night night. This involves finding a blanket for the baby, laying them on their stomach, rubbing their back, giving them a kiss, and saying "night night baby". Tonight it was the dolphin's turn to go night night. When asked how does Ellie go night night, she laid on the floor next to the dolphin. (note: she isn't wearing make-up, her rosy cheeks are attributed to cold dry weather and hyper-sensitive skin)

No Mallie! My Elmo

Happy Halloween

 Ellie the duck!

 Trick or Treat!!

20 Months! Goodnight Moon (and dolphin)

Girls Weekend!

So last weekend, Nick decided to road trip with some friends to Penn State for the Illinois vs. PSU game. Which Illinois won! So it was me and Ellie for the weekend.

We had a great start to the weekend with a couple of packages from her grandparents. Despite the goodies (including cookies and stickers) she thought the boxes were awesome! However, she did recognize the cookies from Great-Grandma Dolly right away and had the ziploc bag open within a minute of me opening of the package. She then watched me and figured out where I put the rest of the cookies and dug in for some more.

We also completed a little sticker art with stickers from Gma and Gpa Harrer. Everything was worthy of stickers, the paper, me, Baby, Ellie...we are still finding stickers on things!

Ellie even helped me make some of my own pumpkin puree. I bought some sugar pumpkins and while I was busy getting them ready for the oven, Ellie played with the insides on the floor. She didn't seem too keen on having her hands be dirty, but it was an entertaining activity for a few minutes. And then, with the fresh puree, she helped me make pumpkin muffins by putting paper liners into the muffin tin for me.

On Sunday, Aunt Susie joined us on a trip down to the Children's Museum. As usual, Ellie ran to the "bubble water" to show Aunt Susie how to make bubbles. Well...Aunt Susie was able to put Ellie inside of a bubble, that was exciting!

We had a blast on our girl's only weekend. Of course, hanging out with Aunt Susie, and presents from the grandparents, and boxes (which in the end she helped me put in the recycling bin), made what was going to be a good weekend, a great weekend.