Our new niece

We have a niece! Ms. Evelynn Leigh Grabski was born 12/12, a few days early. She showed up the morning after the huge snow storm that blew through the area dumped over a foot of snow on us! My poor brother in law Dan had to shovel the car out before they could get to the hospital.

We of course went to visit as soon as we could that day. She is so beautiful, and tiny! I am used to lugging around a 1 year old, holding a 7 pound new born was quite a switch!

Here is the new mama and Evelynn


Ella was so curious about baby Evelynn. She wanted to stay around her and kept trying to touch her. She was close to poking her in the eye a few times, so I kept a close watch on her.




Here is the proud grandma, my mother in law Jan. She is such a proud grandmother!


Auntie Traci - I am so excited to have a niece!


Uncle Brandon - he looks like such a pro at holding babies now


In Ella news.....we get closer and closer to walking every day. She is walking really good just holding our hands and she is walking with only one hand on the furniture. Her new thing right now is walking on her knees. It is slow, but her preferred mode of transport right now. She also is taking bigger and bigger "risks" when moving between toys and furniture, trying to move between bigger gaps! I think she wants to be sure that she can do it before she does it, which is apparently what I did when I started to walk. Like mother like daughter! :)

She recently got 3 more teeth, and all at the same time! The poor girl was quite fussy for a week, and we weren't quite sure what was going on. It was the same week as the reaction to the MMR shot, so with the fever and rash we thought maybe she was just not feeling well, but turns out she was cutting 3 teeth. That would make me cranky too!

We are getting super excited for Christmas, Ella doesn't know what's going on but she is very interested in the presents.....well, mostly the pretty wrapping paper. She won't touch the tree, she loves to look at it, but will not go near it. It is nice that she is not pulling our ornaments off the tree, so I guess that's a good thing!

Happy Holidays to everyone!

Ella is one!

So I realize that it has been a month since I last posted, but we had a lot going on over here! My little Ella is one! I'm not sure how that is possible already, but she turned one on 12/1. December has been a big month of firsts already, and we are only 1/2 way though! Her first birthday, first cake, first birthday presents, first outing to get a Christmas tree, and her first step!!! Yes, I said it, her first step! She is getting so good at walking along furniture and toys, and the other day while we were getting ready to get into the bath, she let go of the tub and took a step towards me. It was only a step and then she fell into me, but it was a step and it counts! I think she may be walking by Christmas.....

Lets start this off with Ella's first birthday....Brandon and I took off work for the day and spent the whole day with Ella. We did some shopping for her party, had her 1 year pictures taken, and had a doctor's appointment. I know, I know, I am the worst mother in the world making my daughter go to the doctor and get shots on her actual birthday. We had it scheduled a week later, but the doctor had to change it, so I got stuck with it being on her birthday. She is in the 10%-25% for weight (19 pounds), 25% for height (28.5 inches) and of course 95% for head circumference. She is developing well and the doctor was pleased. So, YAY!!! She did have to have 5 vaccinations that day, which was rough, but we powered through and let her have cake after dinner to make up for it! However, one week later, she developed a rash and fever over 101. Surprise, my daughter is one of the 5% of kids who react to the MMR vaccine. Poor girl is still a bit off, but getting back to herself more and more each day.

Here are some pics from her actual first birthday, 12/1.





And with a first birthday comes a first cake. Ella, lucky girl that she is, got to have cake 3 times that week! We gave her cake on her birthday in an attempt to get her to forget that we made her see the doctor and get shots....



And then she got to have more cake at her party 12/4



And then again at a family party for the Bliven clan on 12/5



She loved loved loved the cake each time, and did a great job of digging in and making a mess, I was so proud!

We had her first birthday party at our house on 12/4. We had about 30 people come by to celebrate. Ella was a bit overwhelemed at first, but did great and had a good time playing with her cousin Darren and gal pals Sam, Avery, Astrid and Katelyn.

I baked a cake for the occassion....I am not much of a baker, nor am I a cake decorator, but I thought I did pretty good!



Here is Ella getting all fired up for the party and waiting for the guests to arrive. She was playing with her candle, making sure everyone knew she was 1.



After opeining her presents, she was crawling around with a little bow on her butt, too cute!



She got to show her new toys to grandpa



And to the grandmas, who look very entertained by this doll house she got....



Ella's Godparents Steph and Nick came by to celebrate



And Aunt Kelli drove all the way here from Iowa to party with Ella



Ella had all sorts of gifts to open and was quite helpful ripping paper off and removing tissue paper from the bags. After this performance, I am looking forward to watching her open her Christmas gifts!!



Today she helped us look for a chop down a Christmas tree for the first time. This involved getting super bundled up in her new snow suit and braving the storm. We got absolutely dumped on with snow today and it is still not done.





We have had quite the busy month, and we still have 1/2 of it to go! We are looking forward to another addition to the family, my sister in law Darcy is pregnant and will be having a baby girl 12/15. I am so excited to have a neice and I cannot wait to meet her!

I am not sure that I will be back here before the holidays, so Merry Christmas to all and a Happy New Year!

This was a rough week in the Grabski house

Where to start.....I guess that would be when Ella threw up Wed morning after taking her bottle. I was at work already and got that lovely news via text message from my husband (who when asked to clarify said she spit up, not threw up, so I thought she was fine). He cleaned her up and stripped the sheets off our bed (of course she was in our bed when she did that) and left her with Grandma for the day as usual. About 2 hours later, Grandma sent a text message that Ella threw up her breakfast. Time to admit she was sick. She threw up all day Wed, not keeping anything down until about 8pm that night when she kept down 4 crackers and 10 cheerios. Grandma came over and watched her on Thurs, we kept her on a toast and cheerios diet, and she kept everything down so we thought she was on the rebound. We were wrong.....around 7:30 Thurs night I checked on her as I was headed to the gym. I walked in and all I could smell was puke, she had thrown up all over her crib, herself and her stuffed animals. We woke her up, stripped her down, stripped down the crib, threw away her favorite monkey and tried to get her back to bed. We went through every single pair of pajamas and all her crib sheets in 2 days.

While this is all going on, we get word that my pregnant sister-in-law was in the hospital with dehydration and contractions. She is not due until 12/22, so that was of course cause for worry. She was released after a few days, but is now on bed rest. We are so happy that she and our neice are ok.

Then, to top off the week....I was playing on the floor with Ella over my lunch hour on Friday, and when I stood up to go back to work, I felt a snap in my knee followed by the inability to put any weight on it or walk. The doctor told me I only dislocated my knee cap and I should rest over the weekend. Rest over the weekend, really? That is the only time I have to clean, do laundry and of course play with Ella. My husband has been amazing all weekend, but it is so hard not to be able to pick Ella up and play on the floor with her. She has been sitting in my lap and reading books more than usual, so I think that she realizes I can't move. I feel so old! I was doing the smallest movement and hurt myself. I have been laid up all weekend with my leg up and icing it, not able to walk. This sucks.

Oh, and it's snowing today. First snow of the year. Yuck.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! It's Ella's 1st Halloween and we did what we could to make it a good one for her. It all started with pumpkin carving with Aunt Darcy, Uncle Dan and cousin Darren on Tuesday night.





Look at these stellar pumpkins, Dan's is the most impressive, that is the werewolf one....


Ella got all dressed up as Winnie the Pooh. It was a super cute costume, but we had some trouble with the hood staying up. Ella did not have a good napping day so she was very tired and we decided to not go trick-or-treating. We did go visit Ella's godparents, Steph and Nick, and went to see Grandma Jan and Grandpa Dave as well. All in all, it was a pretty good Halloween!

Time for an update

Yesterday I had my first real scare as a mom. Ella is pulling up on everything now, and she has taken a liking to her rolling walker. The walker rolled out from under her and she fell and hit her face on the bottom of it. She takes a lot of spills since she is trying to learn how to walk, so I thought it was like all the other ones, but when I picked her up she was bleeding from the mouth and I freaked out. Turns out, she was fine, and after about 5 min of screaming the bleeding stopped and she was back to her usual self. It took me over an hour to calm myself down though, seeing her bleeding was so scary. I cannot believe how resilient kids are! I never did find the source of the bleeding, but she seems to have made a full recovery.

The past few weeks have been very busy, so I am a little behind on Ella updates. Here are some updated pics, just because they are too cute!

Showing off her teeth....


Our little WI/PACKER fan.....


We started swim classes this week, a mommy and me class at the YMCA. She was a little leary at first, but once she started kicking in the water she was so happy! They have a free play time at the end and she was holding herself up at the wall splashing away. I think this class will be a lot of fun for her and I.

She is learning so much right now, she is almost 11 months and she is learning something new every day! Here are some things she's learning.....

How to put all her rings on.....


How to climb stairs.....


How to climb up the slide (and then of course go down the slide)


And of course she never forgets how to look cute!!


We have also started feeding her food in small chunks instead of grinding everything up. She is doing pretty well so far, and she is a fruit eating machine! I cannot believe that she can feed herself now, she is getting so big so fast. One more month and I will have a one year old.....crazy!

I was away from Ella for 3 days, and it was so hard! I was in a wedding for one of my best girl friends, I left Thurs night and came home on Sunday. While I was gone, mind you this was only for 3 days, Ella got 2 teeth and learned how to climb up stairs at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Who knew that so much could happen in 3 days!! When we came back to get her, she did not want anything to do with me, and she wanted only Grandma. It took her a little while to warm up to me, and that was so hard for me! She is usually such a mommy's girl and I am not used to her not wanting to come by me.

Here are some pics from the wedding, we had such a wonderful time!!!



The sisters Bliven



The happy couple



Me and my hubby



I cannot believe how short I am.....seriously



The girls and our green pashminas, thank you to the lovely bride for those!

Who needs toys?

I bought this toy at a garage sale and I thought it was great! It is an activity table that has a walker attached to it so she can move around on her own since she can't walk yet. She does enjoy it, but I have found that she likes to play with other things rather than her toys.



Such as tupperware that she can push around the floor....



And towels to pull down off the stove.....



And her baby gate to keep her out of the back hall.....



And drawers to pull out....



And of course, lets not forget her favorite non-toy of all, my cell phone. Anytime she sees me with it, that is all she wants. So, we pulled out one of our old disabled cell phones and make sure she has that when we have our phones out. I never thought she would have a cell phone at nine months! :)

She's so clever

We have moved Ella's "toy box" aka the pink bin, from her room into the living room so her toys are near her play area. Yesterday, she got bored with the toys we had out for her and crawled over to her toy box. She tried to pull herself up, but the hardwood floors are slippery and she couldnt stay up on her knees, so she pulled the bin over so she could see the toys and get them out herself. She's so clever!









And then she proceeded to spread out all her toys so she was surrounded.



And after all that, she decided she was bored and went back to her original toys, and then mom got to clean up after her!

To cut or not to cut, that is the question

I am having a hard time deciding whether or not I want to cut Ella's hair. It is getting so long and is hanging in her eyes, but I can't bring myself to have it cut. She is only 9 months old, who needs a hair cut at 9 months old???

The sides are not long enough to tuck behind her ears yet, so unless I put barretts in her hair it hangs in her eyes.





The joy of her long hair is that she has the most awesome morning hair!!! She is going to hate me for this one day, but c'mon, how great is her hair in the morning??





So, for now, I am letting it to grow, but I don't know how long I will be able to do that. I can't believe how fast her hair is growing, plus the longer it gets the curlier it gets and those curls are so cute!