Hello strangers! Remember when I got pregnant and puked for 3 months and subsequently forgot I had a blog? Yep, that happened. But I’m getting finally feeling like myself, my bathrooms have been cleaned, I have dinner in the crock pot, and it’s time to resurrect the blog. :) I may go back and do a few long overdue posts like Halloween and a fall summary so just warning ya.
First things first. Happy 18 months to my darling daughter! (technically, she’s almost 20 months now). Umm, where did that year and a half go? For this post, I’ll focus on some other “names” you could call this sweet girl.
My Little Peanut: Her height and head circumference are almost identical to Owen at this age, but she’s a full 3 pounds lighter. Where Owen was wearing clothes about 3-6 months older than his age, she’s wearing exactly the 18-24 month size.
Height: 2 ft 7.9 in (57th percentile)
Weight: 21 lbs 13.2 oz (only the 15th percentile)
Head: 46.6 cm (52nd percentile – still a perfect head model size)
My Talker:
This is such a fun age. She’s learning so much. I feel bad comparing, but I feel like she’s learning at even more lightning speed than Owen did. Maybe that’s a girl thing? Or just a second born thing? She has too many words to count and is already putting together small sentences. She loves to sing
Jesus Loves Me and the
Wheels on the Bus. She can do about 20 animals noises on request, can name most of her body parts, and loves to count:
My fashionista: This little girl loves her some fashion. I admit that I have totally fostered this in her and have no apologies for it. haha She doesn’t mind being all fancied up and now asks for a headband. She LOVES shoes (random side note: I adore kid shoes. I’m not quite sure what my problem is because I’ve owned the same pair of about 10 shoes for years most from Target or Payless. Read: cheap. But oh my the kiddo shoes. Our favorite brand by far is See Kai Run and thank goodness for scoring some awesome deals on ebay. /endsidenote).
My mom helps to keep her well dressed and I love the hunt for a good deals, especially at All Things Kids, my favorite local consignment shop.
My mess maker: Leave this girl alone for more than a minute and I promise that you will have a mess on your hands when you return. Unlike Owen who really didn’t get into much more than his toys, Ellie gets into anything and everything: the toilet, the cat food, the crayons, and as pictured below my make up and other school room supplies. At least she almost got the eyeliner in the right spot.
My adventurer : I need to get this girl in some gymnastics or dance classes stat. If she can climb on it, she does. She really has no fear and tackles most situations head-on. We were bringing everything up from our basement and this cat stand was down there. It wasn’t in front of the window for more than a few minutes before I looked over and saw this.
My brother lover: Haha terrible name title, but what can I say? She loves that older brother of hers. She asks for him the minute he gets up. She follows him around and tries to copy whatever he does. For the most part, they get along really well and seeing their relationship makes me less nervous for adding more siblings to the mix. What could be better than more siblings right? :)
My Picky Eater
I had no idea how easy I had it with Owen and his eating. Sure, he didn’t eat enough vegetables, but overall he tried most things I put in front of him. Not so much with his sister. She won’t touch any form of meat, vegetables, or pretty much any food that’s mixed together (read: any of my dinners). For the most part, she survives on oatmeal, toast, cheese, yogurt, milk, and fruit. We try to add in new things everyday but so far no luck. Hoping this gets better as she gets older. As of two weeks ago, another big change in her diet is that we are done breastfeeding. (finally!) I’ll write more on this in my pregnancy update. As we’ve been trying to stop this for awhile, I wasn’t really sad at all when we were finished.
My Still Not Perfect Sleeper:
Ellie is definitely learning better sleep habits that was forced on her brother. She takes one afternoon nap from about 12:30-2 (or sometimes 2:30). She lays down in her bed and goes to sleep all on her own! Bed time is equally as easy. Books, Bible, songs, prayer and she points to her bed wanting to lay down. The only thing we’re still working on is getting through the night with no wakes and not being ready to the day to start at 5am!
(As you can also see from this picture, we didn’t quite make it to 2 years before turning her car seat around. She is a much happier car rider now).
Trying to get a few more minutes out of nap time with cuddles in the chair.
What else? We’re going through a kinds hard time of her wanting to be held all the time which gets particularly hard during the dinner prep hour. And she gets frustrated easily when she doesn’t have the right words for what she needs. She loves her pacifiers to death and currently carries around 2 blankets everywhere she goes.
And that’s the current going-ons with Ms. Ellison Jakeh. I just love her spunky little personality and can’t imagine our family without her!
This little guy is 4! So hard to believe. 
3 was a hard year for this guy. But I’m already starting to see hope in the age of 4. He’s been so helpful and sweet lately with his little brother. I’m hoping for an awesome year.
I love watching his imagination. He loves to make up stories and is very into telling me about his super hero powers right now.
He is an individual that’s for sure. Here are his toes painted in a pattern of his choosing after seeing Ellie and I do our nails.
He’s quiet (in public), inquisitive, and a deep feeler. He still doesn’t sleep through the night, although is becoming less of a picky eater.
He loves to draw and reading books is always a favorite thing to do. So looking forward to our school time starting again this fall and watching him learn!
Happy 4 years to my firstborn!
This kid is one month old (ok, 6 weeks upon this posting but who’s really counting besides me). I was wanting an “official” weight before posting and got it this morning. We don’t have his official appointment until next week, but Miles is a part of a U of I study called 
Eating: He’s a great nurser and is getting on a good eat, play, sleep pattern. He takes a bit longer to eat than my first two did and definitely has to eat from both sides. He is an awesome burper when he’s done. Thankfully, his little body is dealing just fine with the copious amounts of caffeine I’ve been drinking. :)
Sleeping: Knock on wood, he seems to be a better sleeper than my first two. But he HAS to be swaddled. If he so much gets a fingertip out of the swaddle, all bets are off and he’s screaming. We even use the swaddle blankets in the car seat to make those rides more enjoyable for all of us. Having firm pressure also is the best way to calm him as opposed to bouncing or rocking. Day naps are falling into a 5 nap “routine” and his bedtime is slowly moving up. He usually goes down between 8-9 and sleeps until about 1 (twice he made it until 2:30!). But from them until the morning, he’s usually awake every hour or two. Because Owen and Ellie still get up in the night (ugh) William is in change of those two and I focus on Miles.
Random info: He has an adorable dimple on his left cheek (just like his sister). His first 3 weeks, he HATED diaper changes but I think that’s starting to get better. He loves his pacifier. His eyes are blue/gray and definitely lighter than the other kid’s. Still not sure if they’ll go brown like there’s though or stay in the blue family like mine.
How we’re all doing: Well, in general I’d say really well. I think I was a bit worried about the transition to 3 from everyone who keeps saying “you’ll be outnumbered.” “You’re going from man-to-man defense to zone defense, etc.” But so far, it’s felt pretty doable! Yes, you just need to plan an extra 45 minutes or so to get out the door. That means packing up the extra stuff and fitting in a feeding. But I’ve gotten out by myself quite a bit with all 3. Just not grocery shopping. That’s happening in the evenings now with just Miles in the Ergo carrier. For me 1 to 2 kids was harder than 2 to 3. I also like that Owen and Ellie can play (and fight) together while I’m occupied nursing.
So in general, I love it. I love that while before, William and I each could have a “kid.” But now we’re a whole team. And yes, everyone asks if we’re done. And I don’t have an answer on that quite yet. But I will say that if I had to answer today, I want 4 and William’s fine with 3.
I’m so big!! And she is! Where in the world did that year go? I’ve been re-reading 
The stats from the doctor: 
Food: She is getting to that oh-so-fun stage of wanting to feed herself. This is great when it comes to solid foods like beans, apple slices, and ground turkey. Not so fun when it comes to her baby food, yogurt, and the like. But a kids gotta learn somehow right? I bought these reusable pouches on Amazon and LOVE them! I just pour in some baby food (usually I mix a fruit and veggie) and she downs them. She can successfully use about any kind of cup we give her, including a straw. She still nurses a lot which I know is more for comfort sometimes. But I’ll start dropping more and more feedings this summer and maybe wean before my brother's wedding in August.
Sleep: no news here. Surprised? She gets up an average of 5 times a night, which I know is ridiculous for a 1 year old. She will nurse every time unless William gets up with her. Thinking it may be time to cut her off from the nighttime boob and paci at the same time?
She has 7 teeth, 4 on top and 3 on the bottom and the 4th on the bottom is getting close to breaking through!
She is cruising furniture like a pro, loves to walk holding our fingers, and can even climb up on things. This week, so finally tried to take one step while we were outside so I don’t think walking is too far off! She loves pushing Owen’s big truck or her walker toy and then have fun chasing each other in circles around the house. 
She’s trying to mimic more and more words although they all sound the same. She had definite sounds for Sophie Cat, her Mimi monkey, Owen, mama, and dada. She also signs pretty consistently for “more, all done, milk, and eat.”
She is definitely Ms. Independent. Nothing like her cuddly older brother. She likes to be down on her own, figuring out her world. She loves to play in the little kitchen and gives her babies kisses. She makes a great car noise when we play trucks with Owen. 
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