Blessed

As we are getting ready to leave the beautiful state of New York, I'm feeling so overwhelmed and blessed for the opportunity to have been here. I have so many mixed feelings about leaving. I love it here, I really do...now.

At first I had a hard time here, and I didn't know that I would love it. I felt like I had to call family every day just to make it through a day because I felt lonely. I didn't want to let myself like it here. I tried to keep myself from liking it by finding things wrong with it like the fact that the roads are too skinny, that driving everywhere is a pain, that things cost a little more here and that people are not nice, it's too humid, it's too hot, I have no family here, I don't have lots of friends here like in Utah and so on.

But then one day, I decided that I would just let those negative feelings go and open my mind to New York. I let it into my heart and well, it grew on me, and now I don't want to leave. I love the green all around. I love the people in the ward here, I love being so close to so many historic cities and in a historic part of the United States. It's cool to be here. I like being in a place where I can have more missionary experiences than in UT.

I have made some awesome friends here, and even though I haven't been able to do a lot of things with those friends during our short stay here, I feel like I could ask them for anything, and that they would help me out no matter what. I don't want to leave those friends behind. I'm having a hard time knowing that I'll most likely never see any of them again, and that makes me very sad, because I really love them all.

Now, I don't know if we'll be back to NY or not. It's one of our "options" but there's no telling until we see what else is out there for us. I would love to come back to NY even though I'd have a really hard time being away from all my family almost all of the time. But, we will go where we're supposed to go, and I'm not sure where that is yet.

So, thank you New York & people of New York, for giving my little family a great opportunity to meet some amazing people, see amazing parts of the country & historic places and for a fun summer of entirely new things.

I'll remember it forever & NY will always have a special place in my heart.

Crawling & Fit throwing

Two videos to show what our little Sweet Pea's up to these days.

1. Crawling to get the bear we bought her at F.A.O. Schwarz (We hardly give it to her, because at this point in her life, she's just interested in eating it. ha ha)

2. My parents taught her that water is good and it comes out of water bottles.

Trip to DC in photos

Over the 4th weekend, we went to DC, stayed with my cousin in Fredericksburg, VA. It was a blast, but I'm telling our story in pictures!

In a tunnel under water!

Making a stop in Delaware

David wanted a picture with George Washington

Awesome car

The original RUBY SLIPPERS from the Wizard of Oz! Cool!

SUPER awesome Sapphires!

David wanted a picture with "Cera" from the Land Before Time. ha ha

My favorite Dinosaur

World War II Memorial

Family pic at the Washington Memorial

We even made it back to Waterford in time for the fireworks!

Great weekend! Lots of fun & neat things to see! Thanks to Melanie and Travis for letting us stay with you and catch up!

Ellie 6 months!!

So much has happened in the past 6 months! I cannot believe how much our little baby Ellie has grown!

Just born

One Month Old


Two Months Old

Three Months Old

Four Months Old

Five Months Old

Six Months Old

She's such a cute, smart, happy little girl and we love her so so much!

She learned so much between months 5 and 6! She started solids just after she turned 5 months & has done wonderfully with them. She started sitting all by herself about a week after she turned 5 months old and has wanted to crawl ever since.

Because we're in New York, we opted to not have a six month check-up here, but to do in when we get back to Utah in August. However, we did some measuring of our own, and she's currently about 15 lbs, 25 1/2 inches long, and her head is 16 1/4 inches. After plugging the numbers into an online growth chart, this is what it concludes about her:

Length = between percentile 25 and 50
Weight = between percentile 10 and 25
Head Circumference = in percentile 10

She's still on the small side (with a TINY head) but she's a strong little girl! She loves to stand, and can do so if you just hold your hands out for her to grab. She'll pull herself right up!

She's still wearing some 3-6 month clothes, but most of them are getting to be too small. We moved her up to size 3 diapers, and while they seem kinda huge right now, the size 2's were seeming too little to buy another big box of and have her only wear them for a couple weeks.

More about Ellie at 6 months:

• She likes to play Peek-a-boo & the How big is Ellie game
• She's started saying (more like whispering) things like "wa wa wa" "ba" & gooing and gahing
  
• She loves sweet potatoes, green beans, applesauce, bananas and squash. She'll tolerate peaches, carrots and oatmeal & rice cereal but they aren't her favorite.
• She's entering that "stranger danger" phase, and has a hard time going to strangers.
• She sleeps through the night on occasion, but usually wakes up anywhere from 1-3 for a feeding and then goes back to sleep until about 7.
• She's good at playing with toys and just hanging out when I need to get things done, which is very nice.
• She finally figured out that she can sleep on her belly when she rolls over in the middle of the night, and doesn't scream when she ends up on her belly anymore.
• She's not too sure about the Skype people I make her talk to and watch, but she seems to enjoy listening to the voices that come out of the computer.
• She learned how to put the binky back in her mouth and loves to play with it
• She's STILL teething, and she's been quite fussy for the past few days. Maybe this means she'll cut a tooth and relax soon?
• She loves to blow raspberries & spit ALLLL the time, especially if she's getting frustrated!
  

I can't think of much else to say! We just had a spectacular weekend over her half birthday in DC, and my awesome cousin Melanie took these ADORABLE pictures of Ellie. I mean seriously, is she not the cutest baby you've ever seen??

Our little Ellie is quite the diva, and we LOVE her so much! She's pretty much the best decision we ever made, beside the whole getting married part ;)


p.s. Ellie's got eczema on her neck & chest...anyone know a good way to get rid of it? It showed up a couple weeks after being here in humid NY...