Christmas 2008

Ellie's First Christmas! Artie and I have looked forward to this day since we found out we were pregnant. We bought a new Christmas tree and decided to go white. We went back and forth about it ("Will Ellie grow up thinking green trees are weird?"), but decided to buck tradition and go for white. In the picture, you can see Ellie TRYING to get a peek at the tree. We had to put the box the tree came in right in front of it to protect the tree from EllieMonster! She is now pulling up on EVERYTHING and semi-walking all over the place. In fact, we learned that she has a new trick----she can climb up our stairs. So, we have to have the baby gate on all the time.

We had a fun December. Artie's best friend from childhood drove up from Ft. Lauderdale with his family to visit on their way to NC.
We celebrated Hanukkah with them, which was cool. They let us participate, so it was a neat learning experience for us. I got to light the shamash (starter candle) for the first night, which was pretty awesome. I learned that Jewish families typically eat jelly doughnuts after lighting the candles. What a wonderful religion!!!!

Right after they left, we welcomed Mimi and Oppa for Christmas. They bought every other toy and outfit that we didn't get Ellie for her first Christmas. Ellie was so excited that Santa was coming, she didn't sleep well on Christmas Eve. Um, and it has NOTHING to do with the fact that she now wakes up several times at night anyways.
Ellie had a fun time opening gifts---for the first hour. Then, she crawled up onto Oppa and slept for an hour. Mimi and I continued opening Ellie's gifts! :) She got the ball popper thingy (which she isn't sure if she likes or not. She will play with it, when sitting on my lap.). . . some books. . .CLOTHES. . . and a ride-able lion who roars. Ellie LOVES that! Mimi makes funny faces, noises and does the sign for "lion", which Ellie REALLY loves! Ellie loves funny mouth noises and faces.

Ellie is doing really well, development wise. She's 10 months old right now, which blows my mind! But, her pediatrician was very impressed with her at her 9 month appointment. She is 30 inches long (90th percentile) and weighs 19 lbs, 10 oz (62 percentile). Her weight percentile went down from her 6 month visit, which caused us to be concerned. But, the doctor pointed out that El is crawling everywhere and burning up more calories. Naturally, her weight gain issues from the beginning was playing on our mind, but the doctor reassured us that we are out of the woods with that. Yay! Ellie has 5 teeth that are cutting/coming through right now. So, after they are done, we'll have a break for the teething for a while. Hopefully, we'll go back to her regular sleeping habits after that is over. HOPEFULLY!