Welcome Daniel!

Check out Elli's new boyfriend!

Daniel Kauffman is beautiful!!!

Elli and I had a fantastic girls day today. She has such a personality and loves to talk, laugh and especially clap for herself. She's start pulling herself up (I've become a jungle gym) and has mastered going from belly to sitting up again. She gets in crawl position but no crawling yet. It's amazing to watch her manuever where she wants to go...somehow she always gets there.

Her new love: puffies! She loves the little puffs that dissolve in your mouth. Elli especially likes to feed herself. She's mastering the use of all her fingers and I've seen her fine motor skills really improve even over the last two weeks.

Her new hate: her changing table / getting her diaper changed. I don't know why or how this change occurred but she hates to get her diaper changed. At least 50% of all diaper changes involve her having a cow and rolling all over so it's almost impossible to get her changed without there being a situation (i.e. pee all over everywhere).

Her are some pictures of Elli helping me 'work' on my computer today and of her on the way to visit Daniel. You can tell she was excited to meet her new boyfriend! :)

Breakfast for Dinner!

Greg and I really need to go to the grocery store. We were struggling for dinner ideas so I suggested my very favorite - breakfast for dinner! I made us pancakes and potatoes. Elli had already eaten but she ended up joining us. Our pediatrician said it was good for Elli to join us at the table for dinner...that she did. She fed herself pancakes and loved them. Elli is such a big girl...it's so funny to see her think through getting the food from her tray to her mouth.

Many Happy Birthdays and Elli's First Official Play Date

I know it's been a while since our last post but in my defense I have tried three separate times to post over the last weeks and each time the entry stuck because I tried uploading videos. We have some great videos of Elli but I have learned my lesson and will stick to just pictures this time.

We've been very busy lately celebrating birthdays (Grandma Lee Ann, Aunt Ehrin and Addie) and just having fun. Elli LOVES to clap and say YAY (or her version of YAY anyway). It's funny because she seems to especially love clapping for herself. She loves to sing, talk, laugh, play and is so full of smiles. She's started kissing too...it's very open mouthed and slobbery but of course we love it.

Rather than me write three thousand pages about all that we've been doing and enjoying lately I'll try to let our pictures do the talking.


The weather got a bit nicer a couple of Friday's ago so Elli and I ventured out for a quick (really, really quick) walk. I bundled her up and she seemed to enjoy it, but I decided it was still too cold. We can't wait for warmer weather to go for walks every day!


Aunt Ehrin's 30th birthday and Grandma Lee Ann's 50 something birthday was celebrated by going up north to the Essenhaus Inn and Restaurant. We had such a fun family time and we found out that Elli loves to swim. We went to the pool late on Saturday night destined to fail (time to eat, time to sleep, grouchy time) and she had a blast. When she wasn't trying to drink the entire pool she was laughing at Grace. The next day we went down to watch dad and Grace swim and decided to take off her pajamas and throw Elli in. Again, she loved every minute of it.


Elli's first official play date happened on Friday morning when Tegegn Ponsler. Tegegn was so much fun and it was fun to talk mommy talk with Sarah.



Happy 1st Birthday Addie! Addie is so adorable and such a sweet little girl. I think Elli tried to out-gibber Addie at times today and she did love playing with Addie's new toys. Addie did excellent with her own personal cake...definitely the best I've seen.







Elli's favorite foods right now: squash, pear sauce, cake and ice cream so she was in heaven!

Elli clapping:


This was the first time Elli was pushing the buttons herself. :)

Dadadadadadadadadadadadadada...

Elli's favorite word? Dadadadadadada! You say it and it cracks her up. She loves to say it herself! She started saying it on Thursday and hasn't stopped saying it yet.

Today was a big day for dada...he and his sixth grade basketball team won their County Championship. Congratulations daddy and Uncle Syd!!!

Here is some of the 'Nicholson Cheering Section'.

Not Pictured: Aunt Katie & Uncle Chris.

FINAL SCORE!

Elli wants to start crawling. She just hasn't figured out all the mechanics of it. I am positive she went one step two separate times yesterday. :)


Today, Elli tried (and loved) puffies and vanilla wafers. She's a terrific eater!

Revised: It All Started at Aunt Ehrins!

After Ehrin saw the last blog entry she told me this morning that something happened last week that I should know about. She started getting a little teary eyed and mentioned that she didn't tell me because she was hoping that Elli would do it in my presence. A little history: Ehrin and I have had the conversation about one of the hardest thing in leaving Elli each day is the fear that I'll not be there for one of her 'firsts'. Anyway, to make a long story short Elli said MAMA on Thursday!!! :) She's not done it again...so far she just loves any and all word starting with B, but I am so excited that she started with MAMA!! She's the most amazing blessing!!!

It All Started in the Panera Bathroom...

Today was a big day for Elli. After church we had lunch at Panera with my mom and dad and Syd and Katie. Mom went into the bathroom to help me change Elli's diaper before leaving and she just started talking up a storm...really talking...she's partial to any and every word with the letter B. Bla, blee, ba, etc. She hasn't stopped talking yet! Yay!

Aunt Sara, who is a pro at the barrette, suggested yesterday that Elli's hair was long enough to try. It's holding on by a hair or two, but it's in! :)

Elli also met her future BFF today. Tegegn came home today! Woo hoo! He's even more precious than the pictures showed. We are so excited that the Ponslers are home safe and sound and their family is plus one with the most adorable little boy!!!

Elli was full of smiles today (until the ride home at least). She liked talking to Aunt Katie! :)

Feedings, diaper changes and all Elli related items were taken care of by Grandpa and Grandma this afternoon. I think she's very loved...and she very much loves them!!

Momma's Girl

Elli's first Christmas was SO much fun! The holidays were even more amazing thanks to our new status of 'Elli's parents'. The three of us spent almost two and half weeks together and it was incredibly difficult for it to all end. We enjoyed spending several low key days together before our trip to Greentown. We had decided not to buy anything for each other and not too much for Elli. Not sure who we were kidding.

We got Elli a DVD player (for future use in the cars) and some Praise Baby DVDs (like Baby Einstein but with worship music behind it...it's great). She also got a couple of new toys - a stacker ring, etc. I'm glad we didn't get her too much more as she was definitely spoiled by our families.

The above is one of Elli's favorite toys (probably in between the Fisher Price laugh and learn puppy...it laughs, sings, talks, etc. and her cool new cell phone).

We celebrated with my parents and my mom's family on Christmas Eve, as is tradition. It was super fun...and lots of great food. We ate all night. Below is some of the chaos we saw when it was time for the kids to open presents. Grace was my absolute favorite. She was so excited and grateful for all of her gifts. She even enjoyed watching others open their gifts.

Us in our Christmas jammies...one of my favorite Christmas traditions.

As usual, Elli's grandparents spoiled us all rotten. We feel really blessed by everyone's generosity and thoughtfulness. Below is a picture of the girls in their matching Christmas outfit.

We played a ton of Rock Band over the break. Greg and I forgot that it was make believe at some points...more fans, more stars, more cities, more venues!!! Greg and his sister, Sara, are awesome at the drums. I prefer the guitar and Elli often sings along the few times she's been awake when we were playing. Greg's mom was the funniest. It was fun to watch Gary, Sally, Sara and Greg all play.

Us Mast girls kicking it!



We rang in the New Year at our house with some of Elli's favorites aunts and uncles - Dutch, Sara, Syd and Katie. Addie joined us for the party but she and Elli didn't make it to midnight (thank goodness)! Aunt Sara and Uncle Dutch got Elli the CUTEST pjs! Since we call Elli 'bug' this outfit fits her perfectly! :) We had a ton of fun hosting the VanDams for a couple of days. It went by too fast!

You'll notice my nifty new camera has some fun features. I was tired of every picture of Elli showing up with her having red eyes so I invested in a new one. I've had lots of fun playing with it.

It was hard to go back to work this week. On Monday I raced to my sister's house to get Elli. When I walked through the door Elli saw me and her arms and legs went crazy. She about jumped out of my mom's arms to get to me. When I held her she squealed and then just talked and talked to me. Turns out she was just as excited to see me as I was to see her...and her reaction was absolutely priceless. It made my year if not the next decade for me. Elli's turned into a bit of a Momma's girl over the last couple of weeks. She's starting to have a bit of the stranger danger disorder and likes to throw a fit when someone leaves the room. Elli is really growing into her own personality and can be a bit of a stinker sometimes. She doesn't do anything halfway it seems...when she screams, she screams; when she laughs, she laughs with all she's got; when she's wriggling, she's can move anywhere she wants. Hopefully she continues to live life big! :)

No true updates in terms of milestones - no teeth, no mamama or dadada, no crawling. I'm not in too much of a rush for any of the above. She's doing great sitting up and playing with all of her new toys, eating her fruits and veggies (and meat now!) and growing so much!

Tuesday was Elli's seven month birthday! :)

Happy Birthday, El!!