We went to the Festival of Trees again. And took more pictures. Big surprise. We also had a Ward Christmas Party we attended with Greg's parents in the morning. Annie was pretty psyched to see Santa, get a candy cane, and sing "Jingle Bells." All in all it was a good day! I LOVE December!
Here's Annie pre-party, riding the Christmas rocking horse in Grandma & Grandpa's frontroom. It was obviously some serious riding, thus the tongue-of-extreme-concentration!
Ellie in her exersaucer.
Ellie in her carseat on the way to the party. 
Ellie with Grandma Ruth. Photographic evidence that Ellie can be nice to her grandparents when she wants to be. 
Annie, Greg, Ellie & Grandma at the party. What is it about a Church cultural hall that makes my camera turn everything yellow?! Stupid non-DSLR camera.
Greg and Ellie disappeared from the party. Here's where I found them out in the foyer. 
Now we're at the Festival of Trees. Here's Annie using Grandpa KC's head as an armrest.
Ellie & Aunt Star
Again with Aunt Star. 
Aunt Star's magic baby-calming touch apparently knocked my kid out cold, 'cause she is just gone in this picture.
"Here, I'll suck on this hand, you get the other Dad."
Uncle David and Annie
I love this picture of Greg and Ellie. She looks pleased.
Ellie, Greg & me
This picture would pack more punch if you could hear my daughter rocking out and making up her own words to Trans Siberian Orchestra music here. 
We spent the last little while we were there watching the dancers on stage. Annie LOVED it. She's convinced she wants nothing more in this world than to be a Ballerina when she's bigger. She will take her prized "Baby Bear" and just chuck him up into the air as high as she can and say, "Look, Baby Bear dances too!" When they had the little 2-3 years olds come out and there dance I wanted to take Annie and just go put her on the stage with them. She would've fit right in, and I think got more of the dance moves right than 75% of the kids who were actually in the dance group. As soon as we move, I may need to look into dance classes!
Grosgrain: Dinner Party Frock GIVEAWAY!!!!
I hope to win this gorgeous dress! But if I don't, I hope one of you do! Particularly one of you who don't have a little girl and just decide to give the dress to Annie anyway! I'm selfish like that! :-)
Annie whining as she was being led to her bedroom tonight, "But I need agua Daddy!"
So basically all this Spanish her Dad is teaching her now just allows her to delay bedtime in two languages!
Annie's seen her fair share of moving lately. We've uprooted her and moved her to a new bedroom in my in-laws basement. We just moved my best friend Rachel from her apartment into my parent's basement. So today we came over to visit Rach at my parent's house and babysit her six month old while she goes to a job interview. Upon arriving, I went and put Ms. Fussypants (aka tired Ellie) down in the crib in the nursery. Annie looked up at me, slightly confused, and said, "We're putting Ellie down for a nap here?" "Yeah, she's tired," I answered. "Ohhhh," Annie said, "I get it! We're moving in here with Rachel and Jovanny!" It took some convincing that we weren't going to live here from now on, and it's set us back a bit, 'cause now when I ask her where we're going to live at Christmas time she keeps answering, "This Grandma's house, not the other Grandma's house."
So, still nothing in my head that just needs to be spewed out onto (electronic) paper. I haven't felt this level of writers block since I was assigned the article about the new cheerleading squad in 11th grade journalism. Life upheaval and all that seems to have left me blogging inept. I think something about living in someone's basement, out of boxes, is enough to make my mind melt down to sheer uselessness.
We ended up at the doctor's office today, with Annie's hands swollen and puffy and red and blistery. The first thing the receptionist asked was if she'd burnt them. Great, it looks like I've dipped my daughters hands in some kind of boiling hot liquid. I'm pretty sure she was calling child services under the counter (my mind pictures it as a little red button like bank tellers have in movies, that is being pushed repeatedly as the doctor's office receptionist attempts to keep me calm and talking.) Turns out it's hives. The doctor feels it was something she'd come into contact with, not ingested. She'd just been playing with a latex balloon, and a latex allergy just about freaks me out. But the doctor feels that's not it, since she'd also complained earlier in the day (before the balloons) about her fingers bugging her (but I'd checked them in poor lighting, missing the red . . . and I just thought her fingers were freakishly short and stubby in their pudginess, like her Mom's, since she was just complaining about two fingers on one hand, and when I checked them against the other hand they were all the same size . . . it wasn't 'til later that day that I noticed the red and blistery-ness that may or may not have been present when I checked them in the bad lighting of the basement.) I was told just to put some special prescribed (i.e. expensive) cream on them, maybe dope her up on some Benadryl, and just watch for more serious symptoms like not breathing.
Is it bad parenting that I tested the latex allergy theory when we got home by rubbing the balloon against her leg rapidly for about 20 seconds, than stood there and watched the spot intently until I was convinced there was no dramatic (or heaven forbid, painful) reaction by my daughter? Super thrilled she doesn't appear to be allergic to latex. Of course, I now have NO idea what caused such a horrible dermatological reaction. Crap. I guess we just wait until she swells up like a freak again.
OK, I have nothing to say right now. I feel like I should blog something, but that my mind is sucked dry by the craziness of my life right now. We moved my best friend into my parents house last night. That's two too many moves in a matter of a week or so. I miss my stuff that I foolishly packed into storage, turns out I need it all, and end up making frequent trips to WalMart and RiteAid to fill in my packing gaps. We've transitioned quite well into my in-laws basement, if I do say so myself. Well, most of us. Ellie now wakes up every two hours, all night long, ever since the move. That I could actually handle with a tad more grace. It's the waking up every two hours and then staying awake for awhile. She'll nurse, decide she's not hungry anymore, than just whine or fuss or just coo and try and chat with her unresponsive, increasingly mentally distraught mother, until I force my poor husband to pick her up and walk her around the basement until she finally falls back asleep. That, and we've got the swing back out for night time. We thought that was a sleep-crutch of our past, but we busted it back out on about our fourth night here. She just ate nearly two-thirds a jar of squash, and I'm hoping that will keep her nice and sedated for awhile, and I won't hear for her until later, but I have little hope of that.
Annie does and says adorable things all the time. I can't remember any of it right now. Too tired. Ellie is sitting really well, and 'sings' all the time (her endless baby babble almost rivals Annie's stream of conscious never ending narration of her life), and refuses to spend anytime on her tummy so will obviously never crawl. Ever. I think she'll end up being bedridden, flat on her back, for the rest of her lazy, stomach-hating life. She likes to feed herself. I hand her the spoon (the big ol' IKEA kiddie spoon, not the Gerber spoons, those are for babies) with some squash on it, and she happily jams it in her mouth and sucks it clean.
Just to let y'all know . . . Ellie just woke up. See, I'm totally not exaggerating.
Here's Annie tonight at dinner . . . we never wet her hair down today. This is just her combed out curls.
Ellie with squash everywhere, making her very own squash unibrow. This is what happens when you let the six month old feed herself. The pictures alone (not to mention the squeals of joy) are worth the mess.
Annie & Ellie chillin' on the couch. Foolish Mom thought if she spent seven bucks on these shoes-and-socks-in-one for Ellie that we'd keep something on her feet for more than two seconds. It does take her twice as long to get these off than regular socks, which means we go about one and a half minutes before my kid has naked feet again and people start giving me the what-kind-of-mother-doesn't-keep-socks-on-her-baby-in-winter looks. 
Annie & Ellie at breakfast. 
Popeye ate squash, not spinach . . . don't believe what you've been told. 
Yes, she is pretty pleased that she's holding the reins on this whole feeding thing.
She looks so freakishly teeny tiny in this big ol' highchair.
She seriously got more food in her mouth when I left the feeding up to her than when I tried putting the spoon in her mouth myself. 
You can't really tell here, but she's pretty much blowing bubbles in the spoon while I was trying to feed her . . . complete refusal to open her mouth.
She is much more pleased with squash than she has been with rice cereal.
The rest of these pictures are from Thanksgiving afternoon, since the ones I posted before were just from the morning.
Here's Greg & Ellie in Aunt Judy's front room. Have I mentioned how much I love her smile?
This is Annie with my Uncle Karl. They both have a pretty tight hold on their own stuffed animal.
Aunt Star and Annie looking kinda sneeky or surprised or something . . . what emotion is that?!
Ellie on the couch with her friend Jovanny.
Ellie putting the moves on Jovanny. Not shy.
Apparently she was brutally rebuffed. 
Slightly less 'forward' approach. Seems to be working better.
She's apparently softened him up now, 'cause he's actually going in for this hug (or face grab) too. 
Kind of a letdown apparently. He seems cool with it though.
Ellie with Aunt Star.
Ellie actually smiling this time. 
This was when I tried giving her some mooshed-up pea at Thanksgiving dinner. For a kid who chews on her own spit-up curdle, she sure made a big deal outta hating peas. 
Apparently I didn't have too much to write, but I had a ton of pictures to share. (That and I do not have the strength or energy to pick and choose from a bunch of pictures, so I just used pretty much all of them with no thought given to your internet speed.)
Shhh . . . be very quiet. Ellie just fell back asleep in her swing . . .
Ellie in her carseat on the way to the party. 
Ellie & Aunt Star
