Ellis Family

Friday, October 31, 2008

Fall Festivities

So I know it has been forever since I have posted. We have been crazy busy trying to work more hours and get Ben on top of his school work. Here is a quick recap of our fall festivities.

We started by going to our local pumpkin patch to get pumpkins. I was impressed with this local patch and would definitely go back. They had other things like mazes and what not for the kids but we didn't do any of those this year. Perhaps next year when Logan is bigger. Logan loved walking around outside and helping us pick out pumpkins.

Next we had the Ellis Family Halloween Party. This year we dressed up as a Lion (Logan), Tiger (me) and Bear (Ben). Oh my!

I know a bit cheesy but it was cheap and I thought somewhat creative. Everyone at the party thought Ben was mouse instead of a Bear. Ben wanted to go as "french" bear, whatever that means. He would keep talking in french and hence the swirly mustache. We had a lot of fun at this party. Logan loved keeping up with all his older cousins and crawling around with his tongue sticking out.

Then the night before Halloween Ben and I finally decided we should carve our pumpkins. We had both been putting it off but were glad we decided to do it. I think Ben had grander ideas for our pumpkins but these were simple and turned out ok. Here are a few pictures of them at night and then us with them later on Halloween. This is Ben's scary pumpkin.

And this is my pumpkin on the bottom looking up at Logan's baby pumpkin on top!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween!

Video of Cayman doing agility

Cayman and I have been practicing hard on our agility skills. Here is a video we took at our last pratice of a short sequence we were working on. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha4S1xMgHyI Sorry I am not blog savy enough to know how to add a You Tube video directly into my post. Impressive right? We are still hoping to be able to compete in a trial in February. Until then we will keep practicing.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

A little more about me....

I was recently tagged and I often don't particpate cause I don't have the time, but I decided to do this one because people often say that they don't know a lot about me. I thought this would maybe help you all get to know me better. Here are the rules: List 3 joys, 3 fears, 3 obsessions, 3 surprising facts and tag 3 more people on your blog.

3 Joys: My family (including animals), eating chocolate, and going on vacations.
I have the best family in the world. I love my artistic husband, active border collie and spunky calico cat. I also enjoy eating chocolate in pretty much any form. I love cookies, cakes, ice cream, etc (and it shows). I also love to go on vacations and travel the world. I only wish I had more time (and money) to do this.

3 Fears: Drowning, the dark, and being alone.
I have a huge fear of drowning. For me that would be the worst thing in the world. I still have to plug my nose when I go swimming and often have dreams of drowning. I don't like the dark. I hate even going out of my own house in the dark. When we go camping I always make Ben go with me to the bathroom. I also have a fear of something happening to Ben that would leave me all alone. I truely need someone else in my life.

3 Obsessions: Gelato, making lists and training my dog.
I love gelato as seen and explained more here. I am also obsessed with making lists. I have to have a 'to do' list for each day so that I stay focused. I drive Ben nuts because I make lists weeks before we go on trips to try to get organized. Lastly I love to train my dog. I always am trying to teach him knew things and enjoy getting out and training him. I have always loved animals and am obsessed with making sure they have a good home.

3 Surprising Facts: I at one point knew how to play the bagpipes, I am not a morning person and I play World of Warcraft with my husband. During High School I learned to play the bagpipes for a group I was in. I was never very good but I could get out "Amazing Grace" on a good day. So it may not really be suprising that I am NOT a morning person to those of you who know me. Everyone told me once I had a baby that would change but it hasn't. I still don't like getting up early. Of course, I get up 'early' with Logan every morning but if I had it my way I would stay up late and sleep in. Finally, I recently started playing World of Warcraft with my husband. There will be more about this in a future post.

I hope this helped all of you to get to know me a little bit better. Quirks and all! I tag any of those who read this and feel up to the challenge.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Updates

Logan has a new car seat! First off thanks to all of you for your advice on the car seat and bottle feeding--it was all greatly appreciated.

I spent many hours researching car seats and concluded that the Britax was rated the highest by so many different reviews for its safety and its ease of use. I, therefore, decided that this was the kind of car seat I would like to get. However, before we got one I wanted to go check out the features, put Logan in it, etc.

So Ben and I headed up to Babies-r-Us on Friday to check them out. We had a wonderful associate who knew a lot about car seats. I asked her to start off explaining the differences between the lower end ($80) and higher end ($250) car seats. She said, which confirmed what I had researched, that the weight limit was one of the biggest differences. Many of your lower end car seats can only be used until your child is 30 to 40 pounds. The higher end car seats can be used until your child is 60-70 pounds.

At first I wasn't sold that we needed a car seat to go up to 60 pounds. However, I soon decided that the longer I can keep Logan in a 5 point harness the better. Having a higher weight limit would allow us to do this.

She then explained that not all car seats are created equal. Yes all car seats have to pass a safety test but that test is a front crash test at 30 mph. (That doesn't seem like much of a test to me). She then told us that Britax, since it is a British company, holds its car seats to higher crash tests. They do front crash tests at speeds of more like 50 mph.

I think Ben and I were instantly sold on this. Call us crazy but we wanted to get a car seat that we thought was safe for our kid and would protect him if anything did happen. I had also read many others talk of how safe their child was in this seat when they had been in a car wreck.

The car seat has so many other wonderful features. It has these Velcros on the side so that you can put the straps out of the way when getting your kid in our out of the car seat. It also has the same Latch system as the Chicco Key Fit base that we had which makes it so so easy to install and un-install. I think this car seat is even easier to install than our Chicco one. (I can't say that the lower end models are easy to install. They have hooks instead of the Latch system like on the Chicco which makes it harder to get in and out of the hooks. You also can only adjust the straps on one side which means you have to do lots of threading of the straps to get it secure. With the Britax each side adjusts independently which makes it so easy to install. ) Since we will only have one car seat for now we wanted a seat that would be easy to move from car to car if we needed to.

One of the other wonderful features is the bar on the side that allows you to move the latch from front to back depending on how you want to install the car seat. This means that you don't have the thread the straps through any holes to change from rear facing to forward facing (which you have to do in many of the lower end models).

So there is my review of this car seat. I think other car seats are great but this one fit best for our family. I am also happy to report that the lovely associate that checked us out gave us a 20% off coupon which made me feel even better about my purchase. I wish I was able to get her name but I didn't catch it. She saved us a good $50 and we TOTALLY appreciate it. Nothing like getting what you want for cheaper.

Logan started crawling last week as well. It definitely isn't a mastered crawl but he can get around the room. He does a little army scoot. He has also taken to the bottle quite well, except for at day care, and is almost totally on bottles. I still nurse him in the mornings but that soon will go. He still seems really pick y about the temperature of the formula. He doesn't like it when you mix it up, put it in the fridge and then warm in up later. I guess we will keep working on that. It is nice to think now that I can leave him and not worry about him getting what he needs.

Lastly, this is how Logan likes to sleep now. My mom tells me I used to sleep like this all the time so I guess this too must be genetic.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

9 Months Old

Logan turned 9 months old on Sunday. We took him in to the doctor today and he has had quite the growth spurt. He is now 19lbs 4 oz and 28.5 inches long. His weight has gone from being in the bottom 5th percentile to now about the 35th percentile. His height is actually more in the 50th percentile.

Logan loves to walk around the house. He can walk up the stairs with our assistance. It is cute to watch him stick his foot out so far to get it over the stairs. He still isn't crawling. He rolls around the house and does a little scooting.

He mostly sits on his tummy and kicks his legs and hands and then gets frustrated that he doesn't move like he does in the swimming pool. He can pull himself up on things now but hasn't mastered how to pull himself up on our furniture. He doesn't quite cruise our furniture yet either. I think it is the coordination of moving sideways he can't quite master. He will feed himself now and loves to eat bread and cheerios. He is starting to say things like "mom", "dad" and "dog" more and more. He knows his name and will respond if you say it. He also knows what the word "stop" means and usually ends up screaming if you tell him to do so. He also loves to help do laundry. His favorite part is to hide in the towels and blankets. I don't know why he gets a kick out of it but he does. He also loves to ride around in the laundry basket.

The biggest milestone is that Logan will now take one of these. YEAH!!!!

I know it is just a bottle, but I have been trying since 6 months to get him to take one. He took one just fine at first but at 6 months he decided it wasn't for him. So for the past 3 months I have tried many different techniques. I have tried a several sippy, a straw, a latex nipple, a silicon nipple, a fast flow bottle, a slow flow bottle, a mis of breastmilk and formula, straight formula, and just breastmilk. All of these resulted in a few sucks that ended with screams.

On the 11th I tried one of the orignials bottles we gave him when he was a few months old except with a fast flow nipple, which he couldn't handle before, and he took right to it. Not sure why today but I won't complain. He still won't take breastmilk out of a bottle (he doesn't think that is where it should come from) but he is taking to the formula (if freshly mixed with warm water). So perhaps he is still picky but we are making progess. Today he drank 22 ounces! It has been awhile since he has drank that much. I am thinking this might be a good time to ween him altogether. He seems to have a real lack of interest in nursing these days so perhaps this would be a good time before he changes his mind. What do all you experienced mothers think? Although I will miss nursing, just in the aspect of bonding with my child, I am glad to be able to think I can go out now and not have to worry about whether he will take a bottle or not. I think part of the reason I hate to stop nursing its because it makes me realize how big he is getting. But I don't want to be nursing much past 1 year anyway.

We are also on the lookout for a new carseat. I am just starting my research and would appreciate any feedback you might have. We have been looking at the Britax models along with Recaro and some other cheaper ones. I guess I wonder are the more expensive ones really that much safer?

On an update, Logan's pick eye has cleared up, thankfully. We no longer have goopy eyes at our house. Now we just have these cute eyes to look at us!

Monday, September 8, 2008

Sheep Dog Trials and Goopy Eyes

For Labor day, yes I know it was awhile ago now, my family went up to Solider Hollow to the Sheep Dog Trials. They day started out looking very gloomy but ended up turning out very nice. Here we are before we took off bright and early.

This year we went on the final day of competition so the herding was even more challenging. They had to bring two herds of sheep down the hill and then combind them. It really is amazing to watch these dogs work.

Their owners send them up a hill where they find a herd of sheep and slowly bring them down the mountain through different gates. Then they have to split the sheep and seperate 5 sheep with red collars from the rest of the herd of like 16. Once they have seperated them they have to put them in a pen. It truely is a skill and I could sit there all day and watch it. I am truely amazed at how behaved their dogs are. Once the dog has gotten the sheep in the pen the owner sounds a whistle and calls them off of the sheep. Then another border collie comes running and takes over the sheep and puts them into a holding pen. If you have ever owned a border collie or herding dog you know that they have lots of energy and to simply sound a whistle to tell them to stop herding and come with you is just amazing.

You can actually become a member of the Stock Dog Assocation and they have events where you can let your dog attempt to herd sheep. I think this might be something I have to look in to cause I think Cayman would love it.

Logan loved walking around up there. I think the dogs were too far away for him to see. Towards the end they handed out free popsicles of which Logan was persistent he was going to try. We let him have some and he was addicted. It seems like lately he will eat anything.

In addition to the sheep herding they also had Splash Dogs this year. This is a sport where you see how far your dog will jump off a platform into the water after a toy. You can be any breed of dog to compete in this and it was fun to watch. Ben got some good action shots of them.

Then this is my boy today.

He was come down with conjuntivitis or pink eye. Not fun. I don't even think this picture does justice to how horrible his eyes look. His eyes are so goopy it is crazy. We had to go get him from day care and have to keep him out for at least 48 hours while he is on some medications for it. Overall he still seems pretty happy but as his eyes keep getting worse I can tell they are bothering him and he doesn't feel good. I sure hope that this too will pass and that no one in our family will get it.