2 years old

Wow 2 years have come and go so fast I can't believe our little girl is 2 years old already!!! She's been such a blessing and joy in our life I can't imagine our life without her and we are enjoying watching her grow everyday...She's no longer a baby but a toddler now...Crazy... Her Dr. Appointment went great... she got one shot and was 26.2 pounds and she was I think 34 inches tall

We celebrated her birthday in Wisconsin with a birthday party before her birthday. We did an owl theme party and made up some last minute decorations and it turned out so cute... Back in CO on her birthday we went out to lunch with Chelsea and then went shopping with Chelsea to buy her bday gift from her and Luke...It was so cute watching her shop and carry things through the store. When Gil got home we went to dinner at Applebee's with my Aunt Uncle and Reagan and some friends of ours showed up to...Then Gil and I took her to build-a-bear for the first time and she helped make a pink monkey and named her Zuzu after a monkey on her learning app...It was a long busy and fun day...She knows how to count to 10 sometimes skips a few numbers and can count almost to 20 still skipping a few numbers here and there...She's doing better with colors and shapes. Her and Gil love to share fruit snacks together, it's quickly becoming an after-work tradition for them. We got Elycia a Minnie Mouse potty chair and she's making progress. We try not to fight her to go on it, we'll usually ask her and if she says no then we say ok maybe later. She went potty for the first time on there while her and Gil were singing some silly songs they invented to sing on the potty...She has only had her Paci for nap time and bed time for a while now and sometimes she likes to reach in her crib and grab her Paci and say I are you being sneaky. And then she'll say "I Sneaky"...Lol So sometimes we have to hide them from her so she can't be sneaky. She copies just about everything we say now (it's almost as much fun as it sounds)...We tell her good night princess or sweetheart or Night-night Elycia and she repeats it back. She's called Gil a princess a couple times lol...She's so smart and getting smarter everyday...she loves Cinderella and the Cinderella movie...She likes to laugh at herself sometimes. She has started singing some songs to herself now. Lots of songs from Frozen and her bible songs CD and even shake it off by Taylor Swift...

And now for our BIG news (drumroll please......) and NO I'm NOT pregnant!! ;-) ha ha...Where to start...well Gil and I since before Christmas have been talking about moving from CO to be closer to family and friends now that Elycia is getting bigger we want her to be able to hang out with family (she does have a few cousins after all)...Once we got back from Christmas to our house getting flooded we let go of that idea for a little while...Then Gil brought it back up and looked into schools and found one that he wanted to apply to. He put in an application just to see what would happen...After a couple weeks of going through the application process we finally got the acceptance email we've been waiting for...With that being said we will be moving to Minnesota Twin Cities area within the next month!!! Fast I know but we are gonna need to find jobs and a place to live and all that fun stuff so until that happens we will be living with my family across the border in Wisconsin...He will be attending Augsburg college in Minneapolis, it is a smaller fine arts university with a biblical foundation and they are offering Gil some nice scholarships. So hopefully he will be able to attend school full-time now and finish up school faster!! So...yeah...that's what's new with us... :-)

23 months

This has been a busy month for all of us! We've trying to get moved back into our house and getting ready for our vacation to Disney World for the Princess Run Marathon! Elycia has been learning so much and still saying everything plus more...She started saying leave me alone, stop it! (which is even more "fun" to deal with when we are in a store and she starts yelling stop it stop it!) She says again, that fun... She is more and more sassy she knows how to fold her arms when she's mad (even when she's mad she's adorable), she will fold her hands when we pray at least she does for a little while.. I've heard her count to 3 when she covers her eyes a few times. she says I'm fine, when she wants to be held she says I hold you, sometimes if she hears something loud or a train go by or whatever it is she gives you a hug and says I got you! She just started saying no like it, No want it... She says her name more, She knows if something isn't hers and says that's Momma's or that's Daddy's or even that's Elycia's... "Elycia do it" she says when she has to do things herself, she always wants to help do things, and look at things especially if I'm cooking she says Look at... When she gets owies she says owie and shows us where it is and says kiss it and so we kiss it for her and say all better and now she say all better after we kiss her owies... She's been going to bed really good all by herself or crying or screaming sometimes she just lays there and talks to herself and rolls around for a while sometimes.. We took our first "Real" family vacation to Disney World... Elycia was so excited to see Mickey and Minnie and Rella (Cinderella) and her castle! We kept talking to her about it all the time. We met up with Chelsea and Luke at the airport and then once we got to Florida took a bus to the hotel where we met up with my Mom, Frank, Hallie and Hallie's friend Morgan. the first couple of days consisted of getting everyone ready for the Princess race. My Mom, Frank, Chelsea, Luke and Hallie ran a 5K... and Elycia did a 100 meter Dash and Gil helped her. She did so good and held his hand and ran with him...it was pretty cold the first couple of days we were there, then it started warming up the next few days which was nice (Since it was Florida after all...lol). So we did the race and hung out at the 4 parks the rest of the time we were there. Elycia was afraid of Goofy and Pluto, but she was excited to see Mickey and Minnie it was so cute seeing her reaction and yelling Hi Mickey Hi Minnie and blowing kisses to them once she was able to see them. She ended up getting sick the last night we were there, might have just been from being hot, but she was getting sick before we left for vacation a couple times, she would just throw up and be fine kind of thing (Kids right??)... We finished off her 22nd month and started her 23rd month spending a couple days in Utah over spring break visiting my Grandparents, and my Dad and his sister were there too.. It was the first time she had met them except my dad when she was like 2 months old and she adjusted very well and had lots of fun and lots attention from everyone (She's a sucker for attention, aren't we all?)...We will have to go back again to see them sometime. We stopped at a place in Wyoming on the way home called "Little America" and got some ice cream cones. It was a pretty good spring break.

22 months

Wow 2 months away from being 2!! When and how did that happen so quickly she's gonna be in school before I know it...or as Gil says "Driving around!"...Lol...She is getting so big and so sassy... Over the last month we were in a hotel for most of it while our house was being fixed. It was hard for all of us and we were all troopers...Our house got finished and we were able to move in it looks almost like a new house!! We took the wet carpet out and did hardwood flooring and it looks really nice... So glad to be back in our house and trying to get organized as well... Elycia is literally saying everything and is copying more of what we say and the sounds we make... She is definitly almost 2 with her sassy attitude... She throws herself down sometimes if she gets mad and even throws her head down on the ground and hits it... She is such a smarty pants... She likes to randomly scream like high pitched and its worst when she's mad ha...

21 months

21 months and still going strong! Ha I can't believe in 3 months she will be 2!! Seriously!! When did this happen and why so quickly!! All the good times go by the fastest! Over the past month she was still in love with her chocolate advent calendar she isn't gonna know what to do when she doesn't get her chocolate everyday once Christmas is over!(I'm sure she'll come up with something!) She grabs our fingers and says "Pull" when we are sitting down and even grabs our fingers to walk up the stairs and holds them the whole way. She started throwing herself down when she gets mad and cries, becoming more of a two year old every day! She tried tracing her own hand and even feet a couple times. She's becoming more and more independent everyday wanting to do things all by herself... Not wanting her food cut up... She had her first sleep over at Auntie Chelsea and Uncle Luke's in Nebraska with Grandma and Grandpa. It was the first time I have been away from her over night, it was strange and I quite definitely missed her, probably more than she missed me...lol... We celebrated her 2nd Christmas at Chelsea and Luke's with my Mom, Frank, and Hallie and the Puppy Cousins!... It snowed on Christmas Day so Elycia was able to play in the snow for the first time this year and she loved it and didn't want to come back in... That night we started driving to Wisconsin drove about 4 hours and stopped for the night and then drove the rest the next day... Once we got to my Mom and Franks, Sean and Tara and the kiddos were there and we did Christmas with them the next day... It was nice to spend time with them and meet our new niece that they have placement of, she just turned 1 so Elyia loved playing with her and Lexie stayed a couple extra few days with Grandma and Grandpa so Elycia loved playing with her too... Elycia is starting to play pretend with toys and she played well with the doll houses they had... She tries giving her baby or mickey her pacifier, food, and drinks it is so fun watching her... She covers them up for night night when she Plays... Becoming such a little mommy... Wisconsin was sad since there wasn't any snow so we couldnt go sledding or play in the snow like we wanted to, but it was still fun and went by too fast like usual... Everytime she sees a baby, or just a kid for that matter, she calls them baby and says "Hi Baby!!"... She started saying ready set Go!! She says papa and ahma (Grandma) and Noni.. Definitly saying Mom, momma, mommy more often like all the time... Love hearing her say it, it makes me feel good (all those warm fuzzy feelings!)... She says I want mommy... She calls Gil by his name sometimes instead of Daddy...It's pretty funny...She got her first real cough, stuffy runny nose and congested sickness, could've been the flu (everything has flu like symptoms these days, don't it?). We thought she was getting better and then she's back at it again being sick. Poor girl, I hate when there is nothing I can do to help her, just gotta let this run it's course, hopefully it will be done soon.,. She hates when her nose is running from being sick or from crying about being sick, she usually touches her nose and yells nose nose... We can usually ask her questions and she answers them back to us sometimes with yes, no and ok... lol... sometimes when we ask her something she'll say "Umm"... like she's thinking of what to say... it's so gosh-darn cute! Our last day we were in Wisconsin we were on our way to Minnesota to spend time at the Mall of America before we flew out and Gil got a call from our HOA people and they said something about water coming from our house and we were like what what!?!? So we had my cousin go check it out and it wasn't good. :-( our downstairs and crawl space had water all over and some in Elycias room, just not good... So Gil spent the whole time at the mall of America on the phone calling our insurance and people trying to figure out what to do... The insurance has been paying for us to stay in the hotel for about 2 weeks now... We got in contact with people to come do an estimate and start cleaning it up and drying it out... A week went by and all they did was take out the downstairs carpet and some of the water in the crawl space and they brought in a de-humidifier...They didn't knock down walls to help Dry it on the inside or anything... So luckily, Frank and his friend Dale who does construction on houses were able to come help us while they were on their way Gil and my Uncle went into the house and started taking out some of the wet walls... It's a lot of work that needs to be done but will be worth it in the end so excited and ready to be in our house again it's gonna look like a new house! ;-) We are so thankful and blessed to have them come fix our house and even the Random things they find that aren't good... Should be able to move back in at the end of this next week hopefully...hopefully. We celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary and celebrated a little early at the Melting Pot in WI, it was our first time there... This new year has been crazy full of disasters, not only is our house a mess, but my car broke down as well so here's to hoping better things happen this year. So long as we got each other, we're still doing good! ;-)

20 months

Wow, how can it be we are only 4 months away from having a 2 year old!?!?!?!?! 20 months have come and gone and it's been a wild ride and so much fun! We've enjoyed all the ups and downs that come along with it. Lets see what can I say that she's learned over the past month... She is FINALLY saying Mommy, momma, mom and it's so exciting to hear her say it! I love every moment of her saying it!! We Celebrated Thanksgiving as our own little family. We just stayed in at our house and had our own little Thanksgiving dinner... It was a pretty nice day so we took out her slide we bought her at a online facebook garage sale which was pretty new looking and got it for 20 dollars. I had to work the evening over night at Kohl's for Black Friday... We put up our Christmas Tree that weekend too... Elycia loves our Christmas tree and even tried helping put it up. We had her put up some of her own Christmas ornaments too... She loves to walk around it and peak through the tree branches and even smelling it as if it was a real tree... She loves all the ornaments and she doesn't do to bad with them, but sometimes she just can't help to take them off. She loves turning on the Christmas tree lights all the time...all...the...time... She says Button and wants to press the button to turn it on when she notices it's not on. She's learned some of the holiday words, like Santa, Reindeer, Snowman, and Christmas (she says MissMas), Candy Cane, and she knows Chocolate because my Mom and Frank got her a chocolate advent calendar and we open it up every day after lunch and she just loves doing it. She always wants to open up more then she needs too (this girl loves her chocolate), somedays she's been able to open more, because we've either forgotten or she was sick. She also knows hearts... and still loves dancing and spinning to her silly songs. She came down with the tummy flu I think. She woke up in the middle of the night throwing up pretty consistently and I was nervous for her, she finally fell asleep but then she woke up throwing up again and then she seemed to be doing better, she still wasn't really interested in eating or drinking for a while. But little by little she got the courage to drink and eat again and after a couple days she decided she was ok to eat and drink again. We took a few fun Christmas Pictures of her! She loves to help around the Kitchen with the dishwasher, stirring dinner. She helped me make up some sugar cookies and she even tried frosting them kinda, if you count licking the frosting...lol... She loves to color or draw, she wants to do it all the time now. We traced her hand and made some turkeys with them to get her in the Thanksgiving spirit. And so now she loves to get her hand and feet traced. Gil started his new job and I think he's liking it! It has better hours than his security guard job which was overnights. Now we'll get to see him on the weekends and for dinner too! It's all these little things that add up to something wonderful! ;-)

19 months

19th months have gone by and we finally took Elycia in for her 18 month check up not to long ago and she was at 24 pounds and I don't remember how many inches but she is a tall girl for sure!!

Over the past few months I've been so bad at remembering what she's been doing lately must be from all the moving we did and just lots of stuff been going on and she's just learning so much every day...this past month she has learned a lot more words, some holiday words, like pumpkin, leaves...we celebrated her 2nd Halloween,  she was dressed up as a dragon, Gil said she was "Stuffy" the dragon from Doc McStuffins, she almost looked like him...Lol...I took her to downtown Fort Collins with a friend and 2 of her kids trick or treating, then we took her later in the afternoon here in little Wellington on the main street the businesses were handing out candy.. She even opened one of her tootsie pops and started eating it and making a big sticky mess...We went to a pumpkin patch and took some fall photos of her and then carved some pumpkins... She's gotten more and more of a personality, she's definitely becoming her own individual...she's learned how to say OK, She points to people in the stores when we go somewhere and she says NO to them, especially if they are picking something off a shelf...Ha ha...She knows how to say just about everything except, she doesn't say Momma. :-( she LOVES her silly songs, and loves to spin and dance to them and just spin randomly.. she says lots of names, just a talking machine.. still loves the song LET IT GO!! Every time she sees something to do with Frozen she always points and yells LET IT GO!! lol

Gil got another job, so he finished up his overnight shift at Budweiser, now he's working with a non-profit company called Foothills Gateway. They do residential and day programs for children and adults with autism and all types of physical and mental disabilities. I think he is liking it, he said there is a lot to learn but at least it is something that could help him towards his degree.

18 months

18 months here we are!! We now have a year and a half year old! How did that happen?!? And so quickly too. We are and have been so blessed by her over this past year in a half and we just can't imagine life without her.

Over the past month we took a short trip to Wisconsin for my stepdads 50th birthday party it was fun seeing family and friends we hadn't seen in years too and for them to meet Gil and Elycia was nice too. Sometimes being away from family and just living our life is...I don't wanna say "fun"...but it's kinda nice sometimes, other times it stinks being far away and not having anyone to hang out with and do things with. We flew back with Chelsea and Luke and on the way back we spent sometime at the Mall if America before we left. Chelsea and Luke left the next day apparently she booked her flight wrong and they wouldn't let them fly stand by. Elycia wasn't a happy camper on the way back, probably from being tired and staying in one spot its hard for an on the go go go go baby.  Elycia got her first real "owie" at the park my poor baby, she is learning new words everyday she says high chair, chair, crackers, drink, and even pumpkin!! She loves to spin around and around in circles and dance she loves her silly songs cd we have, she even tries singing and dancing to it. We have a cd of Bible songs and she loves that too we play it in the car and she claps and tries singing to that one too. She is getting more and more of a sassy personality every day. Still climbing up everything. Loves to be outside. She got sick maybe from some food she ate but we're not sure, but we had a night where she threw up and a day she threw up a couple times. We started going to a Moms group in Wellington here and I'm trying the MoPs group in Fort Collins again.

Gil is still working his overnight job and it's getting to him. I hate it too, I would rather him be gone during the day then at night. I like him to be home and we can have some us time while Elycia is sleeping we don't get that now that he's working nights and sleeping until the afternoon. He is still looking for a day shift job that would work with his school schedule.