A half year already?

Eliana celebrated her 6 month birthday yesterday! I'm kind of sad thinking about how fast the last 6 months has gone, but am so proud of all the accomplishments Ellie has already made. Most recently, she is finally rolling over! Right now, she's only rolling back to tummy and then gets stuck. After a couple minutes of wiggling in frustration, she'll start screaming until you roll her back.

Also, she started rice cereal and had her first bite of veggies today - green beans! She wasn't sure about the green beans, but ate them all anyway. The pediatrician has recommended that we can start moving Ellie towards three "table meals" a day and I am much more sad than I thought I would be as we are nursing less and less. I don't think I realized what an emotional bond nursing was for us until now. When I thought about nursing before, I mostly thought about how much work it was. But now I am beginning to see that I truly love nursing and am going to miss being solely responsible for her nutrition.

She still has no teeth, but I don't think they are too far away. She sits up really well with support now, but will only last up to a minute without support. She LOVES to stand and has some really strong legs. Her hair is really coming in - she's going to have thick hair, although, it's not all that long yet.

At Ellie's doctor appointment today, she had to get her shots again. 4 injections and the oral Rotovirus! Poor thing. She handled it pretty well, though - only cried for a couple minutes in pain. However, then she screamed in anger for 5 more minutes! :) Eventually she calmed down enough to drink her bottle and was in a great mood by the time we walked over to the dental clinic to see Nick.

Here are her most recent measurements:
Weight: 17lbs 6 oz - 70th percentile
Height: 27.1 inches - 88th percentile (I think this measurement is incorrect however, as she measures closer to 28.5 inches when I measure her!)
Head: 46 cm - 99th percentile! Yes, she is her fathers daughter!
Clothing size: 12-18 months! (But this is mostly due to the fact that she's so long in her body and needs the bigger sizes so they will snap underneath. Otherwise I bet she'd be fine in a 9-12 month outfit.)

Happy Half-Birthday, Baby Girl! We love you!

Butterfingers...

The culprit:










The damage:


I was taking the glass plate out of the microwave to wash it down thoroughly and, of course, being the clutz that I am, I dropped the plate smack on the top of the smooth-top stove. It just figures that instead of the $20 glass plate breaking, I instead broke the $400 glass-plate that covers the stove. And of course the plate didn't even have a chip! Now I have to try and get the part ordered and fixed before we host Thanksgiving here. Whoops...

A visit from Mom & Dad Wyffels

We had so much fun this last week while my parents were out to visit. They drove all day on Saturday and actually made it here by a decent hour last Saturday evening. We stayed very busy all week, but the number one thing on their agenda was spending some quality time with Eliana. And, of course, she didn't mind being the center of attention one bit! She loved the time with her Grandma and Grandpa - being held, rocked, and carried. And - she must have just needed a bigger audience, because by the end of the week, she was rolling over as well! (Finally!) Her other major accomplishment of the week was starting "solid" food. She's a natural at eating her rice cereal and Grandma got the biggest kick out of feeding her her first real bite of food. Grandma also had a blast spoiling Ellie all week and Grandpa was content catering to her every whimper by walking her around and showing her different things. (She already knows she has him wrapped around her little finger!)

It wasn't just Ellie that was craving time with my parents, though. I was, too! And I feel very blessed to have been able to spend a whole week of uninterrupted time with them. We gave them a tour of Great Falls, drove up to Glacier one day to show them a bit of the mountains, had a nice little hike, did some shopping for Ellie, and had some lazy time at home. Grandma bought Ellie a nice, warm, pink snowsuit, and a couple warm hats for this winter. Is it sad that my daughter, who's not even 6 months old, can wear an adult hat and it doesn't even look that silly on her?

I took my mom with me to Bingo on Tuesday night while Dad, Nick, and Ellie checked out a monster entertainment system at our friends house. They also got a tour of the dental clinic on base. Mom helped me dye my hair (I went dark - Yeah!) and make some apple crisp, and my parents were happy to babysit Ellie so that Nick and I could have a date night. We also enjoyed taking Ellie to the pool and we went swimming. Then on Friday, Dad spent some more quality time with Ellie while mom and I went on a little shopping spree. It was an excellent week!

Even though my parents were here a whole week, it still went by far too fast. Next thing we knew, it was Saturday morning again and time for them to leave. Thankfully, we will be going back to Minnesota for Christmas so it won't be too much longer before we will see them again!