Ellie 17 Months

It took a lot to get this little squirmy butt to sit still for a photo..this was the best I could get...

At 17m Ellie is 24lbs and nearly 31 inches tall. She can run, well sort of run, with tiny pudgy little legs you can only go so fast. She's also taken a great interest in Dora and various other Nick Jr. shows...she will even sit still for most of a 30m show. Which is amazing to me...

As you can see she has lots of teefs. 8 in the front and 4 molars..and I think I saw a couple more starting to show on the bottom. She enjoys using these teefs to bite big sis when she wants to pick her up and Ellie wants none of it. It's become her defense lately. Which isn't a good thing, but it's hard for Isabella to understand that Ellie doesn't always want to do what she wants her to do.

Ellie also enjoys playing in her room alone. Either with her kitchen set or her Little People doll house. She will disappear occasionally and thats where you find her in there quietly playing. Know what else she's done in her room for the past 2 nights. Sleep! That's right...I took her crib down the other day....it was a sad thing to me..admitting to myself that this little girl, possibly my last baby...is growing up. I just figured she wasn't sleeping in it and it was just taking up space in her tiny little room, so it came down. I placed the mattress in the corner of her room against two walls..and then layed floor pillows around the other sides. The first night she woke a few times not too sure of where she was...I eventually made a bed beside her and camped out in her room for the night (woke with a stiff neck!). Then last night she slept until 3 in the morning alone (and only woke from a pesty fever). When I left for work at 6 this morning dad was sound asleep beside her on the floor in her room. So hopefully tonight she will do just as well....we're pretty excited about this.

This month, Ellie's has started talking a lot more..and understanding more. She's also listening a lot better and understanding what 'no' means.

The orphans of Haiti have been on my mind a lot in the past week. Did you know that 40% of Port Au Prince's populations is children? Right there at the center of all the chaos..and now how many of those are orphaned? Starving..homeless..without parents and now at a high risk of disease and starvation. Yet on they nearby island of the Dominican Republic Americans and other tourists are vacationing and spending thousands... It's hard for me to stomach. It bothers me that I can't do more..
A friend recently posted on her blog about Kids Against Hunger. Though I've never been to help package food..I now want to more than ever. For 2 hours of your time you can package food to be sent to Haiti, they are trying to get 300,000 meals packaged.
I also found thru this website I found this blog, the stories just break my heart... A Child's Hope International.

Updates

You may be wondering about the sleeping issues. They haven't gotten much better. Well maybe a tad..BUT! that's only because she's been sleeping soundly in our bed next to Chris. I get Isabella's bed and Isabella? She's on the couch still! She actually almost made it all night in her bed last night but, she had a nightmare and couldn't go back to sleep. Ellie was at that point, still sound asleep in her room so instead of waking her with Isabella's crys of not wanting to get back in bed, she slept on the couch. I think though given time, she will want to eventually sleep in her own bed. Ellie on the other hand, we just don't know. It's odd...when Isabella was little ( sorry, I may have already posted about this) she slept with us until she was about 6m due to my work schedule (had to be up at 330am). At 6m we decided it wasn't working well anymore (she was getting too big and wiggly) and she was finally sleeping all night, so we made the decision to get her into her own bed. It was rough but, only took a week. We did the Ferber Method and it worked great for her. After that week she slept great. Well I feel differently about it now with Ellie, if I had to work nights I could let Chris do it..then I wouldn't have to hear the crying. Last summer we did this method with her and it worked great. She was sleeping just fine until we went on vacation in October..and that seemed to screw things up. After that I started rocking her to sleep at night..I don't mind because I get to hold her for a bit longer and who doesn't love a cuddly sleepy baby on them? But, once she would fall asleep for atleast 30m I would put her in her crib and she'd sleep all night. No problems. Now we just don't know. There is no consistancy to her madness! She doesn't wake at the same time everynight. She doesn't sleep that well on me or beside me. Doesn't sleep on me in the lazy boy..didn't sleep well on the floor. Maybe we need to be more consistant. That's probably half the problem. I atleast and am just tired of fighting with it and just tired period, so I think I'm just basically doing anything to get her to sleep at all.

Diet Day 3

• Breakfast-Organic breakfast bar, with granola and fruits.
• Lunch-Spring mix salad with fat free honey mustard dressing, seseme seeds, seseme sticks and crasins. Leftover spaghetti and water to drink.
• Dinner?? Don't know yet! I need some ideas...

I started walking with girlfriends at work also on Saturday. I've got these small saddle bags and a love handle I'm wanting to rid of. Feels good to get out of my chair and away from the computer screen for 30 minutes and do some power walking. 3 days in and I'm already feeling better...

Diet Day 2

Well to be honest I was much more enthusiastic about this yesterday than I am today. I always do this..I get real motivated to do something and it falls apart. The biggest dilema is knowing what to eat and finding recipes with only vegetables, no dairy-which is hard..that eliminates creams, cheeses, obviously milk, etc. Makes you realize how much dairy you really use. So today I was good...

• Breakfast- granola with soy milk
• Lunch,we always eat with friends at Wendy's after church, so we had a baked potato with, yes cheese, and broccoli and a small chili. Which does have meat in it..but figured it would be better than the fried meat and bread. Oh and a coke to drink! Not good...
• Dinner? Well didn't do so good there either. We hung around town after church and awaited my 4 O'Clock bible study so by the time we got home for dinner it was 530. I just made spaghetti and salad. So this just isn't happening the way I pictured it.

Oh well, we are trying hard and that's what matters. We are eating A LOT more fruits and veggetables than we were which is great.
Until tomorrow.....

New Diet Day 1

If you know me you may be thinking I'm crazy for 'going on a diet'...but, this isn't actually a diet to loose weight, it's more of a diet change. To eat healthier and live better. It's been brought to my attention in the last few months that our (familys) eating habits have gone down hill. As life has gotten busier and we are out getting things done on the weekends, we are eating out more. Thus eating poorly. It's hard to eat healthy, it costs more! (if you buy organic or raw veggies instead of frozen). But, we're going to try harder, a week at a time.

I've also wanted for about a year now, to try a colon cleanse. At first I researched the pills you take to cleanse yourself but, I hate taking pills. Eventually I found a natural way of cleansing yourself with fruits and vegetables. Now you can go extreme and eat only fruits and vegetables or you can ease yourself into it, as I am doing. My husband is going extreme, its all or nothing he always says.

• So basically what you do is increase your fresh fruits and vegetables. Obviously eating them raw is best, so you don't cook out the vitamins and minerals needed for your body.


• You also increase your fiber content (with bran, cereal, muesli, and brown bread).


• Reduce your meat intake by atleast half. I cut out all meat as I am not a huge meat eater to begin with. NO I'm a vegetarian and don't hate meat. Just not a big fan. Chickens ok..ground beef/turkey is ok. Steak? YUCK! But, I'm rabbit trailing....


• Eat more salads with fat free or reduced fat dressings


• Drink more juice, 100% juice that is. And increase your water intake as much as possible as it will help you flush out your system. Try to cut out carbonate beverages, coffee (hard for some I know!-I cheated this morning), dairy, team canned juice, and alcohol.


• Soy and soy products can be used. I purchased for the first time this week a carton of soy..and it was actually quite tasty..I added some to my cereal this morning.

Some fruits that are great at cleansing your colon are papayas, mangos, pineapple and kiwi. Out of those I can have pineapple! Some of you also know, I'm allergic to most fruits so this diet is a little chalenging. Pineapple, apples, grapes, mandarin oranges, and strawberries in moderation are about all I can eat without having a reaction. So I will probably be adding more veggies than fruits.

Day 1

Breakfast-cream cheese muffin! (I know I cheated, I bought them on sale at Kroger forgetting for a minute about the diet change, I figured they needed to be eaten so they don't go bad!)
Snack-granola with almonds and dark chocolate topped with soy milk. Cashews and peanuts also to snack on.
Lunch-Large baked potato, I'm sure butter is not allowed, but, I will be adding a small amount of butter. Drink? Well I bought one of those Naked Juice drinks, you may have seen them in the stores. They are quite pricey at about $3.50 for 10oz but, I found some that were on clearance for $1.25...well I got two Green Machines and one Orange drink. Haven't tried the orange drink yet..but the Green Machine was a bit hard to get down. I think it was more the consistancy than the flavor because it didn't taste all that bad.
Dinner- Well I cheated on dinner to be honest. By the time I got home I was so hungry. I knew the girls wouldn't eat just veggies, Ellie especially. So I fixed them something to eat and popped a spaghetti squash into the oven for me. Well I had no idea the squash would take an hour to cook..my blood sugar was getting low, I was getting shakey..and my mood was getting worse so I scarfed down a peanut butter sandwich! Oh well..back on track tomorrow...

Some of the side effects of doing this diet are: fatigue, weakness, diharrea, body aches, headaches, bloating, bad breath, nausea and spurts of acne!
If you are interested yourself in doing this colon cleanse you can study up here. Well, until tomorrow! OH and if you are brave enough do a google search on colon cleansing and then look at the images, it's amazing what 'crap' literally lurks in your body!

This past Saturday my mom and I threw a shower for my sister, Sarah.

She's due with her first on February 13th.

The party was centered around an 11am brunch...consisting of

Sausage, Egg and Cheese Casserole, Ambrosia, Cheesy Potatoes, and Baked Brie.

The guests and presents were plentiful.

And to top the party off, a beautiful cake made by no other
than myself! I take a small amount

of pride in making this cake as it was my first
time using and making fondant. But I enjoyed it

immensely. The cake is the main topic of this

post as I will tell you how I did it.

You may be thinking fondant is an incredible pain to make,

only I'll tell you it wasn't. I found a simple recipe online

for MM Fondant. I chose this recipe because I had all the ingredients

at home and I figured making it for the first time if I screw it up

I wouldn't be out any money. All you need for this recipe is

16 oz of marshmellows

2-5T water

2lbs of powdered sugar

1/2 C of shortening.

Melt the marshmellows in a deep dish in 30 second intervals until melted

completely. Next, grease your hands GENEROUSLY and cover your counter

in grease, then dump the marshmellows onto the counter. Little by little

start mixing in the sugar. If it starts sticking to your hands add

more grease. This step takes FOREVER but keep kneading..

knead until it is all mixed together. If the

mixture starts tearing add water 1/2T at a time.

That's it! So easy. To store, just coat it in grease and place in

an airtight container. I put mine in a vacu suck bag and

stored it in the fridge over night.

You can color the fondant and make all sorts of fun things

out of it. Flat things mostly..as it has a lot of grease in it.

For Sarah's cake I made colored polka dots, which takes a lot of

coloring and mixing. Use a round object with semi sharp edge

to make the dots.

When covering the cake make sure you ice it first, I used

Wilton's Buttercream Icing. After covering with

icing, place the fondant on a 'sugared' surface. Meaning,

use powdered sugar instead of flour..so it doesn't stick to the

counter and tastes

better than flour! Then cover your rolling pen with sugar and roll out the fondant,

this process takes time..as the fondant is semi

fragile and very thick. But when you are done you have a beautiful

cake!

1 John 5:14-15
This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.

Lately I've been praying for patience. I am easily aggrivated and angered by small things, not tomention bigger things. And as some of you know when you ask for more patience usually that comes with trials and tests. And well it has. For the past couple of weeks our sweet Elanoir hasnot been sleeping well. She falls asleep while rocking but then doesn't want to stay in her bed when we put her down and then sometimes she's up multiple times a night. At first we thought it was another ear infections, so we took her in, thinking for sure thats what it was...but, they said no! Her ears were clear. So they checked her gums thinking it was more molars coming in, but nothing. Eventually we came to the conclusion that she's just suddenly gotten this attachment to me and doesn't want to let me go. It's extremely frustrating, especially in the middle of the night. I don't sleep well as it is so if Chris gets up with her, I'm still awake due to the crying. I sleep well when my children sleep well. So instead of making him tired for no reason, I get up with her. We've spent many sleepless nights in the past 2 weeks together. I've prayed and prayed over her..and over her room. As the sleepless nights went on I became more frustrated and started asking God why he wasn't answering my prayers! "Where are you!" and "Why can't I sleep!" " I don't understand at all!" " Why can't I get her to sleep?" After a week and a half of more questions and prayers, I just couldn't take it anymore! Chris and I were at each others throats due to the lack of sleep and frustration. Well it just blew up one night and we fought it out...it wasn't pretty. We never fight, and I may be exaggerating a bit, but I would label this a fight. I was mad! I couldn't understand why she wasn't sleeping and I was utterly exhausted. At one point though my sweet husband said to me "You have to let her go!" I thought "WHAT??" What do you even mean by this!?

Well, I think I was making this week worse by trying to get her to sleep on my own. Instead of letting her cry it out in her bed, I'd try to hold her and get her to sleep. I thought that just letting her sleep on me instead of letting her cry in her bed would be better and then we'd get more sleep! Which may be the case but, in the long run wouldn't work! So I knew then that something had to change. So I started praying more. Then next night Ellie fell asleep on me, I put her in bed, of course she woke right up, and wondered what I was doing! But instead of getting her back up I let her cry. Yes it took 45 minutes but I knew I had to do it. And no, it's not like I left her in her room screaming for 45 minutes alone. I would go in and check on her every 2m at first..then every 4, then every 6. Laying her down each time and telling her she was fine and that I loved her. Eventually she went to sleep, out of exhaustion mostly, and she slept all night!

The next night she didn't even cry she slept all night. It's not like this every night we're still having rough nights...but, I'm more at peace with unanswered prayer because I know He will answer it in His timing. He's working on my patience. I was so worried about us getting to sleep because I had to rise at 5am the next morning and I knew I wouldn't be able to make it thru the day. Well what I didn't realize or think about was I couldn't make it thru the day without Him. He is the one who strengthens me. Ever since the 'big night' of my revelation I've been filled with the energy and alertness I need to get thru the day.

Last night wasn't good, Ellie went down fine but, then woke at 11pm screaming. I tried letting her cry for an hour (checking on her every few minutes) but, she wasn't calming down. After that hour I put her in bed with me and tried to get her to sleep and again, after an hour I gave up. So we got up and sat in the LazyBoy and covered up with a big blanket and both fell asleep within the next hour. 3 hours! At 2 am I put her back in bed and she slept till 7, still early for such a rough night if you ask me. Yes I know she still isn't sleeping great but one things changed and thats me and how I look at the situation. I had to take the day off work so I could sleep and not be falling asleep on my drive to the airport but, I'm resting in the fact that God's working on me and my patience!

This seems to fit my 'trial'. “Did you know that an eagle knows when a storm is approaching long before it breaks? The eagle will fly to high spot and wait for the winds to come. When the storm hits, it sets its wings so that the wind will pick it up and lift it above the storm. While the storm rages below, the eagle is soaring above it. The eagle does not escape the storm; it simply uses the storm to lift it higher. It rises on the winds that bring the storm. When the storms of life come upon us, we can rise above them by setting our minds and our belief toward God. The storms do not have to overcome us; we can allow God's power to lift us above them. God enables us to ride the winds of the storm that bring sickness, tragedy, failure, and disappointment into our lives. We can soar above the storm. Remember, it is not the burdens of life that weigh us down, it is how we handle them.”

AllAboutPrayer

Some pics off my phone

A cute toy store in Crestview Hills, Isabella wanted

me to take her picture.

Me at work

Ellie playing in the dryer..


The view from our tower at work on a snow day..

This is Ellie pouting after I wouldn't pick her up..

one of her funnier positions she gets herself into..

One of many visits to the doctor in November

And more visits..

and more..

and more

Happy 2010!

A new page and a new year....lots of good things to come this year. I still can't believe that 2009 is gone already. Where did last year go, really? I mean honestly its hard for me to grasp how quickly time flys. Some memories as I look back over my calendar of last year:

In January we took a fun trip to the Mall of America and enjoyed being gone together as a family. I think this trip was when Chris and I realized how much we enjoy taking our children on trips and being gone together as a family.

In February we took a late anniversary trip to French Lick, Indiana and stayed at the historic hotel-French Lick Resort. If you are ever looking for a great getaway..it's a great visit! I will never forget their beds...I'd go back just for that comfort! In April we also learned that my Grandma Clark was terminally ill with meningial breast cancer and on May 16th she passed away. It was the most beautiful funeral that I had ever been to (not that I've been to that many). It was also a joyous time as she had recently received Christ and after her passing she was no longer in pain. Those months were the hardest of the year.

In June, our baby turned 5 and we discovered how quickly she is growing up. We also took our vacation and headed down to Mammoth Cave National Park. A week that we wil laugh at eventually. It's still a soft spot for me! Camping with an infant was not fun...I'd be willing to try again now..but that was a rough few days. However the cave tours we took were really fun and we really enjoyed that. Throughout the summer, I can't remember the date we started it exactly, but we did the Experiencing God study with our small group. I think it's safe to say that this study changed our spiritual lives. God worked and moved in this study in so many ways.

In August we tried to purchase a home but found out it wasn't God's will for us now. And had to learn to be content with where we are and pray about what His will for our future will be. August 26th, Isabella started Kindergarten, and I discovered how unprepared I was for my baby to go out into the world. She was more ready than I. That sad morning we said our goodbyes and sent her off on the bus, I turned my head as the tears rolled down my cheeks. I'm still getting used to her being gone every morning..and there's not a day that goes by still that I don't worry about her growing up. August 27, Ellie turned 1 and we celebrated with a Minnie Mouse party at a nearby park. She learned to walk soon there after and eventually started talking..

September 16 we celebrated our 9th anniversary and Chris' 34th birthday. We also had our second annual Clark family reunion, did the Breast Cancer walk downtown in memory of Grandma, and Isabella started her first swimming lessons.

On October 28th we headed to Sanibel Island for a week of fun and relaxation. Isabella learned to swim and by the end of the week was doing laps around the pool. Ellie also got brave (as did we) and by the end of the week she was going under water and fearless. I enjoyed this week with my sister and husband. It was a great fall getaway. We also learned this is THE best time to go to Sanibel. The weather was perfect. Oh and we visited the Naples Zoo, one of my highlights atleast!

In November I turned 31 and we celebrated our first Thanksgiving dinner with my siblings, in a long time. It was a great Thanksgiving as we had so much to be thankful for this year. And we also said tearful goodbyes to some close friends as the moved to New Zealand.

And finally in December we counted down the days until Christmas with Isabella! Oh the excitement of a child! Christmas was great as we celebrated with friends and family. It was a long but wonderful month. Again, New Year's came and went with the blink of an eye.

We in the Taylor household are looking forward to this near year and new beginnings. We pray that your new year brings you many blessings..