Happy Birthday!

We celebrated Jenny's birthday yesterday. This is the cake we baked for her. If we ever win the lottery, I think we'll open a dairy-free bakery.


And for good measure, here's a picture of Ellen being cute.

Housing, Etc.

Everything worked out on the housing front. We were able to sell the condo and buy a house. It's been a long and bumpy road, but we're so happy everything is falling into place. The first house we wanted fell through on the inspection, so we had to start shopping all over again. The house we're now buying is in......the suburbs! I hope the suburbs don't eat us alive or something. I really can't express how much we're going to miss our neighborhood, but our new house is so much nicer than our condo. It's in a quiet, safe neighborhood, and it's walking distance to the elementary school. We move on the 19th!

I had problems loading pictures yesterday and got frustrated before I could get these two pictures of Ellen with two of her aunts ("ants").

July 4th

Ellen enjoyed her first 4th of July. It was filled with traditional and not-so-traditional events. I finally remembered the camera, so here is what we did in pictures:

Cousins played on Oma's lap

Cousins got matching Spiderman tattoos, and got cranky when we tried to take a picture of them.
Laid great-Oma to rest under the apple tree. Noah was so confused about which Oma belonged in the hole. He kept trying to push his Oma in there!
Spent what felt like 6 hours trying to get a family picture
As a nod to our friends to the South, we even had a pinata! We really did let the kids try to break it first, but when we all got frustrated, Quitin tried to break it open with the dead Christmas tree!

The boys showed the girls how jump-roping is done!

Of course, we also BBQ'd and watched fireworks, but who needs pictures of that. When we left, we had to say goodbye to Erin, David, Noah, and Victoria. We had so much fun with all of you, and now we're going to miss you all so much! We hope you love Germany, and we really hope to come visit!

Lots of news

We've had all sorts of problems buying/selling the condo/house. It's a long story, but we're not even sure we can sell the condo now. We'll know more this weekend.

Ellen is doing well. It's been a long and painful process for everyone involved, but she has 2 teeth now! I've been trying to get a picture of them, but she never puts her tongue in her mouth long enough to show off her teeth. She's also trying to move around more now. We still think she'll skip crawling and move to walking, but we'll probably know soon!

Ellen's Aunt Erin, Uncle David, and cousin Noah are visiting from Iowa before they move to Germany. Ellen was excited to meet them, and loves them all. It's really cute to see her and Noah together. I keep forgetting my camera when we see them - I hope I get some pictures before they leave!

Nicholas's last day of school was Thursday, so he is home with Ellen now. I'm insanely jealous, but Nicholas is just insanely bored.

Here she is after a bath. Look at all that hair!

Here she is showing off her wiggle skills.

Here she is showing off how well she can stand. Oh, it's so exciting standing outside the exersaucer!

Housing

We sold our condo! We close July 15th, so the pressure is on to find a house. The inspection was done last week, and we're still waiting to hear how that went. We're nervous about it because the condo is old and we haven't done any of the major projects (electric, plumbing, furance).

I think we've seen about 25 houses - every house in our area, in our budget, with 3 bedrooms. We found one we both love, so we'll make an offer tomorrow. It's a really cute little place in a great little neighborhood. I'll take pictures to post next time we visit.

No pictures of Ellen today, but she is happy and well. Her 9-month check-up was this week. She's 21 pounds, 27 inches long. 80th percentile for weight, 50th for height. She's still our chubby little girl! She's rolling around, trying to stand up on her own, and learning what her voice is for. I think I can finally say she's sleeping through the night too. She still has a bad night here and there, but feeding her on a schedule has really helped her sleep all night. Wahoo!

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's day to all the moms and moms-to-be! My friend Kiyo shared with me the original intent of Mother's Day recently. During the American Civil War, social activist Julia Ward Howe organized it as a way to unify women against war and promote nonviolence. Knowing that makes the day a little more special for me.

Ellen made me two Mother's Day presents. The first with the help of Nicholas, the other with the help of daycare:

Someone at church this morning said Ellen is "fluffy." Ha! That's one way to put it!

Not much

Ellen's stuff keeps getting bigger and bigger, and we're about to burst out of our 828 sq ft. condo, so we decided to put our condo on the market. It's a real pain cleaning the house everyday, looking for houses, and worrying that our condo will never sell. But we're excited to have a bigger place with a yard.

Ellen is happy and doing well. She's growing like crazy. She's up to about 20 pounds and is finally getting longer too. She's trying new foods all the time and likes most of them. She still can't roll over or crawl. She's happy just sitting or standing up.

Here she is with Nicholas trying to eat her cheecks. She loves this game, and this is a good example of how chunky she is.

Here she is just sitting around looking cute