Happy Birthday Elli

It's hard to believe that Elli is 2 years old. We are thrilled with the progress she continues to make. She has hit all the normal developmental mile stones so far except for walking, and that isn't too far off at this point. She learned to crawl over the 4th of July while we were in Oregon, and she has gotten really fast. She is also pulling herself up to anything and everything and walking along furniture. She can go up and down the stairs, which is nerve racking to me, but I'm glad she can do it. She is saying 50+ words, and her verbal comprehension is even better. We are just so grateful that she hasn't had any side affects from being born so early. She is such a testament that miracles do happen.
Happy Birthday Sweet Girl!!


I hope you will indulge me a stroll down memory lane. It's good for me to look back and see how far we've come, and how blessed we are to have such a healthy and vibrant little girl. (warning: this blog entry is long)


Here is Elli about 9 days old. She was 10 inches long and weighed 1 lb. 2 oz. Her eyes were still fused shut at this point, and we couldn't wait for them to open. It was just a few days after this photo that she was taken by ambulance to another hospital for her PDA surgery, after which she contracted pneumonia for the first time. She was so beautiful, it broke our hearts that we couldn't pick her up and cuddle her.


This is Elli when she turned 1 month old. We celebrated her birthday each month while in the hospital. She was a little bigger at the point, but still so tiny as you can see by the 5 dollar bill next to her. She had finally gotten over her pneumonia, but we had a bit of a scare when her doctor wanted to test her for meningitis which would have likely been fatal in her case. The test was negative, and I can't tell you how relieved we were. She was having a little trouble with her tummy. It is hard for these little ones to digest their food because their bodies just aren't ready for that yet. It wasn't long after this that we were finally able to hold her for the first time.


Here is our sleepy little 2 month old. She was starting to digest much better at the point, which helped her to grow. You can see it in the clothes she's wearing. (This green onesie is the same size as the one it the previous photo.) They aren't quite as big on her. They still didn't fit, but they were getting closer to fitting. It was just a week after this that she was put on the C-PAP to transition her to a nasal cannula. It took her 3 tries to be able to stay on the C-PAP but before her 3 month birthday came around she was on the nasal cannula. She was the cutest little cheerleader for Halloween, I bought an outfit for the American Girl dolls for her costume. It was darling!


Here is our big 3 month old girl! She was doing well enough to start learning how to nurse. It was wonderful to snuggle her close. There was a lot more freedom in loving her once she was put on the nasal cannula, plus we were finally able to really see what she looked like. She is nice and plump in this photo from all the calories they were pumping in her, I loved all her rolls! We were transferred into nursery B which is where the babies go that are getting closer to going home. The end of the hospital was in sight now.



Elli is 4 months old and dressed in her pretty little Christmas dress. We had learned that she had a paralyzed vocal chord, a side affect from her PDA surgery, which made nursing nearly impossible for her. So I continued to pump and fed her by bottle. She was the delight of so many nurses. I loved that there were so many that wanted to care for her. We were finally able to bring her home right after the New Year.



Here is our sweet little One Year Old. She had really weak muscle tone still, but had made tremendous progress in so mant areas.



She wasn't doing well with solid foods yet, so we didn't even do a birthday cake for her. Her brother and cousins were all given a cup cake with one candle and they all blew them out after we sang to her. She did enjoy her birthday ice cream though.



She would have days where she didn't feel well about every 1 and 1/2 weeks, and sadly she was in that cycle over her birthday. We called it "crooked" because when she didn't feel well she couldn't support her torso and would lean over to the left.

Elli loves flowers (she inherited that from my dad), and flower was actually one of her first words. (She says "wowah".) So we decided to go with a flower theme for her birthday. We had napkins and cups with flowers and butterflies, and we had multi-colored balloons on the table. We had a flower garland hanging from the canopy, and the cake was covered in flowers of course.

I was really excited about how well her cake turned out. It was a yellow 9 X 13 cake with 5 regular size cup cakes and 4 mini cup cakes on top. I found the idea on familyfun.com, but I tweaked it a little. I used blue frosting instead of white, because I thought it would be fun to have sky color for the background. I also added the dirt, crushed Oreos. Instead of making flowers out of m&m's and other round candies, I warmed Starbursts in the microwave and rolled them out. Then I used scissors to cut out my flowers. The leaves are gum drop fruit slices that I sliced even thinner. It was a little more work than I anticipated, but I had a lot of fun making it.

For dinner we had hamburgers and hot dogs, and veggies from the garden. Yummy! Patrick is holding Clara, and Marianne is in the purple with Bradley and Wayne next to her. Crystal and Alan are next to Patrick. It was really nice to have the family over to help us celebrate.

Elli loved the hot dogs. It is so nice that she will actually eat some foods now. She is still rather picky, and her gag reflex is still obnoxiously sensitive, but it's getting better all the time.

One of Elli's favorite things right now is blowing bubbles, so we got bubbles for all the kids to blow for a while as adults finished eating their dinner.

Aunt Marianne blowing more bubbles.

We were also very glad to has Wayne's brother Steve (on the right) come down. My sister-in-law Kerly (2nd on the right) is from Ecuador, and these are her parents. Her dad has been working in New York for the last 8 years, and her mom finally got residency this year. They are both living here with Steve and Kerly while they look for work and a place to live. I am really happy for Kerly, she has wanted to have her family close to her for a long time. Congratulations!

When is came time to blow out the candles, Elli was feeling a little overwhelmed. She didn't know what to make of everyone gathering around her and singing. She really does know how to blow, but we couldn't get her to do it. So we counted to 3 and let Bradley and the cousins blow out the candles together. Maybe next year she will understand the procedure a little better.

Here is our feminine little eater. She wouldn't try to pick up the whole thing, she would just pick off tiny little pieces (crumbs really) and carefully put them in her mouth. I kind of knew before hand that we wouldn't get one of those cake all over your face pictures, it's just not Elli to eat like that.

Cute little Clara enjoying her ice cream cone. Mom made Butterfinger ice cream, and I made black berry. There is nothing quite like home-made ice cream in the summer!

Mom and dad enjoying their dessert.

Silly Noah eating his cake and ice cream.

Elli discovered that she could used a petal from the flower on her cake as a scooper for frosting. After that she pretty much only ate the frosting.

When it came time for gifts, Elli was a little confused at what she was suppose to do with all the pretty packages. Bradley was more than happy to help her open the gift he gave her. It was 3 coloring books: Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake, and Winnie the Pooh, and a box of water colors. I think she'll have a lot of fun with it. Alan and Crystal's family gave her a Backyardigans book, my mom and dad gave her a cute little purple striped dress, and she got some bubble bath and fall clothes from Wayne and I.

This gift was from Steve and Kerly. It was hard to open, so Sadie and Sawyer stepped in to help. It was a beautiful off white dress with a pink sash and little pink embroidered flowers. Thanks Kerly! I'll post photos of Elli in the dress next week. She didn't wear it yesterday because of the temple dedication. So she'll wear it the church this coming Sunday.

This was the gift we had to save until the end because we knew if she opened it first she'd ignore all the rest. It's a doll that has a bottle and when you put the bottle to the mouth she will begin to suck. After a few minutes she will burp and fall asleep. She will also giggle if you tickle her tummy. She is a really cute baby doll, and Elli LOVES her!

She couldn't wait for Wayne to get her out of the box. She stood there on her tippy toes saying "BeeBee" over and over again. I don't know why I didn't take any pictures after it was opened, but I will get some pictures of her holding her baby real soon. Did I mention that Elli really really LOVES her baby!?! It was a fun day, and we are so happy to have our little 2 year old! She is a sweet and sassy bundle of joy. Happy Birthday Elliana!