$400 and Counting

Here is our patient post-op. He's not feeling so hot in this shot. He seems to be better this morning than he was yesterday morning. Which is good, since we dropped another $200 on him yesterday!


The injured foot. Be glad I have spared you the gore and chosen not to show a picture of it unwrapped! It is not for the faint-of-heart. If you want the gory details, keep reading, otherwise just skip to the picture! (For those of you who are curious about such medical things: The injury basically sliced the large section of his paw a third of the way across. The laceration is about two inches long and an 1 1/2 inches deep. It goes completely through the pad and reveals the tendons beneath it. Pretty yucky!)

Stitches and Super-Glue

That is what is holding Kip's poor little paw together right now. And a large amount of bandaging. He isn't too happy right now, but the good news is that everything should heal up.

I will say that one nice thing about a small town, is that the cost of living is way lower than it is at home - which means much lower emergency vet bills. I think we paid the same amount we would have for a regular visit to our vet at home.

Kip has managed to get the wrapping off a couple of times, and the wound looks pretty nasty. I am going to try and get him in to see our vet this morning and make sure everything is looking okay.

When It Rains, It Pours

Well, we had been having a great Christmas spent with Tim's family. But things have headed downhill...

• Ellie swallowed a poisonous berry on Christmas afternoon. Tim called poison control (I was taking a nap) and found out that she would most likely be fine; just keep an eye on her.
• Found out that the key we had made to leave with Hailey didn't work, so Moxie has been sans extra food and water.
• Ellie got her fingers shut hard in the door this evening. We ended up in the ER. No broken bones, just bruising and soreness.
• Tim and his step-dad are currently at the Veterinary Hospital with Kip, who managed to splice the pad of his foot to the tendon while we were at the ER with Ellie. Don't know the outcome of this one yet, stay tuned. (One outcome I am sure of: $$$ down the drain...)

A very merry Christmas indeed....

Mommy, No!

Ellie's favorite thing to say these days is, "No Mommy, no!" At least she is cute.

Yes, I know...

I can't really call myself a blogger if I never blog. But you see, it has been very busy around here. I've been busy with blanket selling and such, Tim has been putting in time on the weekends to make a big deadline at work, and then there is Ellie. Ellie never stops (not that we'd want her to ;). I kept telling myself that I would blog tomorrow, but tomorrow kept coming and no blogging occurred. Sorry about that. I will do better. I promise.

In the meantime, here are a couple of pictures:

Halloween 2008

Ellie had a blast on Halloween, even if she was a little scared of the bigger kids and their often gross costumes. At the first few houses she tried to go inside when they answered the door (I mean, what else are you supposed to do after you knock on someone's door?) but then she realized that she was to stay outside and hold up her bucket. Slight political commentary: She got double candy at one house for yelling "Obama!"

As promised, here are the pictures.

The "alley kids" - our neighborhood crew keeps growing!

Ellie and Berlin, I mean Hannah Montana.

She's off!

Growing Up

I'm not quite sure when it happened, but we are no longer "Mama" and "Dada" to Ellie. We are now "my Mommy" and "my Daddy." Yesterday Ellie even spent the entire afternoon calling me just "Mom." Time goes by, doesn't it?

I'll get Ellie's 20/21 month update done this weekend, but I'm sure I won't remember everything that has changed. Like the fact that she now uses 4-5 word sentences. And plurals. And possessives. And the past tense when she talks.

As a walk down memory lane, here is Ellie last Halloween. This year she is going to be a clown (the same costume that my mom made for me 27 years ago). I'll get this year's pics up this weekend also.

Will Get Caught Up... Someday

Well, we are all sickos around here. Ellie and I are battling our second colds of the season. (Aside: Does it really count as my second cold if I never fully got rid of the first one???)

Tim is down with some kind of food poisoning. Or at least I hope it is food poisoning. The thoughts of the baby or the mama going through what he is dealing with is quite frightening to me... so we'll just keep hoping it is nothing contagious.

Those are the reasons that the blog is just not that spiffy right now. We are not feeling so spiffy ourselves. Once things get back on an even keel I will post Ellie's 20 month update. It might end up being a combined 20/21 months update depending on how long it takes me...

"Photo Shoot"

I needed a few publicity photos for a local shop that is selling my Lovieroos, so we had a "photo shoot." I put it in quotes because neither Tim nor I have enough photography skills to pull off a real photo shoot; but, between the two of us, I think we did pretty well. I composed the shots and Tim operated the camera. Not too bad, if you ask me!

(You'd never know we were in the middle of a subdivision, thanks to our neighbors insanely tall native grass plants.)





This is the shot I went with for the shop. Ellie is holding her Lovieroo just right, waving to the camera, and I am actually smiling my natural, un-posed smile (tongue between the teeth and all...).

Check It Out

My friend, Liz, is hosting an awesome give-away on her blog, The Tip Spot. She has three great prizes, including a custom-made Lovieroo of your very own! Be sure to stop by and enter the contest!

Liz and her sister, Christy, run The Tip Spot and it is an amazing source of money-saving, kid-raising, Eco-friendly ideas.

Trip Pictures - Finally!

Okay, so I am more than a little bit slow... It seems like all of my free time (ha! what free time?) has been spent working on my Lovieroo business stuff. Anyway, here are the pictures from our trip a couple of weeks ago. Enjoy!

Ellie feeding the geese at a park near Grandma and Grandpa W's house.

Petting the horse near their house.

On a walk.

Came across this tarantula on the way back down the hill.

Ellie, Daddy and Grandpa P (with his awesome house in the background).

Grandpa Bob and Grandma Cheryl with Ellie.

Grandpa Bob's pond entertained Ellie for hours!

Kissing the rabbit statue.

We rented this yellow house to stay in for three nights. It was fantastic!

On a hike.

Back in the town, Ellie found a cat to terrorize.

Our last day was rainy, but it made for an amazing double rainbow!

Trying to Get Caught Up

We are back from vacation! It was awesome, but now I feel like I'm running a bit behind on everything.... I'll get pictures posted in the next day or two.

An exciting (and unexpected) thing came out of our trip: One of the shops in the little mountain/ski town where we stayed is going to start carrying my Lovieroo blankets! I was so excited. The owner placed an initial order of eight blankets, so I have been rushing to get them finished so they can be delivered by the end of this week. Once that order is out I will have a better sense of how long it takes from beginning to shipping, as I get ready to market Lovieroos across the state! Yay!

Nineteen Months Old

Another month has gone by already. This month has absolutely flown by! We began it by visiting family in Idaho (just Ellie and I) and we are ending it by taking off on our first family vacation since Ellie was born! We are heading out in the morning to drive to see Tim's folks for a few days, and then we are off to a little resort town to spend a few nights, just the three of us. We are very excited!

How Ellie has changed in the past month:

• Ellie is back to sleeping well, after a looong rough patch when we got back from Idaho. She isn't napping great, but I'll take the nighttime sleep over a nap any day!
• Ellie feeds herself now. She will no longer let us spoon anything into her mouth. This is very messy, but also frees up Mommy and Daddy to feed themselves at meals!
• Ellie has added cereal to the list of foods she requests at breakfast. She became really interested in Daddy's cereal and now she gets a little bowl to eat all for herself!
• Ellie talks in two and three word phrases now, including the occasional sentence. Her favorite things to say are: "I jump," "I walk," "I want Daddy," and "I go outside."
• She said her first complete sentence the day after she turned 18 months old. Tim says her actual first sentence doesn't need to be recorded for posterity (let's just say it had to do with her diaper), and so we'll go with her second: At the airport flying home from Idaho she told a little baby, "Baby don't cry." It was very cute.

Events of the past month:

• Idaho trip
• Visit to the fair.
• Visit to a carnival.
• Lots and lots of playing with friends, especially Jamison.

Jamison

Hailey asked to see some of the pictures of Jamison I've taken lately; so here they are!

Ells and James chillin' at the carnival.

Blowing bubbles.

Okay, so this one isn't Jamie, but rather his sister, Berlin.

Hailey and Jamison.

A not-so-happy Jamie at the end of a long day.

Ding!

Ellie has been trying so hard to figure out how to ring the bell on Jamison's Radio Flyer tricycle. She finally did it!

Open For Business!

My Etsy shop has officially "opened." Check it out at ellieroo.etsy.com. I only have a few items posted right now, but I have a lot of inventory that will be added as I get the time!

New Camera

Tim and I (okay, really just me) got a new camera last week. It is a digital SLR and I've been saving up for one for awhile now. Over the past year I have had a real desire to go back to my old SLR days of high school photography and yearbook. The only catch is that I have forgotten all the F-stop and aperture setting information... I guess I have some (re)learning to do! For now though, the automatic mode is making me look like a better photographer than I really am!

Tim took this series of photos of Ellie wearing his "dasses."






A happy girl playing on Jamie and Berlin's slide (thanks for sharing!)

Eighteen Months Old

Ellie and I spent the last week in Idaho, so this monthly update is a week late. We had a great time and I will post some pictures from that trip shortly.

Ellie is constantly making us crack up laughing and she is so much fun to parent right now. (Aside from the occasional temper tantrum...)

How Ellie has changed in the past month:

• Ellie has added to her list of "What does the animal say?" responses. She will now moo like a cow, roar like a lion, say "ooo, ooo, ooo" for a monkey, meow like a cat, and woof like a dog.
• She likes to tell us (and the animals) to "moose" which is her word for "move." She enjoys telling us where to go and pushing or pulling us along by our shorts if we don't move fast enough.
• Ellie sleeps through the night about 50% of the time now. The other nights typically only have one or two wakings.
• Ellie dropped to one nap. She sleeps for about two hours from 1pm to 3pm.
• She is getting really good at feeding herself. She doesn't like us to feed her from a spoon anymore; she wants to do it herself.
• Ellie wants to do everything her way, without help. She often gets frustrated because she can't do it herself, but if we try to help it usually ends with her throwing herself on the ground in a tantrum.
• Continuing to talk up a storm. She puts two words together now and has figured out that if someone is far away you have to YELL for them to hear you.

Events of the past month:

• Lots of trips to the pool, including the time Ellie decided to jump into the pool with no one there to catch her...
• Trip to Idaho
• Two trips to the zoo

The Zoo

Here are a few pictures from our recent trip to the zoo with our friends Dan and Becca and their daughter, Eleora. Eleora is 3 1/2 and Ellie adored her!

Ellie chasing the geese - getting the zoo trip off to a good start!

Ellie and Eleora holding hands. Ellie wanted to hold Eleora's hand the entire time. Eleora wasn't too sure about that, but she was a good sport!

Walking to the giraffes and then looking at them together.

Riding in the wagon together.

Becca, Dan, Eleora, Ellie, and Tim.

Ellie was fixated on this water bottle that Dan and Becca were kind enough to share with Ellie.

Eleora holding a parakeet with Dan.