Food

Over the past month or so, Ellie has really taken a liking to table food. I'm used more or less now for comfort & when she's tired. I'm a little bit sad, but I've gotta be honest, I'm more okay with it than I thought I would be. I seem to have the opposite problem as most women when it comes to nursing, I cannot get the pregnancy weight off. I lose the water weight & obviously the weight of the placenta, baby, extra blood etc but as far as FAT goes, it stays until I'm done nursing. Which seriously, was kind of a joke with John because he stopped nursing when I got pregnant with Ellie-- well played son, well played. Since Ellie has started to slow down on nursing that means the weight is FINALLY starting to come off & my exercise is actually helping now. Before I could exercise like a mad woman & maybe lose 5 lbs in a month... maybe. 

Anyway, thats a post for a different time :)

So, Ellie really loves those nasty jarred meat sticks from Gerber. Thats about the only baby food she'll eat, which is fine, I'd rather her eat small bits of fruits & veggies over store bought baby food. She gets so flipping excited when she sees the jar come out. She bounces up & down & her chubby little legs start kicking & she usually gets pretty vocal about it. It's funny!

Last week she ate lunch while John was napping so I let her eat on the floor since thats where the food was going to end up anyway. 

"Please mom, no flash photography!" :)

mmmm turkey sticks.

"umm, mom, are you aware that I'm out of sticks?!"

Over the weekend John was sick with a fever {it was really high! average was 103.2} so he didn't really do anything except for sit/lay on the couch with his Buzz & Woody action figures & blankey. 

The night before John woke up feeling bad, he had a little pouch of 100 calorie mini chocolate pretzels & apparently didn't eat them all. I was in the kitchen the next day & looked into the living room to see miss Ellie sucking on something with a huge grin on her face. As I walked closer I saw she had brown stuff all over here so Nathan checked her mouth & found a mini chocolate covered pretzel. 

And poor John; his ears, cheeks, thighs & arms would get super red when his fever would spike :( This was his first high fever & it drug on until yesterday. He's finally about back to his usual rambunctious self today. 

Ellie's 8 month update & photos will be posted some time this week. I've been a slacker when it comes to that. Oh well. Maybe I'll just combine her 8 & 9 month posts into one at the end of the month. 

 We were quick to get our taxes filed this year but the tax guy didn't input the correct account number so we're trying to get that sorted out. Hopefully within the next week it'll be cleared up. We are paying off our debt & then Nathan is amazing enough to agree to using the leftovers for my camera upgrade!! I was originally thinking the 6D because it seemed like the best bang for the buck {before we were planning on using tax money}, but I found out that Canon has a great little program where if you send them your camera/lenses, they give you a massive discount on whatever you're going to purchase. So, I'll be sending in my Rebel T3i, kit lens & 55-250 since that lens is for crop sensors only in exchange for an AMAZING 5D Mark iii with its kit lens! I'm so freaking excited! Seriously, my husband is the BEST :)

Well nothing else too exciting has been going on here. My days consist of playing with & taking care of the kids, cleaning up messes, exercising when they nap & making sure we have a meal to sit down to at the end of the day. Nathan is back at work doing anything he's allowed to do {he's still in a cast}. His next orthopedic appointment is this Thursday, so we'll head off early in the morning & won't get back until late that night. Since it's Valentine's weekend, we'll probably eat dinner at Chili's in Ramstein or something. Now that he's back at work, he'll be able to finish his ACAP process. We learned that because his school starts in September & we're supposed to ETS in September or October, we might be qualified for some early leave in order for Nathan to be back to the States in time for him to start school in the Fall semester instead of having to wait until January. I hope we qualify! Summers here are brutal without AC lol, I'm really dreading it actually so if we can leave in August that'd be great, plus that means that we'd be moved into our house before the holidays! Exciting stuff!