February

 Eliana attended her first birthday party a few weeks ago. It was for her friend Lewis who is only 4 days older than Ellie. He celebrated his birthday a little late on Feb. 4th.

 Eliana seemed to enjoy herself, and she discovered this cool balloon.

 It sure is fun being around all these people my size:)

 Play date with Lewis. He liked the stairs, and wanted to catch up with Ellie. He doesn't have stairs in his house, so he caught on pretty quick.

 Ellie says, come on up the stairs with me...

 Hi friend:)

 Out on a run with Buggyfit. This is an exercise group where moms bring their "buggies," and go out for a run together, and then do aerobic type exercises at the top of this pretty hill. What a beautiful place to have a workout! Nobody else showed up this day, so I had a private lesson.

 Oh, how I LOVE the fridge. And look, I spotted my favorite thing, Mom's yogurt!!

 I didn't do it...

 Hi Mommy! Eliana enjoyed opening all her birthday cards that came in the mail. What a sweet family she has:)

 Hey, that is what I like to do. Open and shut the gate!

 I still fit in my baby bjorn! Mom and I walked across the street to the park to play in the swing, and go down the slide!

 More of the birthday party

 This was a play date with my friend Isabella over at her house. I met one of Isabella's friends named Toby. He is 11 months, but he looked bigger than me I think:)

 Happy Valentine's Day!! We didn't do too much. Mom and I are still trying to get well from being sick recently. Daddy is out of town in Italy for work:(

 We got snow! We got a little snow this past Friday. It doesn't snow often here, so it was kind of exciting!

Mom, Dad, and I took a walk to the park. Daddy got to see me swing!

So, what had been going on with me lately...Eliana is "talking" more and more. She seems to be trying to mimic words after we say them. Ellie also gets annoyed by noises lately. Like if you sneeze, cough, or drop something, she makes a disgruntled face, and makes a sad noise. Ellie is starting to show a liking to her stuffed animals now, and hold her arms out to them (lined on her shelf) when she gets up from sleeping. She is doing better walking with her puppy dog walker, but she still has to be in the mood, and will often just sit when I try to get her to walk. She does this when I try to get her to walk with me too. She is getting pretty fast at cruising the furniture though, and climbs the whole wooden stair case pretty fast. She actually learned to get off the couch by herself. I think I had only shown her a few times, and so she surprised Dad and me the other day when she turned and climbed down by herself. She LOVES keys, and always lunges towards them at the front door. She is lunging towards a lot of things now, and gets mad when she can't reach them, or you won't give them to her. She really likes playing with her empty yogurt containers too. She still loves cleaning the tables off, and throwing everything on the ground. I guess she is getting taller because she seems to be able to reach more now, and actually pulled a table down a few weeks ago.

 Eliana is being a bit for finicky lately eating/drinking. She often throws her sippy cup on the floor, and refuses to drink. She will hardly drink any milk, but now she is refusing water a lot of the time too, so that has been a struggle. We have experimented with different cups, and lately I have found that if I don't watch her drink, she will drink water from a sippy cup when my back is turned! She still loves her yogurt, and will sometimes cry when it is gone. Up until this point, ellie had been pretty laid back with eating; almost making it hard to tell if she was hungry or full. Kinda like, if you offer I take, you don't offer, I am okay too. Hopefully she will start to drink her milk soon. Ellie still won't feed herself. She just picks the food up, and throws it on the floor. We have tried little bite sizes of all the foods we can think of, but she just doesn't seem to want to do it. Good news is though, that we have two more teeth on the way!! The two little teeth on the bottom are still in the same position; maybe a little more visible, but now we finally have some on the top coming in! We have only been able to see them when Ellie is laying down with her mouth open, but I was able to spot them today when she smiled really big. Yay for teeth:)  We are still with two nursings per day, but are trying to wean off nursing in the next few weeks.

 Ellie still loves music, and still dances whenever she hears it. We have been singing Row Row Row Your Boat, (we row as we sing) and so now when she hears that song, she starts moving back and forth! Also, one line of the English version is after saying the Row Row Boat, you say, "if you see a crocodile, don't forget to scream," and then let out a scream. She started letting out a scream after I said the line, so funny! One thing I love is that Ellie is finally starting to hug and cuddle, it is so cute! She also tries to "kiss" now, she comes at you with her mouth open for a kiss:) She still LOVES my phone, and has learned she can make the screen move with her fingers. She got annoyed one time when it was in a position that the screen wouldn't move. Ellie is liking her bath more and more, and now will sometimes cry when she has to get out. Hmm, what else? Ellie absolutely HATES getting her diaper changed, and has been throwing a complete fit lately with changes. This has been especially fun lately given the diarrhea we have been having lately. Ellie actually came down with her first virus last week, and still has some diarrhea. We also seem to be having a little separation anxiety or something because Eliana has been crying when I leave the room lately. All in all, things are going well, and we are adjusting to our new home. Hard to believe we have been in England now for a little over 5 months!