July 4th Weekend

We had a fun lazy July 4th Weekend full of playing both outside and inside. Here are a few pictures from the weekend...

Funny Story...

We have been talking a lot about "baby sister" and point out that baby sister is in mommy's tummy. If you ask Ellery where baby sister is, she will point at my tummy. We even asked her what baby sister's name is and she said "Cayla". We are not sure where or how she came up with that. She snuggles with baby sister and gives her kisses. So all this being said, I clearly thought she "got it". So, yesterday morning Ellery was going through her normal morning routine of sitting on the potty drinking her milk when and me sitting on the floor in front of her. We were having a very insightful conversation about "wipies" and she grabbed her tummy and said "Mommy, my baby sister hurts!". I guess she doesn't get it after all......but she will soon!!

20 Month Photo Shoot

Funny things....

I am taking the time to types these up because I know as time goes on I will forget and they are too cute to let slip away. I know I a bias but I do think my child has the funniest personality ever!! Two quick stories:

1. Let me set the stage - I am at Ellery's school picking her up at the end of the day. She has become particularly partial to a teacher there named Ms. C that she calls "Ms. Coco". Ms. Coco teaches 4 year olds and is usually on the playground when we are leaving for the day. The playground is right by the parking lot so everyday, Ellery wants to see Ms. Coco before we leave. This particular day I was a little late so Ms. Coco was already back in her classroom so we went to visit her there. PAUSE

I have to stop here and give you a brief background story so the rest of the above story makes sense. So, we all know the endless supply of batteries we must have on hand in order to make all of the many toys operate that exist in our houses. Heaven forbid we not have the right size or run out!! And you have to have your handy dandy screw drive that only works for these darn toys. I typically leave this task for Keith to take care of and just tell Ellery "it needs batteries and daddy will fix it". She has a music "thing" in her bed that she loves. It has a button you push to start the rain forest and music. It seems to always run out of batteries because it is used so often and sometimes it will go several days "broken" until "daddy can fix it". So now....every morning Ellery stands up in her bed and walks over to this toy, pushes the button and says "daddy fixed it!" or "batteries....daddy fix it". PAUSE

OK - now back to the other story. We were in Ms. Coco's classroom. All of the kids were off somewhere else and Ellery walked over to their big-kid toys and pointed at this bog globe. Ms. Coco picked it up and placed it on a small table in front of Ellery. She tried to spin it and then saw that it has neat little buttons to push that obviously should do something. Ms. Coco was quick to let her know that she didn't think it would work because it needed batteries. Ellery looked up at her sweetly and said "Daddy fix it!".

2. Setting the stage - bedtime in Ellery's room. Every night we out Ellery to bed together. She give us big kisses and then we lay her in her bed. She quickly jumps back up and says "daddy kisses" and he kisses her again. Then, "mommy kisses" and I kiss her. This would go on and on endlessly, but we have to shut it down. Two nights ago, Keith thought he would be funny and beat her to the punch. As soon as she layed down he said "daddy kisses". She looked up at him and let out a big sigh and exasperatingly said "oh gosh" and stood back up and gave him kisses. We have no idea where she learned this or or how to use it!!

Easter Weekend

Eater Egg hunt at Home

Easter Egg Hunt at Grandma and Grandpa Cerny's House

Easter Egg hunt at Momo's and Popo's House

Houston Rodeo

We took Friday afternoon off of work and school and went to the Houston Live Stock Show and Rodeo. Ellery had so much fun! She wanted to "touch" everything! Every animal she saw she would say - "touch, touch, touch!". We went over to the Rodeo arena to see if Elle would like the Rodeo and much to our surprise, she LOVED the bare back riding! She stood in her chair, completely engaged and doubled over laughing with excitement most of the event! She really enjoyed the rodeo. The entertainment for the night was Eli Young Band (one of our favs). I was a little concerned that it was WAY past Ellery's bedtime and we wouldn't be able to stay, but, again to my surprise, she was ready to rock out and dance with daddy! We saw all but the last two songs of the concert! Was a fun fam day!!!

17 Months - In with a BANG!

Well, today officially marks 17 months and our first official "accident"! I received an email from Ellery's school today with the subject line titled "Ellery Fell - She's OK". My hear skipped a beat. We have received this same email on two other accounts, but both times, were pretty minor. I was thinking this would be along the same lines given the fact that I didn't receive a phone call to pick her up. So, I didn't worry too much, but was still very anxious to pick her up from school. You can imagine my surprise when I same my little Rocky Balboa from the window! But, I must say, she is one tough cookie! She doesn't seemed phased at all. The incident occurred when she was excited to get out to the playground and lost her footing on some brick paver steps and face planted into them! Ouch!! I was told she was more upset about them trying to put ice on it than anything. I guess this is like that first scratch you get on your brand new car! Your heart aches, but you know it won't be the last!

As for 17 month old events....where to begin!! Talking up a storm, trying to make sentences, but it is her own language. Keith and I cannot understand a word, but she clearly thinks she is saying something to us. Its pretty frustrating! The one word days that I CAN understand are gone! We will head back tot he doctor at 18 months, so we will get the full scale stats at that time. Until then....

Heartbeat

Today we had a follow-up visit with Dr. R for Baby B#2. All looks good and we scheduled the C for Aug 2nd so I guess unless our little guy decides to show up early like his big sis, he has a birthday scheduled!

As usual, they hooked me up to the Doppler to get a heart rate on baby. He was moving around like crazy because she had a hard time finding it. Once she did though, I heard the most amazing sound. My heart was beating at about 80bpm. boom...boom...boom....boom, then all of the sudden faintly in the background, it picked his heartbeat up completely in sink with mine, but double the rhythm at around 160bpm...boom.boom.boom.boom. It was amazing!

Wish I Had the Camera

Tonight Keith and I were getting ready for her bath. When Keith gets home in time we do this together so we can spend time with Ellery since she is at school all day. Tonight Keith was turning off the bath water and I gasped as I pulled ellery's shirt off and saw something red in her hair. I quickly sifted through her hair to find the spot again. I called keith over to inspect it too. It looked like a bloody scab. What on earth had happened to my baby? Keith said "looks like someone jacked her at school"! Really? Is that what happened to my baby girl! keith went to get a tissue to clean it and I was impatient and gently rubbed it with my finger. Just as I did I felt it was sticky...Yuck!! Its not a bloody scab....its strawberry nutrigrain bar!!!

16 Months

silly monkey face

Growing~growing~growing! Ellery is such a big girl now!! Her vocaubary is pretty broad these days. We can communicate with her pretty well now. Here are a few of the words and phrases she is saying:-

English Word: Bow, Thank you, happy, Puppy, Blanket, Jacket, Baby, Spoon, Plate, Tea, Play, Blocks, Elmo, Yes, No, Book, Please, Eat, Ice, Hotdog, Green bean, Cookie, Cracker, Rock, Duck, Bubbles, Bye-bye, Hello, Go, Ball, Cheese, Yogurt, Apple, Peaches, Up, Down, Brush, Trash, Get you, Look up, ooutside, boots, shoes, this

Spanish Words: Agua, Adios

Sign Language: More, Eat, All done, Thank you

People's names: Mommy, Daddy, Popo, Momos, Kate-Kate, Blake, Granna, Abby, Luke

These are all the words she says on her own. She will repeat just about anything and everything you say. Watch out!!

Ellery's walk is starting to turn into a run on occasion. She loves to be outside, go to school and sleep. She is still sleeping 12 hours a night (7:30pm-7:30am) but we are now napping only once a day. This is the schedule school has so we have adopted it as well. It is generally a 1.5-2.5 hour nap.

Ellery loves to tickle us and will even lay on the floor and attempt to tickle herself. She is suck a little joker!

She has 12 teeth now and I keep thinking I am seeing more, but I think it is just my imagination.

We took a break from "trying" to use the potty, but we still sit on it each night before her bath. We will be sitting in a class in a few months to learn how to potty train. This class is offered at Ellery's school so that our teaching techniques mirror what the school teaches. After all, consistancy is key! She is still giving us all of the sighns she is ready to go though!

It's a New Name!!

You may have noticed we have a new name!! Yep! It is true!! Ellery is going to be a big sister!!

11weeks 4days ~ baby is facing left and in a laying position

Christmas Fun

We had a total of five Christmas celebrations. Here are pictures from them all:

What are we up to now?

I have got to write some of these new things down because I'm going to miss the details if I don't....I have know I have not been as good about blogging but it has been very busy in our world! I'm sure things will slow down after the holidays. I hope!!

3 weeks ago...We had our first haircut because our bangs were looking very shaggy and Keith's mom wanted to family pictures the day after Thanksgiving. I do have pics of that and I will post later. I REALLY want her to have a cute little bob haircut but Keith wants her to have long hair....we will see how this will go....

2-3 weeks ago....When Keith gets home from work Ellery is usually just wrapping up her dinner and as soon as she hears the garage door close and the back door open she runs with arms wide open laughing and giggling because she knows her daddy is home. She runs straight into his arms and gives him a huge hug!!!

1-2 weeks ago....we have always had a little chatty Cathy on our hands, but the words are really starting to become VERY clear! The latest word with GREAT emphasis is "no"! She is very opinionated and will let you know very clearly if she doesn't want or want to do something.

A few other very clear words: puppy, green bean, cracker, trash, agua (yes Spanish for water), potty, book, cookie....and several others that I can't think of right now. She is also really using her sign language. The most frequently used is "more". Especially when she wants "more" teddy grahams.

Potty Training

I know, I know.....she is only 14 months old! What am I thinking! Well, I got this wild idea when my mom told me she had me potty trained at 12 months. So I thought, well, she is my child, maybe its genetic! Let's give it a try. So, this all started about 10days ago....my initial thought was, lets just pull the potty out and look at it and get to know it. I showed it to Ellery and she was quite fond of her ability to open and close the lid. Oh and I forgot to mention, she LOVES to "flush" the big potty! Then the next morning when she woke up I decided to let her "sit" on the potty because who doesn't have to go first thing in the morning. And sure enough.....call it good timing if you wish...."plop, plop"! She went pooh-pooh in the potty!!! We celebrated and did our victory dance! But, in the back of my mind I was thinking....that was a pure fluke and I just got lucky!! So, we proceeded each day with sitting on the potty in the morning when we woke and in the evening before her bath. So far, we have now tinkled twice (I'm not thinking this is a fluke any longer) and last night was pure success in my mind!! Keith and I were sitting at the table eating dinner and Ellery was walking around pretending to pull ornaments off of the Christmas tree when all the sudden she began walking towards us and saying something. It took us minute to process, but almost at the exact same time Keith and I looked at each other and said, "she is saying pooh"! So I picked her up and ran upstairs to her potty only to find I was late to deliver her to the potty, but she had indeed told us what she was doing!! I am so proud of her and I no longer think this is a fluke! I think we are on the road to being diaper free.....

Snow in Houston, Texas???

Memories of Faith

As I sit and type this entry and read the title of my blog I am quick to realize it should be ....and baby makes four! Our first child was and always will be our sweet angel Faith. Faith has been around for almost 10 years and has been right beside us through so many seasons of our lives! She has given us so much love and many great memories and for that we are so grateful! We will always hold a special place in our hearts for our sweet angel, Faith!

Faith, you are forever loved and will never be forgotten!!

1/4/2000 ~ 11/18/2009

If you have FAITH nothing shall be impossible for you.

Matthew 17:20

Memories of Faith....
- She was always game for snuggling up for a nap
- Her job was ti guard our house. She wasn't very big but she was loud and heard everything that wasn't normal. Without fail, if she barked it was for good reason and you better check to see what she was hearing. i.e. she let us know when out house was being egged at 2am, she let us know when my mom's car was being broken into at 4am.
- She loved to eat scraps! Because of this I am a very messy cook and do not think twice when things fall on the floor because I always knew Faith would clean it up for me. We also said she and Ellery were in cahoots because Elle would throw food on the floor and Faith would get a little snack!
- she loved to lay in the sunshine. If there was a small speck of sunshine coming in through the window she would find the exact spot on the floor and lay in it.
- she loved to "go". If we were packing up, she was so nervous at the thought that she may get left behind (which never happened). We would pull out her back pack to let her know she was coming too and all was good as soon as she was loaded up in the car with us.
- She loved the beach! She has been going with us since she was a puppy and she loved to chase the waves in and out.
- She was a "Millennium Girl"!

First Day of School

We have moved Ellery to a new childcare setting. She is now officially a school girl!! Today she started MDUMC Day school. She will go 4-5 days a week! Here are a few shots of the first day before we took our little scholar off to class!

Happy Halloween

Whew! What a busy day! We had two birthday parties back to back, rushed home for a little nap and then off to the neighborhood Halloween festivities! Our neighborhood has a parade for the kids. They dress up in their Halloween costumes and walk in a parade following the neighborhood fire truck, only this year it was sans the fire truck...they were on a call! The parade only goes around one block and then ends at someones house where you can buy Chick-fil-a and hang with neighbors and the Chick-fil-a cow! A few friends joined us to enjoy the festivities and then we took the kids to a few neighbors houses for good ol' fashion trick-or-treating!

Katelyn (2 yrs old) was a PRO! By the 3rd house she was knocking on the door on her own and saying "trick-or-treating"!! So cute! Ellery watched Katelyn intently (I have a feeling this will not be the last time we learn from Katelyn!! :)) and after a few houses she would walk to the door and hold up her pumpkin! I was a proud mommy!!

It was a successful night of trick-or-treating, we had a blast and we had a few tired little pumpkins after it was all over!

Happy Anniversary Mom & Dad

Keith and I celebrated 6 years of marriage and 10 years of being together today! Can you believe it has been an entire decade that we have know each other!! Wow!! Keith, I love you more today than I did 10 years ago and I know I will be saying the same thing 10 years from now because I married my best friend and the best guy a girl could ever ask for!

We celebrated at home this year....grilled steaks and sat on the back patio and reminisced of the last 10 years, but particularly the last year!

Today is our actual wedding anniversary so we went to lunch on the patio at Taco Milagro since it is such a nice day and then Ellery and I went with Keith to hit golf balls. We didn't actually hit any, we just watched daddy! I love this picture!! If only I could get rid of the industrial buildings in the back ground and replace them with mountains or the ocean!

The Pumpkin Patch

We visited the big pumpkin patch in Brookshire...wow! What an incredible place!! There was so much to do and even though there was a lot to go for big kids, we will found quite a bit of entertainment for Ellery! She loved trying to pick up the big pumpkins unsuccessfully!

Invitation

If you are visiting our blog you probably recently received and email from me inviting you to do so. I decided to make my blog private....honestly, I didn't realize it wasn't, because I had a few recent visits from people I do not know. Although there was no harm in this so far....it kind of creeped me out knowing there were people interested in my world that do not know me. Maybe this is what celebrity's feel like (no - I'm not proclaiming to be a celebrity :)) So....all this being said....welcome back to The Bilski Family and thank you for sharing in the memories we are making!

Birthday Bash

12 month Doctor Visit Update

We saw the doctor today and it was a bit tramatic! Ellery got 4 different shots - two in each leg. She has been fine since we left, but it was pretty dramatic at the moment. Dr. T is preased with her progress. He told us he can see her molars starting to surface...wow!! I had no idea those come in this early! We have to go back in 1 month for a few more shots, but then we are done until she is 18 months! Here are the stats:

length: 30 1/2 inches ~ 90%

weight: 21lbs 2 oz ~ 50%

head: 18 1/4 inches ~75%

The resinating comment was "Good Luck with Feeding"! Great!!!

It's the Birthday Girl!!

I cannot believe a year has already gone by! I think Ellery knew it was her birthday because she woke up full of energy 45 minutes earlier than normal. This is a girl who needs her beauty sleep! I baked a cake fore her (even though she will get another one on Saturday at her b-day party) and we let her dive in to it all on her own. She was very unsure and didn't care for the the icing, but finally gave the cake a taste.

Aunt Kessa...this one is for you :)

Where are we today:


- Finally took her first steps on 09.09.09
- says SO many words in her own language of course, but we can figure out most - Daddy, yogurt, yes, go, bye-bye, agua (yes, she is bi-ligual), baby, boom, boo, banana, bottle, mama, yeah, please, cheese
- makes animal sounds: - ruff-ruff, moo, roar
- points at things when you ask her where they are
- started resisting bed-time because she doesn't want to stop playing
- moved up to a big girl car seat and now faces the front instead of the rear
- feet are finally starting to grow!! wears a size 3 shoe now...barely!
- stands without holding on for long periods of time
- has 7 teeth now
- eats like a champ: still a combination of finger foods and pureed foods
- tries to blow out candles
- Keith and I went out of town without her for the first time...6 days!!!
- is fully weaned from nursing and doing GREAT (well at least the first day, today, went great)!
- if finally starting to slow down enough to look at books.
- still takes two LONG naps each day
- still sleeps from 7:30pm to 7:30am
- climbs the stairs ...FAST!!
- favorite game is "BOO"! She will hid behind anything (or even nothing) and pop up and say "BOO!"

- Rocks her baby back and forth and pats her on the back

- tells you "sshhh" when her baby is sleeping

- started brushing her teeth

First Steps

It was a BIG day in our world tonight!!! Ellery took her first steps!! I think my level of excitement might have scared her, but she took one step and then two several times!! 09-09-09 will go down in the baby book as a very BIG day!!

Check Out My Little MovieStar

She insisted on wearing the hairband that I use to pull my hair back out of my face when I wash my face and then wanted to add my sunglasses. What a combo!!

All Done!

This was at breakfast this morning. What a fun way to start the morning!

Happy Birthday Katelyn

Our cousin Katelyn had her 2nd b-day party at The Children's Museum of Houston. OH HOW FUN!! If you are in the H-town area and haven't been...you must go!! There was an area for tots under 2 which is where Elle has SO much fun!! Ellery's favs were the car that actually had a gas pedal and and a horn, a tunnel that she crawled through and a gigantic light-bright! Oh and by the way...Ellery is 11 months old today!!!

From Left to Right: Joe "Popo", Hailey, Carolyn "Momos", Ellery, Katelyn (b-day girl) and Blake

Happy Birthday Grandma

We went to SA this weekend to see my mom and celebrate her b-day! Her actual b-day is the 20th! It was a fun trip! Ellery slept for about 1/2 of the 3 hour drive and then we sang songs the rest of the way. She LOVE her music!

When we first got there we stopped at Luby's where my Aunt Cissy and my Great Grandmother, "Grannie" were having lunch. This is Ellery's GREAT-GREAT grandmother!! WOW! (PS...I knew my great-great grandmother too :)).

We played and shopped for stuff we needed for Elle's big b-day party. Then we took my mom, "grandma", to dinner for her be-day to a place called Zio's.

What a fun trip!!