a sweet, monthly update of our third daughter, elliot.

let this be known as the month elli found her voice. her ridiculously loud, you will hear me now voice.

let this also be known as the month of - i will no longer be a wallflower / i don't have time for my car seat...think again if you think you're going to put me in there for another trip to boise.

it's been the absolute best month of elli...and the hardest. mark that down. but really quickly...

need to get caught up? you can find elli's birth story here.


there are lots of notable goodies in elli's eighth month...but one of the hardest was her first ear infection. wow, wow, and wow. it took the farmer and i two solid nights of no sleep to finally land on the fact that our sweet girl needed to see the doctor where it was confirmed - first ear infection. after two doses of antibiotics she kicked her fever, did some solid sleeping, and kiiind of returned to her sweet self. the rest of the sweetness came progressively over the next few days as she was feeling better and better.

on a much more cute note, elli-muffin has also started waving! she waves when our farmer leaves in the morning. she waves to her sisters when she's laying down for a nap. she waves to me when i'm trying to sneak out of the room...so i guess i'm not that sneaky.

towards the beginning of the month she also started saying da-da...all the time. constantly, but especially when she saw her farmer. it's the sweetest and she really does have the sweetest little voice. more recently she's started saying ma-ma. in the beginning she would only yell it from her crib. like, "hey lady! all alone in here. clearly awake! hungry!!"

but as of late she'll say it when she sees me and it melts my heart.

i guess next on her list is to come up with pet names for her sisters. we'll see what she lands on, because i don't think she's going to be able to say sawyer for awhile. sawyer can barely say sawyer.

speaking of sawyer - elli continues to think she's the funniest sister in the world. she saves her biggest laughs for sawyer. but, she also 100% does not like it when sawyer tries to carry her. and neither do i considering elli is practically sawyer's size. (kidding...kind of.) sawyer loves being a big sister and has figuratively grown so much for the past nine months. she's surprisingly patient with elli...considering she has zero patience for anyone else in the family. but really...i don't care. as long as they are always the very best of friends.

kaye is still my helper. she (and her sister) left me for five days to stay with nana and grandpa last week and life definitely got a little harder...in certain ways. all of a sudden i was elli's sole provider of entertainment...which is normally a kaye job or a group effort. there was no more - kaye! can you grab me a (insert one of the 20 things she grabs me in a day). and all of a sudden i couldn't jump in the shower super fast. (which seems to be my act as of late. i'll have all the girls come into our bedroom, remind them of the rules of not picking elli up, and take my three minute shower.) on a positive note...i hear leg hair is in this summer. i joke. but...i can only do this because kaye is a little mom. she's a natural (definitely more natural than i ever was) and has the most loving / caring nature. i think she gets it from her farmer.

elli has grown in all the ways and picked up some super fun tricks (not fun) : biting while nursing / standing in her crib when she's supposed to be napping / speed crawling / and eating...loves to eat. will eat all the things. #getinmybelly #getsitfromhermama

buuuuut...because girlfriend has taken up speed crawling (much more aggressively than her sisters ever did) i don't think she's going to be an early walker...like her sisters. we'll keep you posted on that front.


ELLIOT | 9 MONTHS

 nicknames | boobies is morphing into bubbies, sweet girl

 size | our gal's head is still big. her belli is big. i think her feet grew three sizes. she's poking holes in the toes of her 6-12 month jammies...but this could also be because she's the fourth girl to wear them (kaye / sawyer / cousin reese...and now her). she's just over twenty pounds and when comparing her on our wall where we mark the girl's heights...elli is a solid inch and a half taller than what sawyer was at this age...and just slightly shorter than kaye.

milestones | still rocking the two teeth, crawling all over the place, saying mama and dada, and power squatting. she'll get into a bear crawl position and then go into a deep squat. it's like she wants to stand up, but then she just goes back to crawl.

sleep | our gal is so good to us. she takes an hour and a half nap at 8:30 am and two hours after she wakes up will go down for nap number two. bedtime lands somewhere between 5:30 and 6:30 pm and then we start it all over.

 eats | eat all the things as quickly as possible is elli's life goal.

her favorite food is definitely pesto shredded chicken with sweet potatoes and goat cheese - she has an extremely developed palette. i joke. i'm fairly certain she puts away more calories than either of her sisters in a day.

she loves oatmeal with cinnamon / avocado blended with anything / blueberries / grapes / steak (yes...she eats steak don't ask me how) / strawberries (but they have to be whole so she can gnaw them down) / turkey / egg scramble...favorite breakfast by far.

we're still working on learning how to drink water from a sippy cup. she mostly just let's it dribble into her mouth, then she spits it out.

loves | this month elli loves cruising around the house to where ever her sister's have set up "shop" so she can destroy...muahahahaha! we've also started going for little four-wheeler rides around the farm which make her suuuuuper sleepy and cuddly.

dislikes | aside from her usual disdain for hunger and sleepiness, it's become very clear she also does not like when her sisters aren't around...most notably in the car. elli does not like her car seat. she's over it. she'll tolerate outings when her sisters are there to entertain her, but i think it's time to upgrade the seat...and maybe she'll chill out again? i hope?

also notable - will not sit still for pictures / hates camera in her face (please reference images at the bottom of today's post)
elli girl - thank you for being so easy-breezy those first seven months. thank you even more for starting to show your personality. it's clear, like your sisters, you're not going to be a wallflower. you're going to have all the opinions and i have no worry you won't be heard. your voice is loud. like...really loud.

 one quick thing - please stop screaming. your sisters weren't screamers. why are you a screamer? we don't scream in this family...so stop. but seriously, stop. it's a huge pet peeve of mine. screaming will get you a one way ticket to...to somewhere. (empty threat.)

 let's keep working on your walking this month. i don't want your sisters to hang that over your head. but if they do, you can say that you had more hair and also talked earlier. keep those in your back pocket.

 we adore you, sweet girl. three more months until one!

sawyer at one month / kaye at one month