Neither of my girls uses a paci. They found them in the toy box and thought they were great. Ellaiden sees her friends with them and every time she finds one she sticks it where it is supposed to go. Soren didn't seem to mind THIS time!

Trouble...in that is

This is how we found them

They each procured a hat and this is how we found them.

Picnic

I found Ellaiden sitting at our dining room table acting like she was eating so I thought she needed to have her own dinner party. Soren was her only friend that could come since it was so late notice (about 5 minutes). We rigged up her seat to join her Sissy and they did some serious dining.

Going to the Pool...

Ellaiden loved sitting in the cold water with Thea Claire. Soren, well....she lasted about long enough to take a couple pictures!

Hats

Goin' to the farm (in the city)

Last week we done went to Boggy Creek Farm, perched nigh up to downtown Austin, smack'em dab in the middle of a bustling city. Heck. We met up with Naomi and her pa' Mark and had ourselves some fun. Chickens, dogs, crops, flowers. And this here farm house, built in 1836.

Alopecia Areata

This is the official diagnosis for Ellaiden. It is a autoimmune disease where your immune system, for unknown reasons, attacks the hair root and causes hair loss. Ellaiden has been losing clumps of hair for the last couple weeks and this is what she has.

They don't know tons about this condition but it doesn't have anything to do with her physical health, just her hair. The doctors don't really know what will happen in the future. The easiest way to sum it up is that she could fall anywhere in the range of no more hair fallling out and what she has lost growing back to all of her hair falling out including eyelashes, eyebrows, etc... and none of it coming back. There is no way to tell where she fits in the range until something (or nothing) happens. Her hair could grow back and never fall out again or a year from now it may all fall out again. Needless to say we are hoping and praying for the former. You know us women, we like our hair!

We have some cream we are supposed to put on the bald patches that might help. We will do this everyday for three weeks on and then one week off and continue the pattern for the next several months. You know Ellaiden is going to love sitting still for that! If you want more info you can go to http://www.naaf.org/

We are planning on taking some family pics and individual ones of E in the next few days just in case. Right now we can still hide her little bare spots. We will try to get pics up soon.

Oh, how does your garden grow?

Here are some pics of our garden from last week. Everything has doubled since then, well except for the weeds and they have tripled.

Shower

Our brother-in-law, Ian, redid our shower for us. Doesn't it look great? All his own design. You too can have a one of a kind shower just call him!

Soren, oh Soren

This pictue pretty much sums it up. Soren is standing and has been standing since BEFORE she turned 7 months. She practices every chance she gets and we are EXTREMELY happy that she has now learned to sit. I'm afraid she may have knocked her brains around as many times as she fell when she first started standing. Needless to say she is crawing like the floor is on fire. I can't keep up with her these days. I leave her alone for a minute and I return to see her sitting in the middle of the fireplace. Yes, she climbed up there. She started climbing about 3 days after she learned to stand. Soren, oh Soren....sigh (i love that little thing). We will get a video up soon.

Duck

Chris and I have been working on giving Ellaiden choices. So, when it was time to pick out what kind of cake for her party I gave her the choice of a butterfly or a fish. These were those flat pans that you just pour the batter in and you are done. I held each of them in front of her and she looked at the butterfly and then looked at the fish and turned around in the stoller and shouted "duck". I asked her three times if she was sure and she was sure. SO, here is the 3-D duck that took me about three hours from start to finish.

Ellaiden's 2nd Birthday

April 11th Ellaiden turned 2! We had a huge party with Eli at our house and Ellaiden had TONS of friends show up. She is seriously loved by everyone :) The weather was perfect and we all had a blast!