ragamuffin

Ellie has turned into quite a mess these days. Her hair is wild and is in a constant bed head state. She chews on keys, paper, Chris' socks.. anything she can get her hands on. I swear she is picking up bad habits from Bauer. She is becomming super independent and wants to constantly be on the move and exploring-- unfortunately, she discovered our steps this week. Since I can't see the TV from the steps, I don't like this. Time to invest in baby gates, which are going to be a probelm, because I can NEVER open them. My 2 year old niece has to let me in and out of her gate.
This week we met a few of our besties at The Custard Station. Ellie loved her first swirl sugar. So, you would think since she is such a mess, she wouldn't care about getting down and dirty.. girl HATES the grass. She flamingo stands the entire time you set her down on it. Why so sensitive? I think she gets it from Chris, he is a texture person. Doesn't like lotion or chapstick because of the texture. So weird.

We missed the gang while they were living it up at "Brendan's house" in Destin. They were cracking me up. Ryan was talking nonstop to me & "baby Ellie" but when Brendan pulled up, she goes "gotta go, my best friend is here". This makes Ellie yearn for cousins. I gave my SIL a year. tops. But then we were going to start harassing.

Molly-Pants just started walking and man alive is she tall. Lilly was kicking a*s and taking names. We all decided that we hope the girls all go to school together, so Lilly can protect them from bullies. The girl has no fear and if there wasn't a fence there, she would have been on the tracks flagging down the conductor for a ride.

Seriously though, these kids are like the bullies in the lunchroom. Ellie was scared, I mean, I was scared. Look at them. Ellie stayed a safe distance from these fellow raggamuffins.

Bad picture, but I was watching TV last night (shocking) when Ellie left my eyesight. I was waiting for a commercial to check what was going on when I heard a bang. I went in and found this.. Ellie was playing w/ my message board when it tumbled on top of her. When I walked in, all I could see was a hand poking out and the message board shaking. She was cracking up. When she heard me walk in, she scrambled out and made a beeline for the door.

Ellie has finally discovered that she can move in the bathtub. At first she was scared still and wouldn't move a muscle in the tub. I liked this time. She quietly played with her toys and didn't make a peep while I washed her hair. Things change. She has attempted to bring her favorite game of chase to the tub and I leave the bathroom soaking wet. She crawls, stands, lays down, and climbs up the sides. Last night she was left with a little bump from her new favorite games

And a picture, just because it is cute. Aunt Cece was in town for her friends wedding (a post all in itself, even though I wasn't there.. coattails, much?). We decided to break out our new double B.O.B- don't get any ideas, Chris felt it was more economical of a purchase rather than a single- and hit up Forest Park. Court ran 12 miles (preparing for October's Chicago Marathon where she is raising money for Pancreatic Cancer) and my dad, Ellie and I walked one loop of the park. They kidnapped me at 6am. Ellie loved being pushed by her super human grandpa (Just had a port placed & his first chemo session the day before) and shared her goldfish with the horses that we met along the way. My dad used to run FP every Saturday AM with his running club, but hasn't been able to run since April. The running club still meets and Court ran with them..  but my dad introduced Ellie to all the regulars in the park! Hopefully Grandpa will be running with them again in a couple of weeks. After our long walk, we hit up the Zoo for the first time this summer. Courtney just wanted to see the Elephants, and then she was done. I told her that if we ever took her to Disney World with us, she could not flake out. We were at the Zoo for 45 minutes and she was over all the kids there.

Oh and the walk/run gave Ellie a chance to break in her Nikes that my dad's running club gave her. One of the guys even checked the tread on her shoes to see how many miles they had in em!