Official 2 year stats!

Nate had his 2 year appointment today. He's 36.25 in tall (90th percentile) and 30.5lbs (80th percentile). His head measurement is finally in the 55th percentile (he's been in the 25th for a while...)- he's a normal, perfect healthy boy! If anyone has any tips on how we can get him to brush his teeth (or actually LIKE to brush his teeth) we're all ears!!!

Stayed tuned for more holiday pictures!


On a sad note, Mike's Grandma (GG) passed away last night/early this morning after a long tough battle with cardiac complications. She's a fighter, and has left a wonderful legacy through her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. I feel privileged that Nate got to meet his great grandmother. May she rest in peace.

Ellis Christmas 2008

Hi All-

We had our Ellis side family Christmas this past weekend. Uncle Brandon and Aunt Nadege and Simone came into town (Lancaster) to be with family for this week. Mike, Nate and I traveled down there this weekend to visit. We had a lot of fun and it was great to get to meet our neice! :)

Us...Christmas 2008


Cute picture of Nate - 2008

(Our Christmas tree at home)

(Simone- isn't she a cutie pie?)

Simone 2008

(Nate-Christmas last year - 2007- notice the family resemblence? heehee)

This link will take you to more pictures from this weekend! Enjoy!

Ellis Christmas 2008

Happy 2nd Birthday Nate!

I can't believe it....Nate is 2 years old. How quickly time seems to fly. I wanted to write something sappy and really heartfelt on here, but I don't think I have the energy at the moment. I don't have any pictures from Thanksgiving for the majority of us were feeling under the weather, including Nate. I'm still feeling under the weather with a cold. I've had worse, but I'm feeling pretty run down at the moment with not getting a lot of sleep in the past week with Nate's coughing fits in the middle of the night. So needless to say I can't think of anything poetic to write regarding the passage of time etc....All I can say is that we've come so far! Nate knows his numbers 1-10, can sing variations of the alphabet, he knows his basic colors (red, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, orange, brown, black and white- we're working on gold and silver) he knows signs for just as many words. He's also been known to spit out 5-7 word sentences already. He can cheer with the best of us for Penn State Football- and knows Penn State by just looking at the symbol! He loves cars and trucks and animals. I'll have "offical" stats after his 2 year apt- which is in like 2 weeks. He loves to terrorize the cat and hates to brush his teeth. He loves the movie Cars and would watch that 24/7 if we let him. He'll use the potty about 50% of the time- he really one asks to go if you ask him if he has to go....so I'm not sure he gets the "urge" yet, but he's learning- on his own I might add. He can put his coat on by himself, and undress himself out of his PJ's quite well. He knows that milk comes from cows, and that the sun went night night when its dark outside.
Ok, enough of my ramblings, here are some much anticipated pictures! Enjoy!


Nate hates posing for pictures, can you tell? Not the most photogenic face ever....hehe...

Some close ups of the cake that I made

The "you caught me before I was going to make a dumb face for the camera" pose.....

Friends from York who made the trek over to help celebrate Nate's birthday- Thank you Ben and Jess! We miss you!

Little Cody, eyeing the festivities...

Nate checking Cody out... more friends from York who came to celebrate!

There we go, we do get a few good pictures every once in a while of Nate...

Nate ripping into presents...it was so much fun this year! Its the first year he actually "gets" it!

Daddy, Lauren, Matt and Amanda in the back ground- enjoying Nate's path of destruction!

Nate playing with his Fisher Price garage (I got this at a consignment sale for $5- not bad eh?)

Mommy coming with the cake....

Nate checking it out- he hadn't noticed it all day....

Nate attempting to blow the candles out, Mom helped him a little bit....

Nate eating his cake and icecream, with a spoon no less! He was more keen about the icecream than the cake....

Such a civilized boy!

Granddad and Nate watching the fire....

Related much? heehee.....

Happy Thanksgiving!

Before I get to Thanksgiving, I realize that I haven't posted anything since Halloween! Ugh- how time flies! Here are a few pictures from the last couple of weeks with friends! As you all know, Nate will be 2 on Sunday- I can't believe it.... I'll post pictures afterwards! Tomorrow- Black Friday shopping! WHAHOO!

Enjoy! Two weekends ago, The Brown's visited us from Pittsburg! Malcolm is a couple months younger than Nate... I'm surprised Max stayed around the two little humans..... :)

Malcolm loved the slide!

Its too early for pictures-on our way to Church!

Nate's cute Nittany Lion hat! GO PENN STATE!

Nate and Wil!

Play date with the twins! Mr. Steve is playing "Ring around the Rosie"!

Nate, Wi and Fi playing hide-n-seek in the kitchen!

What big shoes to fill!! (Will is trying on Mike's shoes, and Fiona (below) was trying on my shoes!

We had a blast! We look forward to more play dates.... I think we're going to try bowling at some point!

Nate being creative with kitchen utinsils (splatter screens....)....

(We also used them as badmitten rackets....heehee.... that was mom's idea!)

Happy Halloween and Happy Fall and all that jazz....

Here are some pictures from Halloween- Nate wore his Tigger costume to school and then he also wore it in the evening to go trick or treating with mom, dad and the Ohlson's! Chrissy came over for an hour before she headed to her Halloween party to hand out candy at our place so that we could both go with Nate. Not many of the neighbors participated in the trick or treating, but it was just the right number for Nate to have his first experience. It took him about 4 houses to really "get" it...and by the end he was saying "trick or treat- CANDY!" :) Enjoy the pictures!


Here is Nate wearing his costume in the morning for school!


Ok- test your knowledge- which one is Nate and which one is John?

This one was not planned- both Nate and John were Tigger- why am I not surprised????

Just for the heck of it, I wanted to throw in here a picture from last year of Nate and John at Halloween!

(Halloween 2007)

Here is the boys' favorite teacher- Miss Jessica- this was their last day with her as both Nate and John will be moving up to the next classroom....

We were afraid that it might be cold, so we put tigger in a jacket! :)
Nate was carrying Mike's trick or treat bag that he had as a child....


The first house we went to! Nate was just not really sure of what to think....



Mom was playing with the camera and lighted pumpkins!


Mel letting Nate pick out a goodie....

Alayna, Kirsten and Nate!


Nate was patiently waiting for Daddy to pick out a treat for him...

mmmm, chocolate....Nate took about 20 min to savor the treat..heehee....

Kirsten as the White Rabbit! :)

Here are a few other pictures from the last week.....

Nate with the Halloween treat bowl on his head.....

Nate-Houdini- once again getting out of his shirt after nap....actually- see- the neck of the shirt is around his waist...heh

He is so proud of himself....

Dad- no more pictures!

And finally, here are a bunch of pictures from the Way Fruit Farm Fall Festival