Ellie and The ABC's

Ellie has been able to do the ABC's for a little while now, however, she kept leaving out TUV. Finally, the other night, the stars aligned.

She was singing the ABC's, I had a video camera, and she was getting all the letters in.

So we thought we would share.

Why I Love My Job - Reason #1

I have decided to start a new series of posts in the blog, titled, "Why I Love My Job". I have been thinking alot lately about the economy and the unemployment rate, and the fact that it is estimated that it is only going to get worse before it gets any better. Right now the average unemployment rate for the US is 6.6%, and they estimate that we will be at 8.8% by the end of 2009. Some states are in a far worse off condition, Michigan's unemployment rate is up around 10%.

It seems lately that I have heard about a lot of people / companies that are requiring their employees to cut back their hours, go on furlough, take salary reductions, or are just laying off over 75% of their workers. This is tough on any household, and in turn is drastically effecting the rest of the economy. Without jobs, people can't afford their mortgages, and they don't put money back into the economy.

I thought it might be nice to offer a little reminder not only to myself, but to all of you that we should be thankful for what we have. Don't get me wrong - I know that I complain about my job, just as many of you do. I am trying to change my way of thinking, and take advantage of what I have.

So, the #1 Reason that I Love My Job, is that I have one. I am thankful everyday that I have a secure job, and that my (2) bosses take a lot of effort in forcasting our future work load, and trying to fill our desks with projects not only today, but 6 months from now. They track projects from extremely early on, while they are still in a very preliminary concept phase, and start manuevering to try and get our company involved. Months later, this could turn into project for one of us to work on. No one in my company (granted we are a small firm) has been asked to reduce hours, take mandatory days off, no one has been laid off, or taken a salary reduction. We have been asked not to work overtime. So at this point, I think we are in a pretty good position to ride out this turbulant time.

To The Park!

Ellie loves playing at the park. We took her to a new playground in a subdivision behind ours over the weekend. She had a great time. She also learned that boys are dirty, and that they spit. Prior to our arrival, there was a group of middle school aged boys there, drinking soda, and spitting on anything that would stand still. Pretty gross.

Gavin's Big Day!

Over the weekend, Ellie went to her best bud's 2nd Birthday Party. She had a great time playing with all the kids. Now, if we could keep her from opening other people's presents - we would be good to go. Here are a few pictures from the Birthday party.

Gavin and his ladies...

Big Girl Panties....

We thought we would give the big girl panties (if you can really call cotton granny panties with Elmo on them "Big Girl Panties") a try over the weekend. Ellie has been doing incredibly well with going to the bathroom several times a day on the potty.

The reign of big girl panties ended shortly before noon when all 3 pairs were wet.

Maybe next time.

In case you were wondering, Yes, it is mandatory to wear pink crocs with no pants when trying out Big Girl Panties.

Hat #2

Apparently, I have way too much time on my hands. After I made a hat for baby D, I decided that I was going to make a few more hats for all the upcoming babies. I also wanted to make a hat for Ellie's friend Rocki for her birthday. So I took the pattern that I used for Baby D's hat, and made it larger. Now, if you remember from an earlier post, Rocki has beautiful thick curly red hair. Rocki's Mom was complaining that you can't get a hat to fit her right when she is wearing ponytails. So I solved that issue, and made a hole in the back that will allow for a pony tail to fit through. Here is Ellie modeling Rocki's new hat.

Ellie and the Zoo

Here are a few pictures of Ellie at the Zoo. She has been asking to go for a couple of weeks now. The weather was nice enough on Saturday, so we all headed off to the zoo.

Ellie and Gavin

Here are a couple of pictures of Ellie and Gavin in their pj's....

The two of them are so cute together - they are starting to talk to each other (more like ordering each other around) which is just amazing to me...

Baby D

Some friends of ours recently had a baby. She is absolutly adorable.
It is hard to adjust seeing such a little one again.

I made Baby D a hat as part of the shower gift - so I thought I would post a few pics of Baby D modeling her new hat...