Dandelion Season

I call these her "Little House on the Prairie" photos

Ellie loves these lovely yellow 'flowders'

doing her part to make sure there's lots more!

Reunion

Ellie was fascinated with watching one younger than herselfShe especially loved teaching Ian peek-a-boo
...and he loved her glasses

Micah and Els enjoy the slides...

This past weekend was a special time for us to reconnect with old friends.

A couple of years after getting married, Nathan and I decided to join a small group through our church. We had no idea the friendships that would bless our lives as a result. As is the nature of living in a college and seminary town, transition comes and eventually, Nathan and I were the only ones still living in Kentucky. We were glad to stay in touch and get to see each of these couples at different times after they moved away, but we were never able to organize a get together at a time convenient for all.

A few months ago, we realized that one couple from our group was going to be back in KY for a time of commissioning before leaving for missionary service in a place I cannot publish online. After contacting the other two couples, we organized a mini 'reunion' to be hosted here in Wilmore. Times have changed and our numbers had swelled thanks to the addition of some precious children. Who knows how many more of us there may be in 2013! (the projected date of our next reunion). Here are a few picts featuring Ellie with her new friends. She actually cried about 15 minutes after the last ones left this morning! It was the first time she had cried all weekend (other than when brushing her hair)! It meant so much that everyone made the effort to come. Click here to view a slideshow of more photos.

Annual Spring Photos by the Redbud (?)...

...our photo session proved to be a bit of a challenge as Ellie was more interested in stomping her shadow than standing still for her mother. Dad managed to perch her in the tree for a few picts, then she was off! Aunt Ruth, is this a redbud?

We've got a typical kid...

The last couple of days (since Ellie's started feeling like her old self), we've noticed that our daughter has done some things that kids just do. It's pretty cool and a sign that her world is continuing to expand. Here's a few 'for instances':

Yesterday I caught her trying to flush her slinky down the toilet and laughing hysterically.

She has started following Reagan around the house hollering, "Sit! Sit! Sit!" (poor dog!). She's lived with him for 15 months, but seems to just now be realizing that he's something she can interact with. "Shake!" is another one of her commands.

She has discovered the awesome effect of applied writing instruments and Nathan found her walking around Sunday with a capless permanent marker pronouncing it, "Black!" Thankfully she didn't color anything (that we know of yet).


Finally, this last example is related to the previous one. Though Ellie has shown a great interest in coloring and writing lately, we've never seen her do it outside of her safe Crayola tablet (thank you, Nonna!) or on some otherwise provided paper or surface...until Saturday night when I found a reference form for a student's masters of social work application shall we say, thoroughly "endorsed" by Ellie. I had left it on the kitchen table, which apparently isn't a safe place to leave things anymore.

On the topic of writing, I was working at my desk Saturday night while Ellie played with chalk. I heard her say, "A!" and saw her point to her work. Sure enough, she had drawn the two legs of the letter A, minus the horizontal cross stroke. I've only shown her a couple of times how to make the letters in her name, but she never even tried to emulate in front of me during those instances.

One of her therapists told us that a good sign would be when we saw Ellie noticing things in the abstract. Yesterday at lunch, she was eating pretzels and pronounced, "D!". Sure enough, the broken pretzel she held in her hand looked like the letter "D." We thought that was pretty cool.

Okay! I promise photos next time.

sick day

Yesterday Ellie was her happy little self, even sitting in the middle of our prayer circle at our student cabinet meeting last night, folding her hands, and [heedless of the fact that we hadn't even started] announcing, "Amen!" And when we didn't respond to her satisfaction, she said it again, even louder, "AMEN!" We've never heard her say that word before which went to show us what a little sponge we have living with us! She picked it up without even being taught!

This morning she woke up with the corners of her mouth turned down like she wanted to cry. This is unusual since she's the happiest person I've ever met to get out of bed in the morning. Then, she didn't want to eat. That was really unusual. I also noticed she wasn't just warm, she was HOT. We searched the house and couldn't find anything to take her temperature with, but it really wasn't needed to confirm that she was sick. The drs office verified: 102.9 (2 hours after taking Tylenol). Poor little Els was a trooper as her medical friends tried to figure out the source of her discomfort. No idea yet what it is (we go back tomorrow), but she layed on our bed most of the early evening tonight and whimpered ocasionally while watching some Veggie Tales. She eventually perked up and looked at books, but refused to be put in her crib. Dad is currently trying to get her to fall asleep on our bed before moving her. Could be an interesting night!

Happy Sunny Sunday!

Thank you to those who have prayed for Ellie to accept the eye patch! She now gives a brief whimper when it goes on, but otherwise is a real trooper. We've even given one of her old patches to her life-sized Dora (the Explorer) balloon friend. That will be another blog post. :-)

Thought you might enjoy these photos snapped after church today! The weather was glorious!

Ellie W. aka "Patch"

On Tuesday morning we had a visit to the Eye Clinic at the University of Kentucky where Ellie's pediatric ophthalmologist prescribed 2 hours of day of 'eye patching' to help strengthen her left eye. The first two days were 'rip your heart out' crying episodes from Ellie when it came time to apply this big sticker and the longest she wore the patch was 30 minutes. I am pleased to report that today we made it the full 2 hours! YAY!

If you think of Ellie during your prayer time, you can pray that she will learn to tolerate the situation and that it will work to sufficiently stengthen the eye so surgery is not necessary. Today, she cried, whined, and generally fussed the first half an hour. Then finally conceded and went limp with thumb in mouth, laying on my bed for the next 30 or so minutes. At the one hour mark she acted like she had forgotten it was on and we were able to get the image above. We pray tomorrow goes even better!

If she doesn't accept patching though, we will have to resort to dialation drops which would make playing outside in the sunshine very difficult. If either of the two previous methods are unsuccessful at strengthening the eye, surgery will be necessary to ensure she doesn't lose her visual depth of field.