We found out that Miss Ellie is going to have a baby SISTER! Cory was a little bummed, but only at first, every Dad wants a son ... but he's perfectly happy knowing she's healthy and has warmed up just fine to the idea of another girl! He figures Ellie is pretty cool, so this one will add to the fun! Now we begin the naming process! Oh boy! This is proving to be a lot more difficult that I thought it would be ... and a WHOLE LOT more difficult than naming Ellie. So far we have nothing. More posts on this to come, I'm sure!
Ellie's birthday party was a success. We had it the day after her actual birthday in our backyard. Luckily the weather held out for us and while it was a little breezy, it stayed mostly sunny/warm and the rain took a nice pause for us!! Ellie had a blast! Her best friend, Maddy, came as did Ellie's Cousin Lily! The girls had a great time playing together and it was absolutely adorable to watch! The Dora cake was delish and Ellie was spoiled with tons of wonderful gifts from all her friends and family! We are so blessed to have such a great network of people around us!
As I think I mentioned in an earlier post, Ellie has been in swim lessons since the first-ish of February! Last night was her last lesson for the summer (we'll start her back up in September) and she's done absolutely amazing in my opinion! Last ight was family Night so Cory and I both got to swim with her! After class teacher Lori handed out little awards and ribbons for the kids doing such great jobs! As we were leaving and Ellie was handed hers, the teacher pulled us aside ... (Before I get too into my story, I want to share what teacher Lori wrote at the bottom of the award in the "comments" section. "Excellent! Way to swim to TURTLE in the summer.") Lori asked when Ellie's birthday was. I told her she JUST turned 2 on Friday. At the time of writing out the award, she wasn't sure if E was going to be 3 in the fall/winter, but if that WAS the case, she wanted to move E up from parent/child classes to the 3y/o classes this summer because "she's a very advanced swimmer" !!! Since E JUST turned 2 she said she KNOWS she can get her approved for TURTLE (3y/o class) this fall/winter at 2 1/2! She had the TURTLE teacher (Tyler) sitting in on family swim and had E show him how she swims from the bottom of the pool to the surface for air and yells for "HELP!" (They teach them this in case they were to fall in the pool ... so we can hear her and save her). She's the only one in her class who does it and most of the other kids have been swimming since 6-12 months old, except for one new boy this session. E's only been swimming for barely 4m! Can you believe it?!!? I was (am) SO proud! I was glowing all night!!!!! I'm terrified of any water other than bath/shower or pools and am NOT a good swimmer ... at all. So to have her be SO into it and doing SO well is absolutely amazing to me! Cory LOVES the water, he grew up on a lake near Seattle so he's part fish and is ALWAYS begging me to swim and scuba dive with him and I do it but with a floaty and panic attack in tow. LMAO! First thing he said last night was, "Well ... I guess I found my new dive buddy!" SOOOO EXCITED! Anyway, we'll go back to Teacher Lori in Sept. for a session or two and then see what she wants to do with Ellie! She said she doesn't want to keep her at "age level" because of how well she's doing after only 3 sessions! =D We've also decided that we're going to start Baby #2 at 6m (when they first start excepting them) ... so in March/April-ish! =)
