2015.

2015 has arrived, and I didn't stay up to watch the ball drop.  We had a little basement campout in Ellie's toy tent, but she had a bad cough, and after watching Finding Nemo, I ended up spending the night patting her on the back while she slept fitfully.  Thankfully, she is back to her normal self today, and we spent some time this morning wandering the National Museum of Natural History.

Checking out a giraffe model at the museum.  It was tall.

While I didn't make any specific resolutions, here's some of what you'll see in 2015:

My first attempt at a project 52: On the Practising Simplicity blog, there's a challenge to take a portrait of your child weekly.  That's a good goal as nailing Ellie down for a good portrait gets harder and she gets faster.  I'm also working to begin taking portraits on a part-time professional basis, and I don't want to stop taking photos of Ellie in the meantime.

I'll be writing more about learning activities with Ellie and hopefully sharing more of her thoughts with you as she becomes increasingly verbal.  She's communicating her ideas more clearly and we are gaining an understanding of how Ellie sees the world.

Of course, you'll still read about our daily lives.  I started this blog when I knew I'd have lots of people to keep informed about Ellie's NICU progress, including the moms I knew online who were also pregnant with babies with Down syndrome.  The blog has also served as a way to keep family and friends  up-to-date on Ellie, and the daily life stuff continues to be the main reason I continue to update this space.

I hope you all have a great start to the year and I can't wait to see what 2015 brings!

In the meanwhile, enjoy Ellie's take on 2015.  She plans to eat Mac and Cheese.

A video posted by Megan Landmeier (@meganlando) on Jan 1, 2015 at 5:38am PST

And a few more shots from today.