Bubbles!

This is the view I have most of the day so I thought I would just share that with you :) Ella LOVES to be held right now. I don't mind holding her but I'd really like her to be able to play on her own also. And she wants to be held at the most inconvenient times of course, like when I'm trying to make dinner! :)

I don't have a lot to post about really, just thought I'd put up a few pictures from the past week. I love the expression on Ella's face in this picture.

We're both actually looking at the camera!

I found her sunglasses in her diaper bag this week and now she likes to wear them a lot. Its so cute!

I'm going to give a video another try. I've posted several recently that look like they are fine but then when you try to view them on my blog, they are not able to be viewed. I've noticed this on some other blogs also so it must be an issue with blogger. I really hope this video works, it's so funny! I'm trying to get Ella to play with bubbles but she's just not having it. She hates getting her hands messy!

30 years of memories

Today I turn the big 3-0. Yep....the birthday I've been dreading for the past several years is finally HERE. But, thanks to a wonderful husband, great sisters and great friends, it's really been a great day so far! And...I started praying about a week ago that I'd have a good attitude today and I think that has helped a lot! So, I was trying to decide what 30 things to post for my 30th birthday. I decided to post 30 memories. I tried to mainly list happy memories but there are a few not so happy ones in there! These were just off the top of my head-there are so many more that I could list that I just didn't put on there. And I noticed that most of the ones that popped into my head were recent ones, so I tried to go back a little too. Ok, enough! I'll just list them now! :) oh, one more thing-these are in no particular order.
30 memories I have from the past 30 years
1. My first date with Rusty
2. Rusty proposing
3. My wedding day
4. The first 6 months of living in Indy-cried pretty much every day!
5. Rusty's horrible sunburn on our honeymoon
6. The day I found out that I had to have surgery if I ever wanted to get pregnant
7. The moment I found out I was pregnant
8. Laura's taking me to the hospital-and her reaction when I told her I was being admitted
9. The moment Ella was born
10. The first time Ella smiled at me
11. Going to Europe with Rusty on the best vacation ever!
12. Realizing God's perfect plan when I got hired at my current job a week after being fired from a job I hated.
13. Watching Pride & Prejudice with my sisters all night (hellooo Mr. Darcy)
14. Camping with my grandparents in their pop-up camper
15. Totalling Rusty's car in college
16. Meeting Lissa in IT class in middle school
17. Going to England after sr. year of HS
18. Shopping for my wedding dress
19. Marching Band
20. Sarah telling us she was engaged
21. Grocery shopping with Rachel (when we found the graham cracker crust)
22. Getting "outback full" with Rusty
23. the "cockroach incident" with Lissa
24. Doing summer CEF with Michelle and Amanda
25. My marsh memories...too many to name!
26. When my friends threw me a surprise party when I moved from Lafayette to Indy
27. Driving in a blizzard from Lafayette to Indy for Christmas the first year Rusty and I were married
28. When it took me 5 hours to get home from work (normally a 45 min drive) because of all the snow
29. Saying goodbye to Anya
30. Signing papers when we bought our house

Through the ups and downs, of one thing I'm certain-God's grace is abundent and sufficient! I'm truly blessed!

Our day at the museum

Since winter seems to be dragging on forEVER, we've (I've) been trying to come up with things to do to get us out of the house. I was always one of those people who said I'd never use the TV as a babysitter or let my kids really watch TV. Hmm. Well that all changed about 2 months ago. I'd exhaust all my creative and fun ideas of how to entertain Ella by about 10am. So now our routine has turned into-Ella up at 6am...I try to stretch it to at least 6:15 but by that time she's usually screaming...we head downstairs to get her milk and on comes the TV. I've memorized the line up. I wake up with the Handy Manny (or Imagination Movers) theme song in my head. Normally the TV is on until about 8 and then we head upstairs to play. I try to keep the TV off until about 2 or 3 when she gets up from her nap and I let her watch 1 On Demand show. Then by dinner time the TV comes back on so that I can get dinner started. Ella is just not a great self-entertainer. I try to just let her have alone play time but she usually doesn't go for it...so that means I'm trying to entertain her for about 11 waking hours. That's a lot! I totally run out of things to do with her so I'm sad to say the TV is on more than I'd like. This winter has made me want to seriously consider moving somewhere tropic. Between Ella being sick for all but about a week of winter, it being too frigid to leave the house, and having all my friend's kids be sick too, we've been going a little stir crazy! It's weird, but sometimes the weekends are worse than week days. Even though Rusty is home, I feel even more stir crazy than usual! I don't have people to get together with on the weekends. Rusty has been out and about all week at work so he wants to just be home and relax, while I'm itching to get out of the house! So Saturday we decided to hit the childrens museum. Ella had been once when she was about 9 months old and wasn't too impressed. I thought she'd like it more this time but wasn't sure what to expect really.

It was a hit! She loved it!!

So the carousel was actually the last thing we did but I uploaded my pics out of order. I think we'll do this first next time. Ella was so wiped by this point that she was pretty out of it the whole time!

As soon as we got to the museum and put Ella down so she could walk, I knew it was a hit. Ella LOVES just being able to run free right now. She's at the point where she rarely falls when she walks and she can run pretty well too. Luckily, it wasn't busy at all when we went so we felt ok letting her walk. We spent the majority of the time in the 5 and under area called Playscape. I was super impressed with it! There were tons of different activity stations but really, Ella would probably have been happy with just one of them! We had to drag her away from each one to show her the next and each time, she was more and more excited.

If you know what Rusty does for a living, you'll guess how proud he was when she did this :) I just had to laugh. Rusty's a civil engineer and is actually one of those people that likes what he does-so, he's pretty into street design and street sign placement and all that. Ella immediately went to this one and started moving the street signs, it was so funny!

Ok-so reverse the order of these next 2 pics! Ella loved the slide :)

Play kitchen-Ella loved feeding the babies and making us tasty treats.

This was just a tumbling area for kids 2 and under. She was a little uncertain of this one at first but ended up really liking it!

So, we'll most definitely be going back to the museum. A lot. We ended up just buying a year pass because I can see us going at least montly if not more.

I found out on Friday of last week that Ella has another ear infection. I was so sad and frustrated. She's basically had an ear infection since November 1st. It would clear up a little for a day or 2, even up to a week, but just would come back. She is on antibiotic but I'm also researching the link between dairy and ear infections. Anyone that has info on that, let me know! That one week that her ear infection cleared up-she was a different child! Days are just so rough with her most of the time because she's in pain! I don't think it's horrible pain but just enough that it makes her aggitated very easily plus it messes with her sleep. We're not ruling out tubes but I'd like to try all alternatives before going that route. I've heard great things about them but I've also heard enough bad stuff that I'd like to keep that as my last resort.

Sorry this was a long and kinda boring post! Summary: I'm so over winter. We watch too much TV. I like to get out of the house. I love the childrens museum. I hate ear infections.

oh ella

I feel like I just posted yesterday but it's been a couple of weeks I think! The past few weeks have just been a blur. I had Lasik done on my eyes almost 2 weeks ago. I'm so glad I did it! So far my vision isn't quite where I want it to be and my eyes get dry through out the day, especially at night. But when it's all said and done, I know my vision and eyes will be where they need to be! I still wake up and reach for my glasses, keep forgetting I don't need them anymore! It's been especially nice in the middle of the night if I need to go comfort Ella. She's been waking up off and on the past few weeks. I'm not sure if it's a bad dream or what. She'll just wake up crying really hard. I'll go in and pick her up and rock her and she goes right back to sleep. Last night she didn't wake up so maybe we've gotten through this phase!

Today was Ella's first class of her new swim "lessons"! She took a swim class at the Y when she was 6 months old but I wanted to get her in a class now that she's older. I really want her to like the water and not be afraid of it. I especially thought now would be a good time since she's started acting afraid at bath time. I had no clue how she would act when we got in the pool. It was pretty much what I had expected. As soon as we got in the pool, she freaked out and started crying. It took her a good 20 minutes before she really seemed to start enjoying the water. But every time we would move to a new activity, it would take a few minutes for her to not be scared. I really want to raise her to be someone who enjoys trying new things! But, there's only so much I can do I guess. One thing that I decided to hold off on was putting her under water. I didn't realize that would be part of this class. I think it caught all the moms off guard! The instructor just brought a hoola-hoop out and said we'd be ducking them under water to get from outside the ring to inside. I was the only mom who didn't do it. I think maybe next week we'll try it if Ella seems to like the water in general more. I really didn't see the benefits of sticking her head under water when she was already pretty upset. Anyone have any advice about this?

Well here are a few pics of Ella in her new swim suit and new flip flops. She looked so cute!

Here are a few more pics from the past few weeks. This one was taken last Sunday. You can't see the whole outfit but she was sporting her Colts cheerleader dress...sadly, it did not help :(

And...our 2nd attempt at getting her out in the snow went better than the first time. She really liked just walking on the road and kicking the snow. We did try to pull her in her sled but she wanted nothing to do with it!

Well, Ella's napping so I better go be productive. She's pretty much down to 1 nap a day so my "me" time is pretty much gone. I need to take advantage of it while I have it!! Maybe go do a 30 day shred workout?? I really should! I'm trying to lose 10 lbs by my sister's wedding!