Some videos

Yesterday was a cold snowy day so Ella and I pretty much stayed in and played all day. She's getting so fun to actually play with! I love sitting back and just watch her read a book, do a puzzle or play with her babies. I can tell she is going to have quite the imagination! I was getting bored yesterday so here are a few videos I took. The 2nd one is her saying her body parts, it's quite entertaining. I think the funniest thing is that I was watching the video this morning and Ella could hear the video from across the room. When I would ask her where something was in the video, she would do it from across the room, and then do it on the video. She's so funny!

Christmas and 15 months

I Know, I Know, bad blogger!! I've been so bad about taking pictures too. Ella's in that "I'm too busy playing and having fun to bother with silly pictures" phase. It's great. :)


Today Ella is 15 months old! I haven't been great about documenting her milestones and months. I wrote some stuff in her journal today and realized just how much she is changing and growing. I just kept writing and writing and writing! I hope one day she'll be able to read this journal I'm writing her and enjoy learning about what she was like as a baby. I guess she's officially a toddler now but I still like calling her a baby! Ella is quite a character. She loves to laugh and have fun but she's very particular about what she likes and how she likes it. She gets frustrated easily when things don't go her way. She's very vocal and loves to communicate with us. I made a list today of all the words she can say and I came up with 38 but I'm sure I missed a few. Her most favorite words right now are " no, mama, daddy, no, light (which sounds exactly the same as daddy when she says it), kitty, no, cuppy, baby and thank you". Did I mention the word "no"? Wow does she like to say that. We really try not to tell her "no" a lot but it slips out so easily! She's great at saying thank you, she says it all the time. Just recently she's started saying "please" more and more. We've been working on her saying "yes". Tonight at dinner I was looking in the fridge for what else I could give her. I said "Ella, would you like some grapes?" She got a big smile and said "Yes! Please! thank you mama, thank you!". I am serious, she said that! My sister Rachel was in the kitchen and we both heard it! We were laughing so hard. I think at that moment I would've given her pretty much anything she wanted!



One weird thing about her (I think it's weird) is that she is scared of our bath tub! She still takes a bath in her infant tub! We sit it in our tub and fill it up and then she sits in that. We've tried a few times to just sit her in the tub and she freaks out. Like shrill, neighbors can probably hear it, screaming. She's never had a bad experience with water and even took "swim lessons" at the Y so I'm not sure what's going on. Guess we'll just keep trying and hope she gets over it!



Ok, on to Christmas. We had a different Christmas this year. My sister was in TX with her fiance and my Mom couldn't come at the last minute because she was sick. We had a slight Ham fiasco (the oven is supposed to be ON when you cook a Ham...?) but overall it was a nice day spent with friends and family. Ella still doesn't really get the present thing and mainly really liked looking through the first present she opened-a Little Einstein book-and didn't want to bother with the rest of her presents. But she got lots of fun things and we haven't even had our Christmas with Rusty's side of the family.



Here's a backlog of pictures from the past few weeks...



A few pics from Christmas day. With all the craziness going on, I only took a few pictures.





Christmas morning, excited to open some presents!





Here's Ella with her new gloves from Aunt Sarah and also her new chair from Mommy and Daddy. She was so funny with these gloves. She's never worn gloves before so I put one glove on my hand to show her. Of course it was so small it only went down over my fingers. So when she put the gloves on, she would only put it on her fingers. Monkey see Monkey do!

We opened presents with Aunt Sarah a few days early...

Here's a few pics of Ella in her Christmas dress. Could NOT get her to sit still in front of the tree!

And...a few random pics from the past few weeks. I tried her tutu on last week. It still fits! She loved it, didn't want to take it off!

Trying on Daddy's Colts sweatshirt. Too bad it didn't help them tonight.

Proof that she DOES HAVE HAIR! People seriously stop me at the store and say "Oh don't worry honey, she'll get hair!" Why do people feel they need to stop and tell me that?

Here's a video from today. She was being so silly!

Winner winner chicken dinner

Yep, that is what I am. A WINNER! :) haha...last week I won free tickets on the radio! That's the first time I've really won anything except a raffle at work one time. I won 2 tickets to see Jim Brickman (Rusty and I already went to that show last week-had so much fun!!) and 2 tickets to see Transiberian Orchestra on 12/23. I was so excited!! I felt like it was such a blessing and just little present from God to me, maybe that sounds silly. I've been trying to be better about being thrifty and not buying things we don't need. A couple of years ago Rusty bought me tickets to see Jim Brickman's christmas show as a surprise and I was SO excited. The day of the concert, I woke up feeling a little off. By the time I got home from work, I was so sick and we ended up giving our tickets away since you can't return tickets. I was just so upset-not only was I really looking forward to it and couldn't go, we lost out on that money! So, I felt like I could finally just let that go now that I won free tickets :)

Ella has been so hilarious lately. She's also been very naughty but I won't focus on that right now! This morning I was in the kitchen and Ella was in the living room. It had gotten really quiet so I went into the living room to see what she was up to. this is what she was up to! this is now one of her favorite places-inside her toy box. She also really loves sitting on the couch/chair. Its so funny, as soon as I sit her up on the couch, she just stretches out and puffs up her chest like she just thinks she's hot stuff. I thought about using this picture on our christmas cards this year but I feel like the background is too messy. I've probably got 100 pics of her in front of the tree-none of which she's smiling in and most of them she's not even looking at the camera. SIGH.


Here's a pic of the 3 of us on Thanksgiving. Could not get a good smile out of that girl all day!


The Wednesday before thanksgiving, I put Ella in her first ever nightgown. She was so stinkin cute!! I brought her downstairs to show everyone and she just started prancing around the living room-she knew she was cute!

This is another place she loves to sit lately-her $1.99 goodwill lawn chair :) I brought it inside to clean it off and she discovered it and decided it needed a home in our living room. I'm wanting to buy her a cute arm chair for Christmas so hopefully that will replace the lawn chair soon!

Before it got too cold a few weeks ago, I took Ella outside to explore the backyard. I can't wait to let her sled down the little slope back there!

Ok, on to naughty Ella. We're having some meal time issues with her. She tends to have outbursts that result in the throwing of food and her sippy cup. Saying "no" has no affect (effect?? ugh, i can never remember) on her whatsoever. Even slapping her hand, swatting her bottom or flicking her mouth seems to not phase her at all. We've tried just turning her highchair around so she's "shunned" for awhile but all she does is turn around and look at us and cry. Today I actually took her out of her highchair and put her in her crib 2 different times. That was HORRIBLE. She screamed and screamed until she got hysterical and then she wouldn't even finish her lunch because she was so upset. So...I've got a few more tricks up my sleeve but its getting pretty frustrating! The worst part of it now is that she does it very deliberately and defiantly so we want to make sure we establish with her who is in charge! Any suggestions?

Giving Thanks!!

Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord!
Let the earth hear His voice
Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord!
Let the people rejoice
Oh come to the Father through Jesus the Son
And give Him the glory
GREAT THINGS HE HAS DONE!

I woke up with this song in my head, how fitting!
Praising God for all the blessings in my life. Every good and perfect gift comes from above.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Ok. Time to go make a turkey.

Back to normal

After being hit by some sickness in our home, I think we are back to normal! For now at least. It had to happen-Ella had her first ear infection last week. Poor girl! She was just not happy...crying at every little thing, having trouble sleeping at night, 20 minute naps (if that). I felt confined to the house because she was such a nightmare to take anywhere! I thought it was just a cold (no fever, no pulling at the ears) so I didn't take her to the dr until about a week into it. Thankfully, after a few days of antibiotic, Ella is back to her happy self. Here she is in a less than happy state...

One day last week we went to Borders to visit Aunt Sarah on her lunch break. Ella really loved standing in this corner for some reason!

Ella playing with her buddy Zane at church! Ella looks a little out of it...

In the midst of trying to get Ella healthy we had a busy weekend! Saturday night Rusty and I went to his work holiday party. I was so happy Ella was healthy for us to go. Aunt Sarah watched her for us, thanks Sarah! Rusty looks a little weird in this picture. I think he was uphappy he had to wear a suit.

I promise Rusty had not been drinking. The party was a '40's themed "puttin on the ritz" and they handed out accessories!

Ella has been cracking me up lately! Her newest thing is saying "thank you". Its so stinkin cute! She loves to hand me a toy, let me say "thank you" to her, then I give it back to her and she says "thank you" to me! She also likes to say it after I give her a kiss! Her new favorite toy is her work bench I got her from goodwill yesterday. gotta love toys at goodwill! yesterday she kept walking around with her wrench, trying to "fix" things. She is also hilarious to take out in public. She is super friendly to everyone we pass by. She loves to "chat" with them, say hi and laugh. This is definitely my favorite age so far! Such fun!

Bless You!

Some new/cute things Ella's been up to lately:

Says "bless you" after someone sneezes. It sounds like "bessew", so cute!

Loves to play with her shoes and hair bows/clips. She likes to lay out all her little clips in a row and then points to them and likes me to hand them to her, one at a time. She's VERY particular on which one I give her.

Really likes sitting in her little antique chair even though she has problems getting in and out of it. Its pretty high off the ground for her so I have to sit right by her when she's in it.

Still loves Little Einsteins. Her attention span to watch it is about 10 minutes right now.

Likes to carry her blankie around and often trips on it. Trying to break her of that :)

Loves to wrestle on the floor with us. She really likes to tickle us too, its so funny! She'll move her fingers around really fast on our belly and say "ickle ickle ickle" and then laugh.

Can finally get on and off her little train and 4-wheeler. She hasn't figured out how to move on the train yet but she can go backwards on the 4-wheeler.

LOVES milk, she would drink it all day if I let her. She drinks about 27 oz a day!

Says "no no no" a lot. She mainly says it at meal times. She's also started answering my questions with "no". "Ella, do you want to go eat lunch?" "no". hmmmm. Another thing we're working on...

Its amazing how much she can communicate to us right now! Its rare that she wants something or is upset about something and we can't figure out what it is. The other day I forgot to get her sippy cup out for her at dinner. Right away she pointed to the cup holder on her highchair, looked at me and said "cuppy!"

Sorry if this was a boring post, not too much going on here! Looking forward to a fun weekend-Rusty and I are going to his work's holiday party. The theme is "puttin' on the ritz", fun!

We have a walker!!!

I'm proud to announce that Ella is finally FINALLY walking! I know she's only 13 months so its not like she's really a late walker or anything. But of all my girlfriends or blogs I read, everyone else must've gotten early walkers. It just made me feel like Ella was late. She had been in the "pre-walking" stage for so long, since before Labor Day even! I'm not sure what took her so long!

Last night around 7, Rusty and I were just sitting in the living room with her and Rusty was watching The Simpsons. Ella was standing, holding onto a chair. All of a sudden, she just took about 10 steps and stopped right in front of the TV and stood there for about 2 minutes, watching the Simpons! Then she turned around and walked back to the chair. Then she walked to the fireplace, then to me, then to Rusty. She was like a machine! It was really funny how she went from not at doing it at all to just doing it! I guess its all or nothing with her. Here's a video I took last night-this was probably the 2nd or 3rd time she walked. Can you believe how fast she's going?? Today has been a little slower. She's been walking here and there but she still wants to hold onto my finger when she walks. Not sure it that is just out of habit or if she feels nervous. Go Ella!! You can do it!!

My Little Ladybug

I know I'm biased but Ella was the cauuutest little ladybug there ever was!! After the fiasco of actually getting her in her costume, the rest of the night went great! Ella really loved handing out candy with her daddy and seeing all the other kids.

We decided to take her around to a few houses. She's still not really walking on her own but she does great if one of us holds her hand.

Taking a little break. Once she got her first piece of candy she had to sit down to investigate.

And...we're off again!

It's crazy to think back to 1 year ago when Ella was just dressed up as a little pea pod!

In exciting news, Ella took what I will call her first steps yesterday! FINALLY! She's taken steps here and there for the past month but it was never initiated by her. Yesterday while Rusty was home with her (of course), she stood up and just took about 6 steps towards him! Then she did it again this morning with him and finally with me this afternoon. Woohoo! I'm really hoping that within a week or 2 she'll really have the hang of it! I cannot believe its taken her this long considering she was already really stable on her feet at the beginning of September!

In not exciting news, Ella seems to be pretty off schedule thanks to daylight savings time. Thanks a lot! Is getting light earlier in the morning worth having to wake up at 5:30? Uhm, no.

Ella's first show

Today was Ella's first time to a "show"! We went to see an Imagination Movers show with my friend Lindsay and her little boy and niece. It was cute but we might try it again in a couple of years. I'm not sure how much Ella really enjoyed it. She paid attention for the first 5 minutes or so and then got pretty squirmy. I had to bribe her with snacks the whole time just to get her to be still. We made it for about an hour and then decided to leave early. I had fun though...it made me excited to do more things like that in the future when she's a little older!


I feel like I've been slacking a little with picture taking so here are just a few from tonight :)

Wednesday afternoon we took an impromtu trip to the orchard! I've been wanting to go or awhile and it just never worked out. A friend called me up and asked if we wanted to go and I said yes! It felt nice to be spontaneous for a change :) It ended up being right around Ella's nap time when we went but she did great! She played for awhile in the kids area and then we went to the pumpkin patch. It would've been soooo much easier if she could've walked, it was super muddy. I finally gave in and just let her down on the ground. Mud washes off, right?

Turning Thirty

I can't believe it's been 3 weeks since I posted! We've pretty much been running on auto pilot here lately. Ella's been "off" for the past several weeks. She's been like a different girl almost! She was fussy from the moment she woke up until the moment she went to bed at night. Meal time was the worst. I would have to fight to just get a bite into her mouth! I felt like I couldn't take her anywhere because she would just be so unhappy the whole time that I would end up having to leave. Even going grocery shopping was nearly impossible because she would just cry and reach for me through the whole store. I'm really not sure what the problem was! Maybe teething? She did run a fever a few times. I kept her home from church several Sundays and a Wednesday due to fever/fussiness. But I'm happy to say that we've had 3 really good days in a row so maybe my happy Ella is back! Friday was Rusty's 30th birthday! He got the day off work and the 3 of us just spent the day together, running errands and just being together. Ella was great the whole day which was much needed, for all of us! Saturday morning, Rusty and I left for his birthday weekend in Louisville! My sister Sarah was a HUGE blessing to us and watched Ella for us from Saturday morning until Sunday afternoon. It was our first time away together since Ella was born and it was so nice! We had several nice meals out (hardly ever do that now!), went to the Slugger Museum and went to see the Titanic Exhibit that was in town along with an IMAX about the Titanic. After we checked into our hotel (got a great deal on hotwire!), ate some dinner and then went on a Ghost Walk to see supposedly haunted spots in Louisville. Of course we don't believe in that kind of thing, but it was just something fun to do. Sunday morning we got to sleep in, had a nice breakfast and stopped at the outlets on the way home. Its crazy how much I missed Ella! She did so well with Sarah though, I was so proud of her!
Its amazing how much Ella can do and say now. She is still not walking...we are very ready for her to take her first steps. She loves walking by holding our fingers but that gets old pretty quick. :) She has taken steps on her own here and there but never on her own initiative. Here's her current vocabulary: mama (or mommy or mom), daddy, duck, fishy, shoes, toes, eye, "b" (blankie), "mimi" (milk), uh-oh, GO GO GO (I'm pretty sure this means "no no no" but I'm not really sure! she usually only says it if she's mad and she always says it very loudly), yummy yummy (said when she's hungry or if she sees a food that she wants), cuppy (sippy cup with water), baby, hair, ball, cow, bye and hi.
I think that's it but there may be a few more. Seems she adds a word or 2 each day. She also knows where her eyes, nose, hair, toes and belly button are and she says "moo" if you ask her what a cow says and "baa" if you ask what a lamb says. The majority of these new words and "tricks" have been learned in the past 2 weeks or so! Its so cute and fun.
She's developed a fear of her changing table lately-that's been fun. She's also gotten extremely attached to her blankie. I try not to let her have it except for at night or during naps but she'll crawl around looking for it and saying "B"??? "B"???
I'll try to post soon with Ella's halloween costume pics! She is SO cute in her costume!

Playing catch up

Whew! Its been a busy couple of weeks. I feel like I'm still playing catch up from Ella's bday party weekend. We had a great birthday weekend though. Although things didn't go totally as planned with Ella's schedule on either day, we still had a great time and everyone was very understanding. Ella got so much stuff and we are so grateful to everyone! Ella was definitely getting bored of most of her toys and books and loves all her new stuff (and so do I!). Here's some party pics!

My mom & I reading Ella one of her new books

Ella riding her new 4-wheeler from Opa!

Opening presents with mommy (she did so great with sitting still during this!)

Ella and her friend Hudson-they were super cute together!

Ella playing with her new baby-this baby never leaves her side!

This past weekend was my first time to be away from Ella overnight. My church had a women's retreat from Friday-Saturday. I dropped Ella off at my MIL's on Friday around 11am and didn't see her again until Saturday night around 6 (Rusty picked her up after work and kept her until I got home). I actually did ok with it. I missed her and thought about her a lot, but I didn't cry or feel overwhelmed or anything. Ella didn't do quite as well. She was pretty good for Rusty while I was gone, but when I got back she started showing some signs that maybe she didn't handle it that well. She was really clingy to me and would almost seem upset if Rusty came in the room (like she thought I would leave again??), she also started waking up around 4:45am and wouldn't go back to sleep along with waking up several times during the night. This was also 2 days after she had her 1 yr. shots, plus I was in the process of weaning her. I didn't intend all these things to happen at the same time, that's just how it worked out! So, we cut back on the weaning and I tried to really cuddle and love on her a lot and she seems to be doing a little better. Naps are still a challenge right now-she normally takes great naps but this week has been rough. It took me an hour and a half to get her down this morning and then she only slept for 30 minutes! Rusty and I were saying the other day how it seems that as soon as one thing is going smoothly, something that used to be going smoothly suddenly isn't, or something else becomes challenging. I guess this is just a small preview of what to expect the next 18 years right? But, even on the most challenging of days, Ella will crawl (nope, she's not walking yet) over to me and randomly just lay her head on my shoulder and give me a hug. How can I be upset after that?

Here's a cute little video of Ella watching her favorite show. Hopefully you can hear it ok!

1 year pics

I decided to try my luck with Target again for Ella's 1 year pics. They turned out as well as could be expected I guess! Ella wasn't in a great mood the day we went. She was teething, I'm not even sure how many teeth she has coming through right now but I'd say maybe 3. She would just drool and chew on her hands (or anything she could find). I felt so bad for her! I gave her motrin, teething tablets and orajel but nothing really seemed to give her much relief. So for how miserable she was, I guess I should be happy with how the pics turned out! I'm still not thrilled with Target in general though. The day I went they were running about 30 minutes behind. There was a family of 6 ahead of me and then 4 people behind me waiting. It was just a little hectic. Then when I went to actually pick out the pics I wanted to order, all thos people will still there so I had hard time focusing. Oh well, I guess that's what you get for no sitting fee and coupons :)

Today is Ella's first party! She has a family party today and a friends party tomorrow. Yesterday was spent cleaning and decorating. I was doing ok until I hung the first birthday banner last night. It just sorta hit me...my baby is turning 1!! I just kept thinking back to when she was born and those first few months with her. Her first birthday seemed so far away then, it didn't seem like it would ever get here. And now all of a sudden its here!

Here's a few of the pics that I liked:

I think I ordered a few 3 1/2 x 5 of these, she just looks like a cute little bear cub!


The pearls weren't intended to be in the pictures. The photographer gave them to her just as a distraction because she kept trying to crawl away. Of course once she got them, she would NOT let them go! I kind of like them in the picture!

Doesn't she look like such a big girl in this one?

The only picture of her smiling :)

Happy Fall

My favorite season is here, woohooo!! I'm trying to get a pretty new fall template for my blog so it may look a little funny until I get it fixed :)

Here are some reasons Fall is the best!
*pumpkin spice latte
*wearing sweatshirts and jeans
*pretty fall leaves
*apple cider
*carving pumpkins
*covered bridge festival (a family tradition!)
*biscuits and apple butter
*fall decorations

Here are some movies I always watch in the Fall
*Father of the Bride
*You've Got Mail
*Sleepy Hollow
*Stepmom

Hooray for Fall! I missed you.

Philly

Well, this feels like old news now, but we made it back from our fun trip to Philly! We went over Labor Day weekend to see some good friends who moved there a few years ago. The drive down took about 12 hours. Without Ella, we could've made it in 10 but we definitely needed the number of stops we took. Here's Ella on our first stop. As you can see, she's pretty excited to be out of the car :)

We got to Philly at about 6pm on Thursday night. The town our friends live in (West Chester) has a festival the first thursday of every month so we were in luck! It was so cool...lots of booths, food and tons of Irish music! We loaded the kiddos up and headed out. Sadly, this is the ONLY picture I got of Ella and Sasha. Don't they look like they're having fun?

Let me tell you...Ella LOVED Sasha and Misha. By the time we left, she'd learned to say Sasha's name (Sash). She didn't learn Misha but she just called him "baby". Even after we got home, she would crawl around the house saying "baby...?...Sash...?". So cute!!

We went to downtown Philly to see the sights on Saturday. Ella was super cranky for a lot of the day. We waited for quite awhile to tour Independence Hall. Here we are right before going on our tour.

I didn't realized the tour was guided and that the first 15 minutes was a lecture! Ella was the only baby in there and she was not at all interested in the history of Independence Hall :) It was so uncomfortable! I felt like everyone was just starting at us the whole time thinking "what idiots brought a baby to this?" So, Ella and I ducked out pretty quick and Rusty finished the tour alone. While waiting, Ella made a few friends! These girls were very sweet and just sat there while Ella talked their ear off and pointed at the girl's bow.

Ella just loves other kids. While we were waiting for our tour to start, there was a little boy sitting in the grass by us. He was probably 4 or 5 but Ella pretty much calls everyone "baby". So she goes over to him and starts saying "baby! baby!" and pointing at him. He ran over to his mom and (very offendedly) said "that baby just called ME a baby!!"

Our biggest "adventure" happened on our way back to our friends' house from Philly. We thought we were in the right lane but before we could do anything about it, we realized we were in the lane that took us over the bridge to New Jersey! It was so crowded, there was no way we could get over. So...off we went to NJ. We figured we'd just turn around and head back as soon as we could. So we get over the bridge and turn around only to find out that the only way back into PA is over the toll bridge. $4. We had NO cash! We asked if they would make an exception and take a credit card but no. So we had to get off on this side exit to find an atm. Wow were we in the ghett-o. We drive for awhile and finally see this tiny little corner shop boasting an atm inside. Lots of tatoo'd men with major bling standing all around the outside. We pretty much had no other option but to stop there. So Rusty parks, locks the doors behind him and instructs me not to make eye contact with anyone. It was very dramatic. Well, needless to say, nothing happened. Rusty got his money, we got back into PA and all ended well :) But, I guess we got a funny vacation story out of it!!

Here's a few more pictures from this past week

Oops...caught in the act!

Getting one more use out of her baby pool

The next pics I post will most likely be from her 1st bday party!