more than just an errand

Oh, the grocery store. I dread heading to Wal-Mart. Aside from random strangers sticking their grubby paws into the car seat and caressing my 4 month old's face or elderly people grabbing my 2 1/2 year old by the arm and expect her to carry on a conversation with them about how pretty her blonde curls are (good luck!), it's just not my favorite place to go. People will really get their feelings hurt that she won't give them hugs and be sweet and talkative with them. I wish people would be a little more understanding to the fact that she's TWO! I've had to have so many conversations with Ella about how we aren't mean to people who try and talk to her. I'll tell her "If you don't want to talk to them, just smile and wave. You don't have to give them the meanest face and shout No! at them." I can tell her that all day long, but the fact of the matter is that she does not like strangers coming up to HER and forcing a conversation. She does, however, stop random strangers and talk to them. It has to be on her terms.

Anyhow, as the three of us trudged through Wal-Mart yesterday I realized something. This is more than just an errand. This is an outing. With a 2 year old, getting out of the house is exciting for her. She had a few people grab her, which makes her very uncomfortable. But she also would see random people walking by and for some reason she felt like they wanted, no, needed to know about the chocolate covered sunflower seeds in her hand that she picked out for the day's trip. I watched her converse with several people and realized that instead of dreading our trips to Wal-Mart, we should enjoy our time with the rest of the world. :) Our trips usually take us at least and hour and a half, lots of times two hours. We meander through the store and I have found that if I don't rush her and we just take our time looking at everything and walking the aisles, she really does have a great time. Schedules are great, but there's nothing wrong with throwing the schedule out of the window every once in a while when we can.

my kids

so i found out i was pregnant on september 11th. i was ecstatic! we had been trying for over a year and it finally happened (with a little help from some clomid). i can't believe i'm finally pregnant! we've waited so long and not always patiently. but i've finally made it to my second trimester and my morning sickness is really starting to ease up. my clothes are too tight and i'm battling some serious headaches, but at least the nausea is getting better! i have to say that when i was pregnant with ella, i thought about being pregnant ALL the time. it was constantly on my mind and this time is so much different. i'm too busy to think about it! between work, chasing ella around two days a week, and all the other things to do around the house there's not much time to sit here and relish over my pregnancy. i can already see how the second baby just doesn't get as much attention. it's still in the womb and it's already happening. i hope and pray that i'll find some balance by the time he/she gets here.

well, here's a picture of my two kids. i absolutely cannot wait for may 18th when josh, ella, and i get to meet this new baby. i love mommyhood!




Here's hoping ella gets a little more excited by the time the baby gets here! :)

growing up

well october turned into a lot of growing up for miss ella. in my previous post, i mentioned that ella was starting preschool at little hands academy. let me just say that i absolutely love that school and i love the people who work there. she has wonderful teachers and i know that she is being cared for very well.

with that said, monday went very well. we dropped her off and snuck out while she was playing. the teachers told me that she whined a little for mommy when the other kids' parents dropped them off, but other than that she was great. then for naptime, they gave ella her paci and she went right to sleep and slept for two hours! i'm impressed. so i went to pick her up and she was so happy to see me. she has NEVER been that happy to see me! so all in all, it was a great first day of school. which brings me to today....oh my gosh, it was horrible! as soon as we got there, she would not let me put her down because she knew if she took her eyes off of me, i was going to sneak out. so we sat down and played with toys for a few minutes, but she was not going to let me out of there. so, i handed her over to the teacher as she was screaming hysterically for me. I had to walk out of the room with her watching me and screaming "No Mommy, no! I wanna go bye-bye with you. Mommy NOOOOOOO!" Traumatizing...for the both of us. I walked out of there practically sobbing and cried all the way to work, which let to a horrific headache that lasted the rest of the day. I called at 10am and they said she was doing great. Since I work with my mom, I shared my sad story with her and she was sad too. So at 5, we both went to Little Hands to see her. She was so happy to see me. She had tears in her eyes as she ran up to me saying "It's Mommy, It's my mommy, Hi mommy!" I love her so much. It broke my heart today, but I know that she's going to adjust and she'll make friends and learn how to be much more flexible throughout this process. I did, however, tell Josh that he would take her to school from now on. I can't go through that again.

In order to get Ella prepared for sleeping on the mat, we moved her over to her big girl bed on Saturday night. Let me just say that I was expecting the worst and she has done awesome! I think the fact that she doesn't use a night light and it's pitch black in her room helps a lot. If she got up, she wouldn't be able to see her toys or books anyway, so what's the point? The first night at 2:30am, she accidentally got out of her bed and couldn't see how to get back in. So I heard her through the monitor saying "I wanna go night night, I wanna go night night". So i went in there and placed her back in bed under the covers and she went right back to sleep. The second night, she fell out of her bed and I heard her crying. I ran in there and she told me "Mommy, I f-f-f-ell d-d-d-down". It was so sweet. So I put her back in bed again, and right to sleep she went. Since then, she's done perfectly. She took a 3 hour nap on Tuesday and has just been awesome at it. I attribute it to all of the hard work we did when she was a baby, teaching her how to put herself to sleep and making it known that night time is for sleeping not for playing. That and the fact that I think she's amazing at anything she tries. Now i do have a feeling that once she gets used to things, she's going to test us and get out of bed just to see what we do, but for now we are enjoying an easy transition.

Here are some pictures of my grown-up little girl.

Ella's first day of school:

Ella's 2nd day of school:

And here's Ella and Avery doing some super cheeses:

ella days

when i was a kid, i had really jacked up teeth. i mean really jacked up. so naturally, i had braces. once a month, i had to go to the orthodontist to get my braces tightened and man they hurt afterwards. so my mom would take me to the dairy bar for some ice cream after my appointments. it was bliss.

today i decided to introduce ella to the dairy bar. i think we were there a whopping 10 minutes before she was bored with the place, as well as the ice cream. but it was a fun ten minutes! me being the person that i am, you will notice that ella had a nice, small bowl of vanilla ice cream. it's less likely to stain that cute shirt she's wearing. :) we had an absolute blast. days at home with mommy are for spoiling! i may have heck with it later, but i just can't resist "Mommy, peas!" she also has some sign language that goes along with "peas", but it's not the right gesture. she thinks it means please and that's all that matters.

we also took our first trip to the public library today. let's just say, that was a mistake. ella was such a little hoodlum. she was running around screaming (for joy, but loudly so still inappropriate) and pulling all the books off of the shelf. i was a tad embarrassed, but we were able to make it out with one book. as we were checking out, the nice lady behind the counter informed me that we could always reserve our books online and "on the days that i just need it" i can come in with my card and they will have them ready for me. :) she was nice. and i will definitely do that next time.

i really enjoy my 2.5 days a week at home with ella. i'm so blessed to have a job where i can just decide what days i want to come in and what days i want to stay home. i can just switch to part-time because i want to (and because we've made shortcuts in order to make it happen financially). i love my days at work and i love my days at home. i really feel like i get the best of both worlds. i don't find myself at odds with ella very often and i enjoy every second that i am with her. even the time-outs. i think it's because i've found some balance in my life. i know that will change because balance never stays very long, but i will make sure to enjoy it while it's here.

and so it begins

okay well i started this blog over a month ago. i was waiting to post it so that i could get a super cute picture of ella on the potty, but that hasn't happened (and may never happen) yet. maybe soon. i'm so behind.

Started 8/8/2009:
the potty training has commenced! after having a potty in ella's room for a few months now, she has never really been too interested. so, i decided to try something different. instead of having the little miniature potty that sings when you pee on it (something we have not yet witnessed and i am unwilling to give it a test round!), I put the little potty seat on the actually potty in ella's bathroom. she has a little step stool and it is so much fun for her to climb up and sit on the big girl potty. so we spend lots of time during the day up in her bathroom, she on the potty and me on the floor right in front of her. ella's new thing is whispering, so we will whisper conversations back and forth and then we sing songs. i made up a tinkle song and every time i sing it, it's different but she still loves it. so anyways, wednesday night after sitting on the potty for about 10 minutes, she finally peed! as she was going, she whispered "listen". And when she stopped, she looks at me and says "again". It was so funny! So she's gone tee tee a few times now and everytime it's like she's moved mountains!

right now i'm torn with where to go next....i've read that if you use pull-ups it can slow down the whole process and then if you just let them run around your house for a week peeing on themselves and the floor and anything else that they are near, it will go faster. so i'm thinking i'm going to try to find something a little in between. first step, we're going to make a "potty box" that stays in the bathroom. it's going to have magnets and a magnetic board and a few other things that she can play with, but only while she's on the potty. we will see if it actually works (it does by the way).

in other ella news, she is no longer figuring out how to talk. she's full out talking. her new phrase is "i don't like it". it does sound more like "ah-own like it" but you have to get the texas accent going...really drag it out.

i was out of town last weekend working a chrysalis flight (which was awesome, by the way). But i was gone thursday through sunday. it was hard being away from ella, but not as hard as i thought it would be. i'm so used to being away from josh. the two of us are good at that. but it was my first long weekend away from the girl. well, let's just say she still hasn't let me off the hook. she is the ultimate daddy's girl. she and josh were sitting on the couch this morning and i was sitting on the other side of the couch. i decided to slide over and put my head on josh's shoulder and ella did not like that. she made me take my head off of his shoulder and then she squeezed herself right in between us so that i couldn't sit next to him. someone is jealous (and that someone is me!!)

i'm hoping she goes easy on me soon.....she'll need someone to buy her new clothes someday and it definitely won't be daddy. she'll come back to me then :)

Babies grow up so fast. I can remember countless people telling me how fast it will go by and to enjoy every moment. You don't really know it until you look back yourself and think "Wow, when did all that growing up happen?" But I admit, I am one of those moms who kept saying "I can't wait until Ella can ___". When she was rolling, I couldn't wait until she was crawling. When she was crawling, I couldn't wait until she was walking. And I have to say that each stage has been better than the last. I don't look back and miss the baby stage. While it was wonderful while we were there, it passed. But right now, where we are today, I never want it to end. Ella is talking so much. Not only is she talking, she's making sentences. She understands practically anything I say and she always responds appropriately. It's amazing. She is just so much fun and I never want her to get any bigger!! This is definitely my favorite age.

It is such a privilege to be a parent. We tried for so long to get pregnant and when it finally happened, we felt like it was a dream. But no dream could compare to actually being a parent. I get to experience so many things all over again through Ella. My daughter is so incredibly smart and such a fast learner. It's not something that I feel that I somehow taught her, but more just what she was born with. Since the day she was born she has been outspoken, opinionated, and passionate. During the newborn phase, I felt like this was more of a curse than a blessing. As Ella has grown, I've gotten to watch her use those traits for good and not evil...anymore :)

Yesterday, she was at work with me and she has this really cool table that she got for her birthday from Mimi. It has lots of different colors and my mom discovered yesterday that she can differentiate between yellow and red. Today, she got down green and blue. Orange is still a little confusing, but she's definitely on her way to getting those primary colors down. It was so cool to watch it click in her brain. These may seem like little things to most people, but to watch your child learn is one of the most amazing experiences. She is so smart and I am so proud!

Last night, I tried to figure out what the heck I've gotten myself into. I've got a pretty busy next few months. Well I just started teaching the preschool Sunday school class and it has already been so rewarding. I love all of the kids and we've been having a great time. I've also signed up to work a Chrysalis for one of my favorite people...my sister-in-law Heather. She's lay director for a flight coming up in July and I agreed to join her as head logistics. I've got to say that I'm definitely not scared. I've got the greatest group of people working on my team. I haven't met all of them yet, but Gina has done an amazing job picking up the slack for me (I missed the first meeting!!!) And we've also got this awesome thing coming up called "4th on Main". It's a 4th of July celebration that several of the churches in Danbury are collaborating on. So I've got a full plate, to say the least. I'm just excited to get to do so much work for the Lord this year!

Other than all the stuff for the church I've been signing up for, I've been having so much fun with Ella! Josh and I recently sold our Jeep Liberty so that I could switch over to part time and stay home with Ella several days a week. This was my first week to stay at home and it has been AWESOME! Well, mostly awesome. I was gone from Ella for my first full weekend, so I was so happy to be back. Then Ella got sick with the stomach bug on Sunday night. By Tuesday morning, I knew I was in the clear if I hadn't gotten sick by then. But by Tuesday afternoon, I was sick too. So staying home with her wasn't exactly how I had planned, but it was still wonderful. Next week will be better! I'm sure of it! Here's a few examples of the fun we're going to have this summer!

Since Ella and I have been living on applesauce, bananas, and toast this week, Ella came up with a new way to eat applesauce:

Josh just recently finished his Spring semester at UHCL. He is well on his way to becoming a high school history teacher. He's definitely ready for a break from school. Plus, he's getting a lot more days at home with Ella now that he's free. Ella days are the best days!

Here's an old Ella and Daddy picture (one of the few times she got to sleep in our bed):

Here's a more recent one. This is my world in a photograph:

God amazes me everyday through my amazing and beautiful daughter. She's my world. She teaches me so much and every day I love her more and more. And every day I don't think I can love her any more than I already do. Being a mommy is the most amazing thing I've ever done. I'll leave you with a few pictures that I found on my computer the other day. I don't even remember her looking like this. It's crazy how fast time goes by when you're having fun! :)

She looks like she has scrawny, little bird arms. Scrawny was never a word I would use to describe Ella.