I was driving down 288 with Ella the other day and I realized that her future is my biggest worry. I was a lot of trouble to my parents in high school and college. I got caught up in lots of things I shouldn't have. I look back and think about how far away my life then is from my life now. I love everything about where I am and Ella and Josh bless me beyond belief. My parents raised me right. I was just a stubborn, bull-headed kid who was determined to get into trouble. I knew everything and was always right. My parents were stupid. So, my take on parenting is that you do the best that you can and you pray for wisdom and guidance from God and from there, it's up to your children. Luckily, my parents raised me in church and God never left my side. I realize that I could still be doing the same things (or worse) that I was doing seven years ago. Something about my personality coupled with the fact that I had faith in Jesus Christ brought me home. I just hope that Ella avoids a lot of my mistakes. And if she doesn't, I pray that God will steer her back, just like He did me. Knowing that one day, I will have to let Ella be the person that she wants to be is terrifying. I just pray that I am instilling values that will stay with her forever, no matter where she goes. She is my heart and I love her more than my own life itself.

Here is ella practicing good hygiene:

and then lovin on her brobee.

this one is a little fuzzy, but her new thing is to try and walk around in my shoes. she makes it about two steps and then falls out of them.

it was the first day of fall, so we had to put on our fall clothes! here she is cheesin it up.

i'm sitting here listening to josh and ella reading books through the baby monitor as he's putting her down to bed and i can't help but feel so completely and utterly blessed for my life and all God has provided. I have an amazing husband who is an amazing father to our amazing daughter. There is no greater feeling for a mother and a wife. Life is good....real good.

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 don't really know how to start my next blog. i realize that it's just a blog, but it seems like every day that passes is one day further away from jon. if i write my next blog, then that means i've moved on. i know that really isn't the case, but that's the way it feels. every day, something happens that makes me think about him. or another story gets told with "jon and i...." or "remember when jon..." or "i can't believe when jon...". if feels like moving on means moving on without him, even though there's nothing i can do to change that fact that he isn't here anymore. i will watch ella reading her books or splashing in the bathtub and it makes me sad that jon won't ever get to experience these things that i treasure so much with my own daughter. my earthly mind cannot comprehend heaven, so i am stuck in this mindset that he's missing out on so much. my faith tries to convince me otherwise.

so to move on, most of my favorite memories are from our time in the army. we were so young (and stupid) and we had so much fun. when josh and i were dating, i spent my spring break during my senior year in college to go visit josh. he lived in the barracks. he knew no one. he had no car. he'd only been at fort campbell for a couple of weeks and jon was home on leave. so i had to come keep him company. i know, i had to right? :) but josh had to work all day. the army doesn't get a spring break. well being on an army base and not having a car or anyone else around, it got rather boring. i laid on josh's cot and listened to a lot of matchbox twenty and three doors down. and being the "girl" that i am, i figured i might pass some time by playing "dress up". this was fun. josh came back in time to take a picture. and boy was that heavy.

that time period holds so many fond memories for me. i got to spend so much time with two of my best friends. it was definitely a special time.

my friend jon

"hey kid, what it is?" was the intro to every letter i ever got from jon when he was in iraq. and all of them ended with "I love you, yo". I dubbed him jon-e-boy sometime back in high school and he called me beep. or spaz. or giraffe neck. or gummy. he also taught alley (a toddler at the time) to call me those names too. he was one of my best friends from the moment that little freshman kid came up to me begging for a ride home from school all the time. he had my back and always had the best intentions when it came to me. i appreciate him for helping me steer my life back on track the summer after i graduated high school. i think if it hadn't been for jon getting me more grounded than i had ever been in my life, i wouldn't be where i am today. when i became friends with jon, i gained three more best friends: josh, dusty, and jeremy. the four of us spent the entire summer together and had so much fun (well josh didn't get to have much fun because he had a job...boo!) And they were the only people I was allowed to hang out with, since I was grounded. They would bleach their hair white and play basketball CONSTANTLY! One day that summer, we decided to go ride gocarts. But for some reason I wore a dress that day and I didn't have any clothes to change into. So Josh let me borrow a pair of his basketball shorts and then Jon found one of his 10 year old little brother's t-shirts for me to wear. I was left wearing my clogs and a fantastic get-up. We had a blast! They certainly didn't care that I looked like a complete idiot! Over the years, we went to church camp together, ski trips, they came and visited me at college in kansas a few times. Jon broke my papasan chair and then we went on a "vision quest". Sorry, you had to be there! Then came the army. Had it not been for Jon, I don't think Josh and I would've ever gotten married, or even started dating. I owe Jon so much. One of my favorite memories, which probably isn't the best thing we ever did, but whatever! Jon was home for R&R in December 2003 and I was having a hard time with Josh being in Iraq and not getting to come home for R&R that year. So Jon kept me company the two weeks he was home. Well, one night we decided to go to Kroger and get some beer. Well, instead of buying the beer, we stole it right out of the refrigerated beer section and walked it back to the employees restroom and drank it. We drank beer and smoked cigarettes most of the night back there. I don't know how we didn't get caught. Luckily, no employees had to pee between the hours of 11pm and 1am. Jeremy eventually came and hung out with us too. We also got tattoos when he was home on leave. I'm so glad that forever, I will have a memory of Jon no matter where I go. I can't seem to remember what his tattoo was supposed to mean. I mean, it's not like I can get it translated. We did pick out chinese symbols for tattoos from a skanky tattoo parlor!! I'm sure they were less than accurate :) I have so many funny stories of Jon. He was brutally honest with me and was quick to tell me I was being an idiot and overreacting. I am so mad at myself for letting the last three years of Jon's life go by without being a part of it. It just goes to show that life is so short. It's too short to hold onto to hurt feelings and pride. I'm so grateful that we were able to spend time with you in June and make up for lost time. God put us there for a reason and that reason was you. I love you, yo. You will forever be one of the best friends I ever knew.

beep

five years and counting...

Then: May 29,2004. We were in Gatlinburg, TN for the weekend when Josh proposed. We were married exactly 8 weeks later.

Now: July 24, 2009

This past friday was our five year anniversary! Thinking back, we've been through so many different stages of life in just five short years. It's hard to believe that it's actually been that long. That could possibly be due to the fact that for a year of it he was in iraq. It's also hard to believe that within our first year of our marriage, he headed off to war for the second time. I remember going through it and it was tough, but looking back it's just amazing what God gives you when you are faced with less than "ideal" circumstances. I truly believe that God works in you most throughout the hard times. Maybe in order to have the wonderful marriage that I'm so blessed to have now, we had to really go through the ringer. I am so grateful for that year in so many ways. And I am grateful that God gave me the patience and the willingness to accept what he was doing in our lives so that three and a half years later i can honestly say it was a wonderful year for us! You don't realize just how much your love your husband until you have to miss your husband :) There were a few bad things that I got out of that year (i never was afraid of death until i worried for his life daily) but I know God will release me from those fears one day when I decide I'm ready to be released.

But on to the fun part about our anniversary date: we stayed in a completely overpriced hotel that wasn't worth the money and ate at the most amazing restaurant! Who doesn't love a little fondue?! Even though the hotel was a little disappointing, it was still an amazing evening with my best friend. And we slept late...9 a.m.! We also learned a lesson: just because you can afford the hotel room, it doesn't mean you can afford to stay at the hotel. After valet, room service, breakfast, and all of the other little things were added to our bill, we definitely decided that next time we'll just come home! :)

Our waitress took a picture of us over our delicious dinner. We had milk chocolate swirled with crunchy peanut butter as the "sauce". Then on the tray in front of us there were strawberries, rice crispy treats, cheesecake, pound cake, graham cracker covered marshmallows, oreo covered marshmallows, and brownies that we dipped into the chocolate. It was amazing. They also gave us complimentary anniversary toasts of champagne. Ahhmazing!

There was also a fountain outside of our hotel, so of course I made Josh stop traffic so that we could go sit in front of it for a self-portrait :)