Thanksgiving

Wow I am way behind in my updates.

Thanksgiving, we had a great time at my parents house with all of my husbands family too. It was a lot of people and a lot of good food. My sister in law and I did our best to make the meal completely allergy free, and it turned out great. Ella missed most of the gathering because she ate before we were all seated and than was down for her nap soon after we all started. Aunt Bekah stayed with us the week of Thanksgiving and we had fun taking her to Garden of the Gods. Ella had fun climbing the rocks.

We spent the following day at her Aunt's house and she got to play with her cousins. They had lots of fun running around and chasing each other. Wish we could do that more often, but it was good while it lasted.

Happy 2nd Birthday!

We celebrated Ella's 2nd birthday this weekend. It's hard to believe she is two years old now. She can do so many things now it is incredible. She is starting to sound out words, yes words. She is learning all sort of words and new phrases, she isn't afraid to try big words and is does a great job of staying all the parts of a word no matter how big it is. She is saying full sentences like "I'm a doggie. I'm going to get you." She is getting up in the 30's for her numbers and she is starting to understand hard concepts. Like I explained to her how the leaves chance color in the fall, in simple terms, and she understood. She also started matching each leaf type to the right tree that it came from. She is great at making friends and loves playing all sort of things. She can play dinosaurs and building with boys and than play dress up and tea party and dolls. She makes shy kids feel safe and plays with them when they are ready. She is great with sharing and has an impressive imagination. She also loves making her own puzzles and figuring out how things work. It takes her 10 seconds for her to figure out all the functions of a toy. It's going to be hard keeping up with her, but the Lord gave her too us so He must trust us with her education and growth.

Yesterday we had a quiet family party with homemade pizza and cake. I made her a pull-a-part cake out of cupcakes and decorated it with Ponyo. We went with the Ponyo theme because we got her the movie for her birthday and we also let her pick out a fish. She picked out a Beta fish that is red and blue. She calls him Blue, it sounds like Bue when she says his name. She loves her new pet. She wants to hug him and doesn't understand why we can't touch the fish, but she feeds him and wants to see him when we come home or first thing in the morning. She is doing a great job of feeding him and not tapping on the glass. The cat is finally leaving Blue alone, but she still loves to watch him. We also got her a Veggie Tales DVD and some blocks and a Tinker Bell tea set and a bee Pillow pet.

Today we spent some time with the family. She got another Pillow Pet from her Aunt Deborah that is a panda. She also got a Tinker Bell costume, finger paints, clothes, a Cat in the Hat book, a Bronco bear and some other stuff from her grandparents and great grand parents. She loves all of her gifts. We went out to dinner at Red Robin and had a great time with the family. Here are some picture from this weekend.

Happy Halloween

Ella had a great second Halloween last night. She went to the Weird, Wild and Wacky show that our church put on. She dressed up as a puppy and did a great job of barking and panting. She did great with her face make up too. At the show she got a balloon dog, popcorn, a big bag of candy, her picture taken with princesses and a magic show. Our children's pastor did a great job of inter-grading Christ into his magic tricks. When asked the audience "Who here knows that Jesus loves them the most?" Ella raised her hand, it was so cute. He asked the audience lots of questions, but that was the only one Ella raised her hand to. We had so many families there that it was standing room only and we had two shows! Luckily we got a good seat right up front and Ella could see the whole show. Here are some pictures of our Halloween fun. 

 

The rest of Ella's birth story

Ella's birthday is less than two weeks away. So much has happened in two years time. Here is the original post about Ella's birthday to remember and celebrate the life that God has given us, Proverbs 22:6.

Thursday at 3:15 am I started to feel some strong menstrual type cramps, by 4 am they turned in to regular contractions at 10 min apart. I got Chris up and we started to get everything together. By 5 am we left for the hospital and my contractions were 5 min.  It was so cool and to have contractions while shivering is not fun.  So we get to the hospital and I get admitted to the triage unite. My contractions are really painful by now and I know that this must be it, because they are more painful than the last time I went to the hospital.  At 6:30 they made me walk around the halls. I hated that so much, it made my contractions every 2 min and they can so strong that I felt like crying. It was also so embarrassing to walk around and have everyone look at me in my messed up hair and hospital gown. The nurse told me to come back at 7:40 to get checked again, but by 7 I had enough and went back in. I asked for some phenyanol (sp?). So I finally get in to the delivery room. I get all set up with the IV and the pain meds.  They had to do my IV twice because the nurse couldn’t get it in the first time. I wanted to wait as long as I could to get an epidural and I think I did pretty good in timing when I needed one too. By 11 I was in a lot of pain, but I could handle it ok and I was getting half dosages of the pain meds. But my water still hadn’t broken and I knew things would get worse once that happened and I didn’t think I wanted to experience that since I was getting pretty close to my pain thresh hold. So I was for an epidural than and that went great. No problems getting that all set up, the doctor was surprised how calm I was while he put it in my back.

I was able to sleep till 2pm when I started to feel some pressure. Chris called for the nurse and she checked me and I was at 10cm and baby was right there.  So she called for my doctor and told me not to push. I waited to push till almost 45 min later when the nurse finally came back. The doctor checked me and she was said I was ready to push but they were still concerned because my water still hadn’t broken. The doctor was about to break it when it went on it’s own.  I pushed for 1 to 1 ½ hours I think ( I lost track of time).  I had enough energy from my nap that I was able to push in sets of 4 instead of 3 and I love the fact that I could feel where the baby was so I knew how much to push and when. Chris got to help hold one of my legs and see every and cut the cord. 

They had called in the NICU nurse because they thought that the baby might have had a bm. By 3:51pm little Ella came out screaming and looking beautiful. The baby didn’t have a bm, but thank God that NICU nurse was their, because Ella stopped breathing all together. Only 3 minutes old and she just stopped breathing. I didn’t know what was going on till I noticed that it got really quite. I looked up and I saw the nurse giving her CPR. I looked at Chris and I knew something was wrong. No one said anything, but soon she started crying and everyone in the room signed with relief. They don't really know why she stopped breathing. She came out screaming like a normal baby but just stopped. They also took out several ml of fluid from her lungs and put her on oxygen. They think that the fluid might have been the cause, and it was a great amount, but not 100% sure. I reviewed the birth video (yes we tapped it) and I'm not sure but she might have had the cord around her neck. There was too much excitement to understand what the doctor said at that moment.  I am so much more thankful for my little sweet pea after that. She means so much more to me that I could ever imagine after seeing her getting CPR. I am thankful too the angel or God who made the doctor second guess herself. She called for the NICU nurse than changed her mind than changed it back again. To think what might have been I could only imagine.

The problems continued after her birth. She wouldn't eat and lost a lot of weight. We tried everything and I mean everything to get her to eat. The hospital set us home with cases of ready made formula and a hospital grade pump. We discovered that she held her tongue wrong and after doing some baby massage and yoga we got it to loosen up and she was able to drink form a bottle with less hassle which made it easier for the workers in the church nursery to feed her and I didn't have to miss church just to help feed her. She also had jaundice. We had a billie blanket to take home with us and we had to use it for almost a week. I hated that thing. I couldn't hold her or carry her around. Just in time for my birthday we got the ok to take her off of that stupid thing. I hated taking her to the doctor for blood test too. Good thing my husband got to stay home with me all that week because I wasn't allowed to drive. I remember sleeping with my finger under her nose so I could tell she was breathing at night. Not a moment, a hug or a snuggle goes by without me thinking of that moment and thanking God for her life and trusting me to take care of her for Him. 

 

Pumpkin Patch

We went to the pumpkin patch today. It was so much fun that Daddy could join us this year. Ella had a blast! She went down the big slides several times with Daddy and loved it, this kid is ready for carnival rides. She loved the bunnies, all week she has been all about bunnies so she of course loved petting them and seeing them. We learned of some new bunny breads like lion, never heard of that before, but they have a main, very soft. Ella learned how to feed goats and sheep, she learned how to "Baaa". She had cow and sheep mixed up before but now we have is right. She was very smart in figuring out that the goats like the corn and the sheep like the hay and she knew which animal was which.

She had a blast playing in the corn pit just like last year but this year we made corn angels. She loved the hay ride, we didn't do this last year but this year we went and as soon as we got on she said "Yee Haw!" I have no idea where she got that, but she is a country girl for sure, after Papa's heart. The guy driving the tractor thought that was pretty cute too.She liked the blue grass band too. She wasn't too interested in the pumpkins till we got in the car. We picked one out for her because she was having too much fun throwing hay to pick, but once we got in the car she held her pumpkin home. It's just her size.

Going on 23 months and counting...

From the Balloon Classic

Ella will be 23 months old on October 6th, than a month after that she will be 2 years old! Seriously were did the time go? She is growing up so fast, I know everyone says that but it really is true.

Ella is starting to speak more clearly and she is using pronouns. She loves to sing any song, all day long. She knows all the songs from the PBS kids shows in the morning, Veggie Tales and loves to sing with daddy for choir. She is getting to be very good at acting out the moves to songs during story time too. Her counting is getting stronger and we are now working on 25-30 of our numbers. She is going great with recognizing ABC's out of order too. She knows most of her shapes and colors as well. She can follow a simple command and loves to help out around the house; heaven forbid I clean without her involvement, lol! She loves to cook to which makes me so happy. I have happy memories of sitting on the counter and helping my mom stir a bowl of cookie batter. Ella loves to help stir and measure and taste. She is so eager to get right into whatever it is am doing in the kitchen and help. I am so glad she knows 'hot' so well, I can open the oven or have her stir something that is on the stove and she knows not to touch or to get too close.

We are working on potty training and it's going so-so. She doesn't wet as often as she use to know so she may only have 3 or so accidents all week long, which isn't enough in a day to really drive home what the point of potty training is. She had a 24 hour stomach bug not to long ago and that put us behind on potty training then when we go to church she still needs to wear a diaper so it's slow going.

With Ella's birthday just around the corner it come me remembering all the events around her birth. I pulled out Ella's birth videos and watched them again. Here is a quick run down of my pregnancy leading up to the birth. I'll share the birth details in another post closer to her birthday.

I remember being sick for the first three months, almost non stop. Going to school and working while being so sick was not easy. At 10 weeks we had an ultrasound done and she moved so much, I could already feel her and tell when she had hiccups. She hardly stayed still long enough to get the measurements done. At 13 weeks I went to the ER for really bad pain that made me double over. I remember that day well, we just had lunch with Chris's aunt and cousins. Who would have known that I would be in the ER less then 5 hours latter. The doctor at the hospital kept saying I had a UTI, but I knew that was wrong. The ultrasound there showed Ella to be supper active. This was great for Chris because he missed the 10 week one, but got to see her now. She was moving more then ever. We never got an answer as to what happened that day till almost a year and a half later. We think she pulled a muscle. I had to waddle and wear a support belt right after this happened, most likely she ripped a muscle and that made my body really weak to carry her on my right side, which of course, is where she spent the next 7 months.

At 20 weeks we got an ultrasound and Ella was butt up, we know she was a girl with out a doubt with in two seconds the ultrasound starting. I knew she was a girl, mommy's intuition is never wrong. She was supper active again but looked great. The word perfect was used to describe her the entire 9 months by all doctors. No one would have guessed what would happen at birth (stayed tune to find out). The rest of the pregnancy was great. I had bad pains from her kicking and moving was hard since she ripped a muscle, but I stayed as active as I could.

On October 26th, Chris's birthday, we celebrated at home. I realized just before we had dinner that I hadn't felt the baby move all day. I drank some juice and ate some candy in hopes that the sugar would make her move. I felt her move 2 times in 30 mins. Time to go to the doctor. .We called the doctor and headed for the hospital. They monitored me and the machine was picking up movement but I couldn't feel a thing. She was kicking my spine and that is why I couldn't feel her. She was slower in her movements than what was normal for her and even for that age. So when I went back to the doctor they did another ultrasound and she was fine, still slow, but fine. A week later I thought I was leaking fluid, so we went back to the hospital again. They checked to see if the fluid was ambiotic fluid and it wasn't. So back home we went again and back to the doctors. We had another ultrasound, we had a total of 6 for the whole pregnancy. This ultrasound showed that I had a lot of fluid, enough for twins.

Stay tuned for what happens next in the saga of Ella's birth...

21 Months Old

Ella is 21 months old as of yesterday. Her second birthday is fast approaching and she is growing so fast.

So what is in the life of a 21 month old? Well she can sing songs, she loves to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Supper Why, Veggie Tales (anything from them) and ABC's. She knows her alphabet inside and out. She also knows up to 25 in her numbers. She surprised us with her numbers.She know up to 5 for the longest time then she got up to 10 recently and then 15 then a few days after that she went all the way to 25 and she did it more the once. She knows so many words and phrases now, she is always adding a new word or phrase to her list of things she knows. She still grunts for things and is learning the hard way to ask for what she wants. It is so cute because now she has started holding her hands together and begging for what she wants.

She is getting really strong too, she can pull herself up on anything and she is always moving, she doesn't sit still for much at all. She is learning to jump and hop and she almost has skipping down. She loves to color and color on everything. She loves to play with her sidewalk chalk. She loves to help out around the house and is starting to try to play games with the cat. The cat is ok with this idea some of the time.

She is starting potty training. She wants to sit on the big potty at least once a day now. She even got some toilet paper and wiped herself and flushed and washed her hands. She hasn't gone actually gone potty in the potty yet, but we will try pushing her a bit more soon. Maybe we will get some panties and try them out and she if that makes her want to do it more. She is showing signs that she is ready according to all that I have read. So we will see how this new adventure goes.

Wearing mommy's old glasses

Potty Time