A little update

It's been awhile since I last updated. Things have been kinda slow around here, so not much to report.

In February, Grandma and  Papa came down on Valentine's Day. We had fun making dinner in their tiny hotel kitchen and watching Ponyo. Ella loved it a lot, because their hotel room was right next to the play ground, and of course she loves her grandparents too.

Our church started doing Saturday night services and that has been quite the change for our family schedule, but much needed now that Chris is working on the weekends. We had some trouble with the nursery staff understanding what gluten is and what snacks Ella can have. Most of the people in the children's area know of her food issues, but with the new service there were new volunteers that didn't know the situation. After voicing my concerns that problem was taken care of and now Ella can enjoy snacks again at church.

We've been very lucky this winter and haven't had any major sickness. We just all finished having a bad 24-48 hour stomach bug, praise God that it didn't last as long as last years. This has been the first year that Ella and I have been gluten (and other food allergy free) all winter long. I think that might of had something to do with the fact we hardly got sick.

Other news is that we've been looking into preschools for Ella. We want to home-school and nothing has changed our mind about that, but Ella is so smart that we thought she might get more out of a preschool then what we can do for her right now. Her brain is about a year ahead, but her body and attention spans is still of a 2 year old. We thought that maybe going to school 2 times a week might help her. We did find one school that we really liked, but it's a private school. They don't cost as much as some other preschools, but it would still be a pretty penny in the end. They said if we could get Ella potty trained by fall they would move her up a level to the 3 year old class, instead of keeping her in with the toddlers because she will be 3 after the semester starts. We like that idea and it gives us some motivation for potty training, but we are exploring other ideas.

One idea is doing a dance or gymnastics class. She loves to dance and she is such a little monkey that she would enjoy doing either. We just have to find the right one and for the right price. We did find one gym that teaches some basic life and community skill lessons with their gym lessons. They also offer home-schooling pricing which is a plus!  So much to think and pray about over the summer as we try to find what is the best thing for our smart little Ella. She has plenty of time before we need to get really serious about school, maybe one more year. We did put her on a waiting list of a home-schooling group that works with the best charter school in town. It is so good that even for the home-schooling program you need to be on a list. For the normal school you need to get your kids on the waiting list on the day they were born. So we will see if we even have a change of getting in.

So that is all from our family.

January Fun

Ella has been doing a lot of growing lately. She looks taller, even though she wont stand still long enough for me to measure her. I assume her weight is about the same, but growing is growing. Her hair has grown a lot and it is finally long enough to put in pig tales. She has also dropped her nap. So things are little more challenging for mom and dad, but if she is ready than so be it. We have been using that time for learning and crafts.

Her vocabulary is growing everyday. She is always asking what something is called. She is really learning her nouns. She is starting to understand that something might have more than one name like kitty is also be called Sophia.  Her clarity in her speech is really improving. She is saying more full sentences as well. She is always making two things talk to each other, it could be her own hands, two toys, the salt and pepper shakers, or anything that is in her reach. She has most of the alphabet down in sign language and she knows the sounds that most of the letters make too. She is always counting.  She loves wearing her costumes and playing dress up. She recently discovered our stethoscope and is having lots of fun listening to everything.

With winter finally hitting our part of the world we've been able to do some sledding. There are lots of little hills around our house which are just Ella size. She loves the snow and doesn't mind the cold at all.

We got a chance to go to the zoo too. Gotta love winter here, 70's one day and -29 the next. We went to the zoo with some of Ella's little friends. We had a great time, even though it was kinda cold for some of the animals and we didn't some of them.

We got to have lunch with Ella's Great-aunt Janice. This was Ella's and mine, second time seeing her. We all had a great time talking and spending the little bit of time we had together. Ella really likes her great-aunt. She enjoyed playing with her jewelry and didn't want her to leave when it was time to go.

Christmas and New Years

We had a good Christmas, Ella made out like a thief. She got a lot of stuff this year and all of it she loves and most of it is educational. She got a key board and some other music stuff, because this kid has skills and rhythm. She got some dress up stuff and a lego table. She got a great kitchen from her Grandma and Papa, it is very cool and she loves it. She got a back pack with her nick name on it, dvd's, puzzles, Japanese style pj's from her aunt, and fiddlesticks, and lots of other great stuff too. Her Grandma and Papa came down Christmas afternoon and stayed a few days. Daddy's side of the family came over the next day and we all went out to the Olive Garden and she got more stuff. Mommy came down with either a nasty cold or the flu the day after Christmas and is still recovering, but thankful Ella nor Daddy have gotten it so far.

Watching Tinker Bell with her Thinker Bell doll while wearing her Tinker Bell costume.

Her kitchen and a new doll.

Making music.

Gotta to have Grandma read stories during a visit.

Japanese style pj's.

We stayed home for New Years too. Mommy was still sick, but made pizza for the family. We watched movies and played with Ella's new toys. Than Mommy and Daddy watched some tv on the computer after Ella went to bed. I think the cat was the only one who stayed up for midnight.

This year has been crazy and we are ready for what ever God brings us. 

Allergies

The word allergies is common in our house hold and family. Gluten allergy runs in the family, on both sides, and dairy and now nuts. We knew that Ella would inherit some allergies and so far she is following suite with mommy. I have 25 food allergies, most of which are dairy and legumes, so it was no surprise when we thought Ella might have a peanut allergy.

It all started before she was 1. I made stir fry with peanut oil, not even thinking that a babe under 1 should have stir fry with peanut oil. She ate some of it and smeared the sauce all over her face. Later that night, even after a bath, her face and hands where red. It was a warm day and we had been outside, so part of me wondered if it was the sunscreen. But she never reacted to sunscreen after that day so it must have been the peanut oil. So I held off as long as I could to introduce peanuts to her.

One day, soon after her second birthday, she got into her daddy's lunch bag and found a peanut butter power bar and ate half of it. We watched her very closely and decided we might as well take the steps to introduce peanuts to her. So we made peanut everything and tried to get her to eat it, she didn't seem to care for it and in my experience that means she might have a physical issue with the food. So we kept at it trying to get her to eat peanut butter. She finally started to eat plain peanut butter and her face turned red. Just red right around her mouth. At this time she also has eczema around her mouth from having so many colds and from us cleaning her nose. When she ate the peanut butter her eczema spread from around her mouth and up into her eyes. We tried one more test of peanut butter a few days later and the same thing happened again. So I called the doc and sure enough we got orders to see an allergist.

The allergist and his staff were very nice and understanding, they even played with Ella during her test and she did great! We did a scratch tests for peanuts and other common nuts. We talked about family history and other food reactions that I have and that she has and we came to the conclusion that she has a mild allergy to peanuts. This is good news, because it won't kill her if she has peanut oil french fries or sneaks another one of daddy's power bars. We are told to avoid all nuts till she is old enough to have a blood test done. Her body is still growing and she may grow in or out of this, it's hard to say. But now we know and it's good. She loves sunbutter, it's great. I made Muddy Buddies with it and she loves it. She also loves to dip her carrot sticks in her sunbutter. So I'm happy and she is healthy and happy.

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.