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

Sophia

I don't mention Sophia very often, but she is out pretty kitty. I call her the fuzzy first born since she is my first baby and she truly is a member of our family.

Today Ella was coloring on the patio with sidewalk chalk and Sophia was out there with her. She is an indoor only kitty, but she feel comfortable enough to go on the patio. As soon as a car drives by she runs back inside. She is really good about not getting on the railing or using my pots as her litter box, most of the time she she stretches and takes in the fresh air. Today, while Ella was coloring, Sophia took it upon herself to have a dirt bath. Needless to say, my pretty black and white kitty turned blue and yellow. So she got a bath, which she purred during the entire time. She use to get baths once a month, but since Ella was born it's more or less once a year. She use to get baths because when she adopted her she had kennel cough and was so dirty she wouldn't clean herself. So if she gets too dirty she stops bathing herself and we have to do it then she keeps up her coat in between baths.

A Week With The Fam

We just got back from spending a week with my family. We drove up on the 4th of July and had a good drive, minus one little hick up, but not too bad. It was pouring rain by the time it was time for fireworks. So we all got in the back of my moms SUV and parked in the schools parking lot to watch them from the hatch back of the car. It was quite chaotic and fun having thee adults and three kiddos climbing all over each other trying to get comfortable and get a good view of the firework show. Ella and her cousin Liam kept going up in the front seat to be with their grandparents, although, I think in the end it was more for the buttons and honking the horn.

Monday we spent some time with Chris's parents at a local park, they watched Ella play on the swings then they took us to lunch. Later that night we went to dinner at the American Legion. All the people there thought Ella was the cutest thing. She did very well on her hot dog. I guess she likes them grilled, not microwaved.


Tuesday and Wednesday were rainy days so we didn't get to have lots of fun outside. Grandma and I spent out time baking and making food. Thursday was finally sunny and Ella got spend some time in the sandbox in the backyard. She had so much fun that when were brought her inside for dinner she kept digging in Grandma's potted plants!

Friday was an awesome day. We went to Sandstone Ranch for a play date with her cousins. They have this water park thing at the park, where it shoots up water from the ground and then the kids can run through it. They also had a sandbox with a water pump so you can make sand castles or a river, very cool for being a land locked state. All of the equipment at the park was very little kid friends and I liked that alot. We had a good picnic at the park and Aunt Kelly brought their big bubble wond and made friends with all the kids at the park.  We finished the day with an excellent dinner and a good time playing outdoors.

Saturday the cousins came over while their mom worked and we had a good time. We went to the park and flew a kite (more or less, Liam running around with the kite) and played in the play ground. Then the kids watched movies and played in the back yard. Then Papa took the five of us out to dinner at Jacks and it was very good food. Ella liked her grilled chicken that they made just for her and I had a good taco salad; Grandma, Papa and Chris enjoyed buffalo burgers.

Sunday was a crazy day. We started off welcoming a new baby into the family then Chris's sister got married in the afternoon. So asking an almost 2 year old to sit through two church services in one day when she has never been in a church services was asking a lot. She did well and I think she stole the show at the wedding. She did a better job at dancing the twist then most of the adults, it was supper cute.

It was a good week and a much needed week, but I am glad to be back home and get back into the swing of things. Although, I am going to miss Grandma's help with Ella It was so nice to see her get so attached to her grandparents, especially when they only get to see her once a month of less.

Here are some pics from this weekend.

End of an Era

Ella has been fighting bed time more then normal in the last few weeks. We usually sit in the rocking chair by her bed and read her a story then tuck her in. Well, as soon as we opened the book she would start to wiggle her way out of our arms and onto her bed. So story time became very short. So by following her lead we now let her climb into bed, give her a book to look at then read her a story. Sometimes she sits up in bed and we read to her the story she has and she helps turn the pages. Sometimes we take turns. She looks at her book and gets read a different story then we switch books. She is getting more out of story time by doing this because she is more active in her listening and her story times are longer and we can finish a book once again. Sometimes we even read the same story several times till she is tired. We got a story called "Peek A Boo" at the library and she LOVES that book. It's her favorite game, she plays peek a boo everywhere we go and with everyone. It's a great way to keep her out of trouble when we are out and about. I think we will be renewing that book soon and maybe it will show up at her 2nd birthday or under the tree, who knows ;)

Happy Memorial Day

Happy Memorial Day everyone and thank you to those who serve and gave their lives for our freedom.

As I stated in my last post we go to the zoo alot. Today was no different.  We went this time just the three of us and had some nice family time. We went first thing this morning so we got to see some of the animals that we normally don't get to see or at their most active. We took our time and let Ella be the guide since we go so often it was nice to mix it up a bit. So here are some pictures of some animals that we normally don't see.

Wolves

Cougar

Zookeeper feeding albino wallaby baby

Alligator 

Naked mole rat

Moose

More zoo

We go the zoo alot, good thing we got a pass. This time we went with Ella's cousins. They had a good time even thought it was very hot. Ella had a blast laughing at her cousins on the way to the zoo; they were making faces at her. Asher, the oldest, took great care of his little cousin and helped me push the stroller and stayed with Ella while we walked around. Too bad Liam was in a hurry to see everything and missed everything at the same time. Over all I think it was a good trip. We plan on going just the three of us on Memorial Day. Here are some pics of our trip from today.