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. 

 

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.