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Stories
8-31-07
Okay, sorry to everyone who likes to read the stories for not updating them. Basically, the changes are so rapid that it's hard to keep up with, and.......I just don't have the time anymore!! So call me, I'll fill you in!
6/16/07 NEW!!!!!
Sorry for the delay in updates - so much to do these days with a busy "toddler". She's 16 & 1/2 months and so active. She jumps in to the pool, climbs on everything, is starting to feed herself, has a GREAT sense of humor and is starting to talk! Some of the words Ella has spoken are baby, water, shoe, Bella, bananna, wow, teeth, up, down, "NO!!", out, snack, purple, mama, daddy, color. She plays silly games with us often such as hiding a toy behind her back in the bath tub and not letting us find it. She most recently plays the game of pretending to jump into my arms then turns at the last minute to jump into Bob's arms. She is very silly! Every day it seems more and more like Ella is no longer our baby but instead a little human being with likes and dislikes. She is extremely independent. She has just learned to color in the last few weeks so that is a fun project for her to do. She loves to use sidewalk chalk and draw outside on the sidewalk.
2-19-07
Ella is definitely aware of what the word "no" means! She doesn't necessarily know what to do or how to change her behavior when she hears it, but she knows it means she is doing something she shouldn't be doing! When we say no she gets frustrated and confused looking, shakes her head, and walks away.......USUALLY! Not today though. We were outside playing, enjoying the 78 degree weather, and she picked up a rock about the size of her palm. Naturally she began to out it in her mouth. I said no and she pulled it away. She put it back into her mouth seconds later. I said "no", she pulled it away. This turned into a game for her where she was actually teasing me by putting the rock into her mouth without letting go of it but waiting for me to say no, at which time she got a sneaky look on her face and pulled it away. We must have done this 20 times until she finally got bored and threw down the rock. It was hillarious. She was definitely testing me to see how far she could push. She is very much into stacking things these days and putting things in & out of containers. We are all headed to Canada soon to go skiing so hopefully Ella will enjoy the snow again. As you can see from the photos and videos she currently enjoys putting balls in her mouth. This particular ball is a soft, squishy ball that came in a toy set from her Aunt Diane and Uncle Mark.
2-5-07
So Ella turned one! Wow, we made it a whole year. I can truly say that we made the most of every moment with her and tried to enjoy every second we had with her. Sometimes it seemed like the days were long but we never took for granted our time with her so I can say with confidence that it has been a great year. This birthday brings many changes...she has graduated into a toddler car seat and is beginning to drink regular milk. (I can't believe I made it a year!) She is attempting to say bye-bye now and her intelligence is really becoming apparent such as remembering where things are and what button turns on and off the electronic items. The bond that Ella and I have shared it the greatest joy of my life and hope it only grows stronger. Ella is still very active and sleeping well through the night (12 hours). She is still a big eater (like mommy). Meal times are major dining events for her where it takes 45 minutes to an hour for her to complete a meal that always includes fruits, vegetables, some kind of meat, crackers and maybe yogurt. Her breakfast is always oatmeal, fruit, yogurt and milk. She is walking but still not talking. Her activity level is very high. From 7am to 7pm she is go, go, go!! We had a great birthday party for Ella. She really enjoyed herself and was in great spirits all day. Grandma T. spent the weekend with us which we really enjoyed. So I can honestly say that having a child is the greatest gift of life. We are so grateful for Ella and look forward to giving her a sibling next year!
1-11-07
Wow, almost a month since my last entry! So.....the ski trip went well in CO. Ella did great in the daycare and we hope she does as well in Whistler, Canada in Feb. She got a little dehydrated being up in the mountais so we will have to watch that when we go again. Grandma T. came for a week at Christmas and we had a great time. Ella could not have cared less about gifts or wrapping paper, though she did enjoy trying to pull ornaments off the tree and got mad when we said "no". Her favorite toys are her very own feet. These days all Ella likes to do is walk around the house in circles. We call it "making laps". She loves testing out her walking skills and has really learned great balance as you can see from the video of her walking and drinking. She likes to drink water a lot. Her fun games these days are peek-a-boo and chase games. She has learned to cover her eyes (see photo) and we will say "where's Ella, where's Ella?" then she will pull her hands down and giggle giggle. She plays the game with a door and crawling in and out of a card board box too. She loves swinging doors open and closed and hides behind them. She is starting to try to run now. Bob plays chase with her at night before bath time in the living room. He creeps toward her saying "I'm gonna get you" and she turns, squeals and tries to run from him but really wants hime to catch her. Last weekend her Grandad and Shane came to visit. We went to a museum exhibit of Body Worlds. Ella really liked the creepy looking sculptures made of real decomposed human tissue. She was in great spirits at the museum. One night Ella joined us in the dining room for a fancy china and crystal dinner with fresh pesto chicken, thyme penne pasta, grilled vegetables and red wine. hahaha. She recently stayed at an hourly playcare center called KidzTime and had a ball. Ella is still extremely active and desires a lot of stimulation. She is not a real cuddly and affectionate baby because she simply doesn't seem to have time for all that. There is just too much out there in the world to explore to be bothered by mundane cuddly activity. :)
12-13-06
Ella is finally ear infection free! All cleared up and ready to go to the CO mountains tomorrow. It will be her first time to play in the snow. Of course we had to get her a snow suit so she could play and be warm.
12-6-06
The fourth tooth on the bottom has popped through so she has a total of six now. She loves to use them all too, she chews her food with the teeth in the front on top and bottom. Ella has ANOTHER ear infection but this time only on the left. She's on her 3rd antibiotic now. We are scheduled to go out of town on the 14th but may cancel if her ear is not cleared up.
12-3-06
So much to report....
Ella went through a growth spurt a week before Thanksgiving and was eating TONS of food every 3 1/2 hours (usually she goes 4 between meals). She is just coming out of it now. She shot up to a whopping 18 lbs. We are trying to give her more table foods so now at lunch and dinner we give her adult food. Sometimes she still eats baby food though. She especially likes the fruits. ShHe has never been a fan of banannas oddly enough. Currently some of her favorite foods are black olives, ham and green beans. She likes bread too. For about two weeks all she would eat are sweet potatoes but I think she is sick of them now. Ella had a double ear infection before Thanksgiving. She was on an antibiotic for 10 days. I had her ears checked after the holiday and they were not healed so she had to try a new antibiotic for 3 days. I will take her back this week. We want her healed before our next plane trip on 12-14-06 to the mountains in CO. Sat. Dec. 2nd we took her to her first trial Little Gym class. She had a ball. Lots of climbing and crawling and playing. She was so pooped out after class that she ended up taking 3 one-hour naps on Sat. AND went to bed at 7pm. That is very unusual for her. She usually only takes one or two 30 min. naps. She's still sleeping the same - down at 7 and up at 7. We are going to sign her up for a full semester of classes at the Little Gym starting in January on Saturdays at 8:30am. The semester will go for 13 weeks. Ella has been very diligent about practicing her walking. Several times a day she will practice walking to and from Bob and I. She gets this happy grin on her face when we praise her. She is so excited to be trying to walk. I am predicting she should be walking by New Year's. At this point she can take 2-5 steps without holding on but most of the time she practices with her hand on something for support.
11-25-06
Ella took two steps today at her Uncle Billy's house!! Bob and her Aunt Stephanie were sitting in the living room. Ella was standing up at the coffee table, turned around and walked to the couch (two steps). Bob and Stephanie looked at each other dumbfoundedly. Bob was thinking, "did you just see what I saw???" They both yelled out in unison that she had just walked. Unfortunately I missed because I was in the kitchen washing bottles, AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)
11-24-06
Ella took her first long car ride for the Thanksgiving holiday. It was a five hour drive. We left at 7pm, having done the evening routine of dinner, bath, rocking/quiet time first. Instead of the crib we put her in the car seat and walked out the door. She fell asleep about 7:45 and didn't make a sound the rest of the night. The first 45 minutes she just talked to us and the passing cars. We pulled in to White Hall, Arkansas at about 10 after 12 and put her into bed. She woke up and fussed a little but went back to sleep until 7:30am. Ella did GREAT on Thanksgiving with all the new people she met! There were about twelve people here and she was held by at least half without any fuss. She played outside in the grass and on the trampoline with her 22 month old cousin Conner. By the end of the day she was a filthy mess but she had a great day. She enjoyed turkey, sweet potatoes, stuffing, green beans (always a favorite), and baked potatoe casserole.
11-15-06
Bad news...Ella has an eye infection. The medical term is conjunctivitis, the slang term is pink-eye. Yuck. It's a goopy icky mess. There is no pain or discomfort for her that I can tell but it's messy and very contagious. Pink-eye can be caught by touching other kids or babies who have it, or can be caused if a baby has a runny nose and sticks her finger in her nose then puts it in her eye. I believe Ella got it by the latter because I haven't seen any kids around her that have it. Anyway, it seemed to come one yesterday so I took her to the Dr. today and got an antibiotic drop. Poor little thing. The Dr. said it should be cleared up in 3-5 days. Since her last official check up we have been trying to give her more people food vs. baby food but she's not responding real well. She likes only a few things right now that we can tell: roasted chicken pieces, raviolis, cheerios and sometimes tiny little apple pieces. She will also gum on peas, carrots, potatoes and beans. I buy the canned ones because they are very soft. She enjoys picking her cheerios up from the high chair, dropping them on the floor, and watching Bella eat them. I've put a video on that shows this new fun game.
11-8-06
Yesterday Ella stood alone on her own without support for the first time. It was only for a few seconds but she is so ready to start walking!! Today I noticed that her second front tooth FINALLY broke through. It's just a little tiny sliver but it broke through the skin.
11-5-06
Ella had her nine month check up on Friday. She is 16.13 pounds (30%) and 28 inches (70%). Her head has finally gotten bigger so now it's in the 20% range. She passed her developmental tests with flying colors. No shots for her on this visit. It seems like Ella has been trying to walk forever! She pushes the walker all over the house but hasn't let go and tried to balance on her own yet. You can see from the videos that she has taken up dancing. One day on one of her crawling excursions she came upon the stereo in our bedroom and turned it on. As soon as she heard the music she started to bounce around like she was dancing. Now it has become our morning ritual. It's amazing how many different rituals we have gone through in the last nine months. Things stick for a while and then they change. Our dinner ritual has stayed the same for a while. We begin feeding her at 6ish (give or take 20 minutes) then do bath time and bedtime at 7ish though sometimes she goes to bed a little earlier, sometimes later. She still sleeps until 7ish in the morning (thank goodness!).
10-23-06
Have you seen the vidoes? Need I say more?
10-22-06
What's new? Well, Ella has now been to a play group twice with 4-5 other babies. She loves it. At the last play group she climbed UP a flight of stairs. I didn't let her come down them. She is so incredibly close to walking it's scary! She walks sideways by holding onto....(couch, cabinets, rail, wall, whatever). She stands easily. At the playgroup she was standing at the kiddie table and chairs and fell, pulling a chair down with her. It looked like a very easy fall, something she would not normally cry over but she began crying really hard. I couldn't figure out what was wrong and just thought maybe she was tired and had enough stimulation so I took her home. Well, I soon found the problem. She wasn't tired. She had bit her lip during the fall. Her bottom teeth jammed into her bottom lip and cut her lip open on the inside. It looked awful and of course the mom guilt set in (I should have watched her more closely, yadda yadda, yadda). Her lip swelled up and got purple. It's better today from when it happened last week. She doesn't seem to be bothered by it but I felt awful. The moms at the play group can't believe how active she is. They nick-named her "turbo". Other news......Ella holds her own bottle now (so cute!), she will be attending her first Halloween festival today!
10-9-06
Ella went to the park for the first time today! She has been standing A LOT so I decide to buy her some shoes so she could stand at the park. She loved the swing and then I introduced her to dirt. Wow, she loved it. I thought it might be too rough for her but she really liked it. At first she just sat there picking it up and letting it sift through her fingers. After a while she stood up, supported by some climbing bars, and kept leaning over, picking dirt up then letting it drop out of her hand. Of course she tried to taste the dirt as well. Finally, sufficiantly comfortable with all the dirt, she made a mad crawling dash to the other side of the park. She was in a full crawl, up on her hands (no more army crawl on her forearms) and full force ahead making little snail trails behind her from her knees. I was afraid she would skin up her knees but she seemed totally fine with it so I let her go. I figure she can't be protected from all the dirty things in life forever. Also, she can't go her whole baby life without feeling dirt or grass. Her knees were red and her little shoes were filled with...you guessed it, dirt...and she loved it! When she got bored with crawling we went to an area to play with yet more dirt and several little children joined us. They asked what were were doing, to which I explained "playing with dirt" and they all decided that sounded like fun. I'm sure the other moms cringed when their kids began digging into the dirt - in fact, come to think of it, all of the children were quickly ushered away from me and left the park (hahaha!). One little 5 year old stayed and found great pleasure in burying Ella's feet in piles of dirt. Ella took delight in it as well so I let her feet get buried. It was great fun! It seemed like the appropriate night to introduce Ella to a real bath since she was so.....well, DIRTY!
10-1-06
What a week for Ella!! We went to southern CA for a whole week and she had so many new experiences!! Ella did great on the plane ride to and from CA, thanks in big part to an uncrowded plane both ways. We were able to take her to an empty row to crawl and stand in so she would be entertained. While in California Ella tried lots of new food....blue cheese stuffed olive, sundried tomatoe (she loves tomatoes), roast beef, halibut (likes fish), bread, fench fries, cheese, juice, mashed potatoes, fudge, orange soda, gelato, pretzels, mango, papaya, guava....probably more but I can't think of it. Ella saw her Grandma 7 days and met some new family members. She loved her 10 year old cousin Vinny. As soon as she saw him she scrambled over to him and wouldn't let go. Ella went to the beach for the first time, rode a carousal, a ferris wheel and went on a boat ride in the Newport Beach harbor. We all had a great time. Thanks again to all the ladies and Grandma's work who oogled and googled over Ella - you made us all feel so loved and welcome!!
9-21-06
Ella has been making so much progress lately!! We can hardly keep up with her. She is moving around so much and exploring everything. She loves to scooch around the house and pull herself into a standing position on various household items including the fireplace grill which fell on top of her last weekend. After that incident we spent the whole weekend "baby-proofing" our house. It was a terrifying experience for everyone. It's amazing how quickly you learn that babies can be very hazardous to themselves. She has had a couple of bumps and bruises from pulling herself up then falling into things. Hopefully all of the safety items we installed will help. This weekend Ella will be taking her 2nd flight. We are going to CA for a week. This will be a long trip and I'm not sure how she will do without all her toys and luxury items, hahaha. Hopefully she will enjoy the beach though. As you can see we have included videos on the webpage now and had the advertising removed (did you ever even notice it??). There is a video on the front page. We will put other videos on the FAMILY page. They aren't the best quality but will give you some idea of how she is and what her personality is like. We think she's pretty fun! :)
9-3-06
7 MONTHS OLD TODAY!!! Oh my gosh time flies! Ella is doing great! No more eye goopies, the medical procedure was a success. She is now doing what we call the army crawl. She crawls/scooches on her knees and forearms. Also, she is very insistent on trying to stand all the time. She is not much of a sitter. She's always on the move! It's so cute to help her stand. Basically if we hold her hands while she is sitting down she will start to pull on our hands for resistance to help her stand. She pulls her knees up and gets into a standing position while holding our hands. We praise her a lot which she just EATS up! You can actually see her face light up when we tell her what a good job she did. In fact, while she pulls herself up she is looking at our faces. It seems as though she is looking to see if we are watching what she is doing so she can get praise. It's amazing to see that a 7 month old already knows if she is doing well at something. She was also like this at only 2-3 months old when we taught her how to roll over. Every time we would teach her and she would do the
slightest roll we would go crazy with praise which would just make her face beam!
8-24-06
Our sweet baby Ella had a Dr. appointment today that did not sit well with mommy! She has been having "goopy-eye" as Bob and I call it. Basically what happened is the tear duct never really openned up in one of her eyes. It has been clogged so she had to go and get it unclogged today. The Dr. had to strap her down in what was like a velcro body suit so she would stay still. He stuck something in the duct and said he felt it pop so he knows he got it. This is pretty common, it happens to lot's of babies. I could not go in the room with them so Bob did. He whispered to her while she was being treated. I stayed in the other room and plugged my ears because I couldn't bear to hear her screaming. Overall Bob said she was totally fine. The procedure did not hurt her, she was just mad because they strapped her down. He said as soon as they took the straps off she was totally silent. Something funny that Ella has been doing is staring intently as us when we eat. She studies our mouths very carefully. Now when she eats she moves her jaw up and down like she is chomping. She is confused that with the baby food she doesn't need to "chew" but she likes to copy our mouths. It's funny to watch.
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