Ella & the train

Ella LOVES trains. It started with her receiving "The Little Engine That Could" book from the Reading Railroad program they have here in Tennessee (she gets a free book each month until she turns five). That book became her favorite, and she carried it around with her everywhere.
We live near a train track & now every time one goes by she runs to the storm door to watch it. Anthony sometimes shows her train videos on youtube to keep her entertained. It works magically until he tells her they're all done watching them.
We just happened to be outside playing a week or so ago & one came by. You can see in the first few seconds of the video how excited she gets about them.

Happy Holidays

Sorry to leave you with such a depressing post for so long. I meant to post this one on Christmas, but alas, one sugar-hyped toddler & not enough time to cook, pack & get ready to go pick up Wesley before heading to my parents' house interfered. So, my holiday wishes to blogland are late just like the Christmas cards I mailed two days before Christmas. Better late than never, right?

I hope you and yours had a very Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year.
Anthony & I saw a little decade in review on the news tonight. They started with the ball dropping at midnight marking the beginning of 2000, & I said to him, "I remember where I was that night." I can figure out what I was likely doing on most new year's eve's in the last fifteen years or so based on what year it was, but I actually remember December 31, 1999, where I was, who was there, what movie we were watching & the games we were playing, who I was there with. I remember how excited I was about 2000. After all, I was a high school senior & would be starting college somewhere that fall. My, how things change in ten year's time. I was so young then, still very naive and innocent, & on my way out of the angst-filled teenage years. The last ten years have flown by. It seems like I just blinked and went from that young girl to being the wife & mother of two.

Sorry, didn't mean to ramble on like that. Here's the picture we sent out in our Christmas cards this year (it's not the best one we've taken, but not the worst either).

Loads of videos to share...

Thanks to my very kind father-in-law, Greg, we have a new Flip video camera. I love it. Although I'm sure we will still use our more hefty Sony handycam, this little baby is so simple & compact & still gives what I think is a great picture (for our use at least, which is basically just watching the videos at home or loading them on here for friends & family to see). Okay, end of commercial, now to the videos.

I know I owe you since it's been more than a month (don't say I didn't warn you that posts would be scarce with me being back in school), so I have several videos to share from the last week or so since I tore into my Christmas present a little prematurely. For the record, Greg, Anthony made me do it.

This is what happens when Daddy supervises snack time. Ella loves pretzels, but she loves pretzels dipped in Nutella even more.



Ella playing around with her clothes basket. She was walking all over the house with it on her head. Of course when I tried to record it she wouldn't put it back on for me.



Ella & I going down the big slide at Santa's Village, an annual event that our city's Parks & Recreation dept. puts on. The admission is either toys or canned food, which they then give out to needy families for Christmas. We don't have any pictures/video of the decorations, but they always have this enormous Christmas tree & an 'enchanted forest' that the kids enjoy, too. Wesley didn't get to go with us this year because he was gone to his dad's all weekend, so that's why he's missing from all the videos.

This video is a little loud so you might want to turn down your speakers a little before you hit play. You can't hear her over the noise, but Ella kept saying, "Wee," as we were coming down the slide. You can see her pull back when we get to the gate because she wanted to go again.



Ella LOVES trains.



Ella doing some crazy dancing.



Wesley is also missing from most of these because he's camera shy. You can see his reaction when he sees the camera in this one. We were trying to get Ella to say all the words she knows. I forgot to ask several of them, like fish ("pish") and more ("moe").



You can see more videos from Santa's Village & around the house if you go to my youtube page (it should link to it at the end of any of the above videos).

What a pair...

We had a cute, cuddly elephant & a very scary grim reaper on our hands for Halloween last weekend.


I feel like Wesley's costume deserves an explanation. Most everyone that reads our blog knows that Wesley visits his dad every other weekend. It just so happened that Halloween fell on his dad's weekend this year, so he had the pleasure/responsibility of costume hunting. And, hunt he did. Wesley's first pick was Iron Man. I'm not sure how many stores were visited in search of said costume, but there were none to be found in Wesley's size. So, they moved on to a G.I. Joe costume. Same song, different verse. I never asked for details, but I assume they were to the point that they just had to take what was left. Anyhow, an hour or so of hair & makeup & my sweet, wholesome boy was transformed into a grim reaper. Anthony, Ella & I stopped in Dover to see him & take these pictures. We were there for a good 30 minutes, and I honestly don't think Ella ever recognized it was Wesley. She kept giving him the funniest look. I'm surprised she sat next to him long enough to get a picture of them together.

Dancing Baby

This video is so cute!

Rug photos

I got behind last year posting Ella's rug pictures from each month & just gave up. I was recently working on a photo book to give one of my parents for their birthday & this is one of the pages I put in there. It's crazy how fast they grow that first year, huh?

The price you pay for having a daddy's girl

I'm pretty sure it's worth it to him. And, I have a feeling he'll be joining many a tea party in the future. But, shhh, don't tell him I posted these on here.




I used to feel a little bad that Ella favored me over Anthony. She wanted me when she was hurt or tired. She only gave me kisses. She wouldn't go to sleep for him. But then... then I weaned her & it's been all down hill for me since then. She did a 360 is all about daddy all the time now. Except, if you listened to the video of her talking, she doesn't call him daddy. She calls him momma. When I tell her no & she pitches a fit, guess who she goes running to? And when she's exhausted and weepy about everything, guess who can get her to stop crying? Not me. She would stand at the window & watch him mow the yard for hours (if it actually took that long to mow it). Is it wrong that I'm a little jealous of how much she adores him now?

She's becoming a talker

Ella has a few words in her repertoire now.

She's been saying these for at least a month or two:
Ball - "bahl"
Uh-oh - "huh-hoh"
Momma
Bye-bye
(She was saying "da-da" for a long time, but she stopped a few months ago & has taken to calling Anthony & pretty much any other caregiver as well as Wesley by "ma-ma")

Just in the last couple weeks she's added:
Kitty - "ki-ki"
Shoes - "dues"
Ow - "ohww"
Thank you - "de-de"
No - "nahh"

I got her to say most of them in these videos. Warning: she bumps her head on the desk in the first one, but she's okay. Oh, and we let her play with the (non-toxic) highlighter because she likes taking the top off & putting it back on, but we don't let her put it in her mouth.

The many faces of Ella

I was sorting through some older pictures tonight (trying to get caught up with uploading some to flickr from last November until now) and found a sequence of pictures from Ella's monthly photo shoot at the end of November. She has some of the cutest & funniest faces.

So serious.

Dancing Queen and other videos...

Ella loves to dance. She cracks us up every time she does it, too. I think Anthony & I could be entertained all night just watching her boogie down in the living room. Here are a couple videos of her doing her thing to Dave Matthews Band and to some bluegrass music (Anthony even joined in for that one - shh, don't tell him there are videos of him dancing posted on the internet).






Here's one just for Sunny. She sent these squeaker shoes for Ella to wear. They're still a little bit big, but Ella loves shoes so I put them on her one day. This was her reaction...



I don't think I'll be sending her to daycare in those any time soon. Her teachers might want to kill me if I did.

Like I said, the girl loves shoes. We had to go shoe shopping for shoes for Anthony a few weeks ago. We didn't find any for him, but we left with a pair for her. We found out that you don't 'try' shoes on Ella unless you intend for her to wear them out of the store. She usually has to ride in a buggy in stores so she was really happy that she got to walk around all over the store in her new (slightly too big) shoes.



Disclaimer: that fall at the end of the video looks way worse than it was. This one was a few seconds later...



And, a couple from when Anthony's dad was visiting last month & the kids were playing in their new pool and on the slip n' slide.





Sorry about the video overload. I had a lot that I needed to upload and post.
I'm hoping to get a new video camera for Christmas so I won't have to use my dinky cell phone one anymore.

One Year Ago

Do you ever look through your digital pictures from exactly a year ago? I do sometimes to see what we were doing on that day a year, two years, three years ago (my digital pictures only go back to 2006). I was recently looking through them to find a picture I had taken of my father-in-law and Ella when he was here last year to compare to one I took of them together when he was here a few weeks ago. What a difference a little more than a year makes, huh?

Ella and Grandpa G - April 2008

Ella and Grandpa G - June 2009
She was too busy playing to want to take a picture -
about a second after this she was running around again.

And, a couple pictures of her from exactly a year ago (at least exactly a year from the day I started writing this post about a week ago). She was just about rolling over and was all chubby cheeks and chubby legs. Now she's all over the place and into everything and (sadly) losing her baby chubbiness (if that's even a word).

Uh-oh Someone Got In Trouble

Look what came home with Ella's gram (a daily sheet from daycare where they record what she eats, when she sleeps, etc.) today...

Yes, our sweet, chubby cheeked little girlie actually bit one of her "friends" today. I was a little shocked when they told me this afternoon. She's never bit any of us at home, except for once when I was fishing around in her mouth for new teeth - couldn't blame her for that one, though.

Wesley went through the biting stage quickly & with very few incidents. Let's hope it's the same for Ella.

Edited to Add: I talked to her teacher the next day and found out the poor little girl that Ella bit had just moved up to that class. It was her first day. What a horrible initiation! I saw the bruise on her tiny little arm. Yes, a bruise! I almost starting crying for her.

Don't Trust A Girl Left Alone With A Package of Oreos

Earlier this evening I was on the phone with my sister-in-law while finishing up dinner. Ella was in the living room playing with a nearly empty package of Oreos. She was shaking it like a maraca, making lots of noise. It got quiet for a minute, so I went in to check on her. When I saw her I started laughing so hard I couldn't even explain to Lynsey what she had done.

Luckily there were only two in the package. She had already eaten one when I got in there. She quickly stuffed the second in her mouth & devoured it, too. Then, she tried to wash it down with some milk (her momma taught her well). Alas, the glass was empty (thank goodness for that). That next to last picture is her excited face. She scrunches up her nose when she's really happy or excited - so cute!

After cleaning her up & eating dinner she went straight into the pack 'n' play so she didn't create any more mischief.

































In my defense, I usually don't leave packages of food lying around in her reach. She's getting in three teeth at the same time. We had a rough night last night. She woke up after being in bed for maybe 45 minutes and thought it was party time. I think we both passed out on the couch around 11:30.

Her name...

I saved this post as a draft a couple months before Ella was born last year since we were keeping her name a secret. I just saw it the other day & realized I had never posted it.

Made this with a neat little site called Spell with Flickr. It uses images from Flickr to spell your word. Pretty cool.



mine...

Anthony's...



and, Wesley's...

just a cute picture

Try to look at this picture & not smile. Just try.

I bet you can't. At least, I know I can't.

Videos as promised...

Well, I thought I had some video of both kids on my phone, but it looks like I only have Ella in these (Wesley is taping the last one, at least).

I don't know what it is with children & appliances, but Ella loves messing with the dishwasher. Just the other day she figured out how to crawl up on the door, stand up & hold onto the top basket.



Anthony insists that Ella hasn't really said her first word yet, but I'm convinced her first word was 'bye' followed very closely by 'dada' as evidenced below. She had woken up from her nap & he was gone so she went to the door & was looking for him. I was trying to keep her from seeing me so it's kind of dark, but you can hear her calling for him loud & clear.



Swinging in the backyard swing. This swing has had lots of love because it was Wesley's when he was a toddler. She gets so excited when we walk around to it & will just laugh & laugh sometimes when she's swinging. The girl loves being outside & loves to swing.



All these are from March. I guess I need to get the video camera out a little more. Wesley's playing baseball again so I'll try to remember to get some of him to post here. He's doing so well & has become so much more coordinated just in the last year.

Guess who took her first step(s) yesterday?

I'll give you two guesses, but I bet you only need one.

Yay for Ella! And Yay that Daddy & Mommy (& Wesley) got to see her take her first step(s) (she took several towards her daddy in the backyard)!

She also got in her sixth tooth, visited the doctor to find out she has bronchitis & an eye infection and got to swing in her toddler swing that Daddy put up for her (which she loves). It was a big day for Ella.

Sorry, no pictures with this post. The little toot decided to revolt against bedtime, so I'm trying to wrangle her and get her to settle down and get this posted at the same time.

As promised...

Pictures of Ella's birthday party...

Some of the decorations - this was after the party. Wesley was in such a rush to get things cleaned up (can't remember now why) that I didn't get a picture with all of it up.

She opened presents first (in her pretty party dress). Don't mind the red mark on Ella's cheek - she had a run-in with a shelf at daycare the day before & the shelf won (perfect timing for her party).
Of course we had to play with some of her new presents for a few minutes...

Wesley was doing more playing with them here than Ella - for some reason she wanted to sit on my father-in-law's feet & posing for the many cameras pointed at her.

Her cake *before*

Ella *before*

During... She wouldn't grab a handful (only little ladylike pinches of the frosting) so I helped a little. She thought it was some good stuff. (Click to see larger)

Ella *after* - She had a little cake facial going on.

A few seconds after this shot she wiped her eyes with her hands like she does when she's tired & got icing in her eyes & started crying so cake time was over.

The cake *after*

Many thanks to my sister, Megan, for taking these photos & Sunny for shooting the video so Anthony & I could focus on Ella.