Bye-Bye

That's Ella's new word. She said it for the 1st time today and I couldn't help but clap and jump up and down. Of course, this made her laugh and say it again and again. She even said it to Will on the phone. So, I have hope once again that one day our daughter will be able to communicate with us verbally. :-)

And those tiny feet are growing. Just the other day, she saw a picture of herself w/her shiny, black shoes. She did the shoe sign, then led me into her room and pointed to the closet. I got the shoes out for her to put on, but alas they would not fit. I almost cried right there. I just got them for her in Nov-how do those feet grow so fast?

And I must tell you about the treasured sounds in our house.

Daddy reading to Ella...Daddy laughing b/c Ella's laughing at a picture...and Daddy singing

Down in the valley, valley so low
Hang your head over, hear the wind blow,
Hear the wind blow, dear, hear the wind blow,
Lean your head over, hear the wind blow

Roses love sunshine, violets love dew
Angels in heaven know I love you
Know I love you, dear, know I love you
Angels in heaven, know I love you.

Can anything be sweeter?

Interesting Little People

Yes, that's my underwear Ella is trying on...
So, the other night Will and I were rehashing the day's events and he said, "Babies are such interesting little people." Ah, indeed. Shall I explain?

First of all, we were laughing at how Ella understands so much at her young age. We asked her to shut the door to the BR as we were both resting in bed still and didn't want her wandering around the house by herself. She walked up to the door, then hesitated. We could see her thinking-"Hmmm, if I shut this door, that means I can't get out since I can't reach the door knob yet. But Mommy and Daddy told me to shut it and I should obey. But I really don't like feeling trapped in one room.....and on and on, we could see those wheels turning. Finally she decided to shut it. Whew! Hard decision.

Ella also wants us to kiss her boo-boos and lately has a new way of getting extra kisses. If she hurts her foot for example, she'll do the hurt sign, and I'll kiss her foot. She'll smile b/c it's all better now, but then she'll start pointing to other places she wants me to kiss (tummy, head, head again but a different spot, etc). It's hilarious!

And she's a very determined little girl. She pulls, inches her way up, grabs hold of anything and everything to get to the top (of the bed, of the chair, etc). She doesn't let her small stature deter her one bit. And oh how proud she is of herself when she makes it! Lately, her greatest feat is climbing onto our bed and immediately reaching over to the nightstand to turn on the radio on Daddy's alarm clock.
Music comes on...she starts dancing.
She gets tired of it and turns it off.
Decides to dance again and turns it on.
Song goes off and people start talking.
BORING-it goes off.
And on and on it goes until Mommy decides it's time for a new activity.

She can be so intense too-just give her some crayons and watch as she gets very, very close to the page and makes her mark just so. She looks up at me and beams and then leans down again to get oh so close to make another mark. Too cute.

And, give her a new book or one she hasn't read in awhile, and she'll go off to her own corner and sit down and turn all the pages, soaking it all in. The other day she was "reading" The Monster at the End of the Book. On the last page Grover puts his hands on his head and says, "I'm so embarrassed." She proceeded to mimic the look then and later at the dinner table. What fun babies are!

And of course she loves playing peek-a-boo. Will recently got me some roses just b/c (isn't he sweet?) and Ella and I have been playing our game-poking our head around the vase. It never fails to bring a smile to her face. Oh, and I have a sad note to report...especially for dear Emily. Ella no longer puts her hands straight out for "bunny" anymore. She balls up her hands and put them under her chin now...but she still makes the cutest biting face.

Today Ella had a play date w/John Michael (sorry no pics)-they did well together-still parallel play but they were pretty good about sharing and it made me so happy to see a baby that wasn't bigger than Ella and wouldn't bowl her over (of course, he's 6 months younger, so....) The girl/mom time w/Cil was definitely needed and much appreciated. Sometimes I wonder, "Does any other baby do this?" It's nice to know they do. However, I'm not sure if any other baby has a fetish w/her Mommy's underarms while nursing. Ella's had this for several months...she loves to pick or pinch away at them while nursing-and the other hand is usually holding a book we've just read together-crazy, right? This child has to have both hands occupied at all times. When I'm not around to pinch, she sucks her fingers w/one hand and pinches at her neck w/the other. VERY interesting baby.
Anywho, back to the play date. This was the first time I've seen Cil since she told me she was expecting again-she looks great-19 weeks along and you can barely tell she's expecting. Ah, to have that problem. :-) (I was already doing the rubber band thing w/the button of my jeans at 13 weeks!)

So, now you're updated on Boosie's latest antics. I'm sorry I haven't posted in awhile-thus, why you're reading such a long post-I couldn't log on to Blogger. I tried all the help tricks, nothing worked. Then I remembered I had deleted Internet Explorer 7 and gone back to the old version b/c the new one was getting on my nerves. Turns out, I have to have the new one to access my account. So, back on it went. I'm just thankful God allowed us to figure it out-it was hurting me not to be able to post anything. Writing posts and receiving comments is very therapeutic, you know.
:-)

B/T/W, I'm getting extremely excited about our upcoming bed and breakfast getaway. It's less than a week away. Yippee!

Ramblings

Have I told you about Ella's Stevie Wonder impersonation? For whatever reason, while she's eating in her highchair, she'll close her eyes and move her head back and forth to some beat heard only to her. It's quite cute to watch.

Well, we finally got our carpets cleaned-we've never done the entire house until now-(only did the den and hallway before Ella was born), so it was definitely needed. The only sad thing is that even the professionals couldn't get the slushy spill out. It's a lighter pink now and covered by the recliner, but unfortunately, it's still there. We've since learned our lesson about drinking slushies in the den when Ella is anywhere around.

Oh, and Will got a couple new things from Cabelas; a new deer target which Ella is completely fascinated with, and an infant/toddler life jacket that actually fits Ella. The other one was a quick pick-up from Walmart on our way to the lake. It was actually made for babies 30lb. and up, so we found this one on the Cabelas site. It's made so that babies stay facing up in the water, and it has a handle to quickly yank the baby out in case she falls in. Makes me feel safer about going to the lake.

I decided my blog needed a new look-I'm one of those people that can only stand things to be the same for so long, and then I have to change something! I recently changed our den furniture around, and both Will & I love the new arrangement. He can stretch out on the couch and I can lean back in the recliner. For some reason, we never used the recliner where it was positioned before.

Hope you enjoy the new pics. Have a wonderful Saturday, everyone.

Wonderful Day

Will, Ella, and I had a marvelous time yesterday. Went to the lake to take Will's boat out for awhile. It was Ella's first time in a boat-she didn't quite know what to think while we were going fast, but when we stopped in a cove for a fishing/nursing break, she started to enjoy it more. She pointed out all the leaves floating in the water ("Dah!" "Dah! "Dah!), and enjoyed her first fishing lesson from Will. After the boat ride, Ella had a blast at the small park near the boat landing. She went down all the slides all by herself-even the tall, curvy one! Of course we were waiting to catch her at the end. She cried when we left and waved bye-bye to them-so pitiful. We're definitely going to have to get her a play set soon. We want a wood one but they're quite expensive, so Will's planning on building her a small one instead.

The greatest thing was just being on a nature outing w/my family. We really need to do things like this at least once a month-it's so refreshing for all of us.

Thanks to Chuck, I know a new way of posting lots of pics at once; enjoy the slide show!

YAY!

Weighed Ella yesterday and she was 21 lbs! I'm thrilled that the new plan worked. Here's Ella's new phrase for the week:

"Doy, Doy, Dat."

Sometimes, she adds an extra "Dat." You should try saying it; it's fun and relieves stress. :-)
Some others she's had for awhile, "Bap!" and "Fu-bah." Now, if we could just figure out what they all mean.

Got Milk?

Not for much longer, I'm afraid. I'm very sad to report that Ella is starting to wean herself. Just in the last few days she has gone from 5 to 3 feedings a day. The morning and night is still the longest (15 min) and the one during the day is between 8-10 min. The other two were just small snacks anyhow-6-8 min. max. but I just thought that she would wean more gradually. You know drop one feeding, then a week or two or three later, drop another. Hopefully, she'll stick to 3 for awhile, so I don't have to go through a box of Kleenex anytime soon. My little girl is growing up....that's good but hard for a Mommy to take.

The only good part of this is that it means Will & I will be able to do a mini-vacation sooner rather than later. Maybe we'll just make it a procreation vacation. :-)

At Ella's recent 18 month well visit, I was talking to Amy about wanting to just have 1 night away at a B&B near my parents' house but feeling like it was impossible since she was still nursing. Her advice was "Go! Definitely! You and Will need a night off. She can't think the world revolves around her forever. And one night without BF won't kill her or stop your milk flow." She of course said I could pump if I felt it necessary. (I'm hoping I won't need to; I really hate pumping!) So, we've got our sights set on February; now I just need to let my parents know that!:-)

By the way, she's still right under 20 lbs.(19.5) and 29.75 inches. She was 19.1 at 12 months, so Amy was a little concerned. She said Ella's obviously so active and burning almost all the calories she's eating during the day, so I need to up her protein and calories a little more. I'm supposed to weigh her in about a week and see if the new menu has worked; I'll let you know how that goes. The main thing is I don't want to stunt her growth. Her growth chart curve is starting to go downward; never a good sign. Amy said I should probably start her on some whole milk too. I've tried to no avail. Tried organic whole milk by itself (cold and warm) and in a shake. She just spit it out. Our next try is going to be goat's milk. Then soy after that.

On a different note, Ella knows a few more signs like please and thank you. Maybe I shouldn't have taught her "please." Now if she wants anything and I say "no," she does the sign...hard to resist, so I'm quickly learning the art of redirecting. You know, "No, Ella, Mommy had to put the broom away, but how about we play with your corn popper instead?"

She's learned the gun sign as well-I had to teach her b/c she kept hearing popping noises outside and wanted to know what they were. (Pointing outside, saying "Du, Du, Du?") Don't worry; it's just the nearby shooting range she hears. She also pretends she's hammering when she sees/hears Daddy doing it. And if she's in the right mood, she'll blow kisses to us.

And today our little girl had 2 more firsts. She took 1 nap instead of 2. (I'm hoping that was just an accident. :-) I really treasure those nap times.) And it was her 1st time using markers (washable, of course). The funny thing was she spent more time trying to put the cap back on the marker or on the end of it than she did coloring. Thus, why her hands got so pretty. :-)