New Tradition

We decided to start a new tradition of decorating for Christmas (or at least starting) the day after Thanksgiving. Ella had a blast!

Looking ADORABLE and ready to go pick out a tree

Helping Daddy get the tree set up

Saying "Oh My!"-her favorite new phrase- when she saw the tree unwrapped for the first time

Ella got a kick out of being wrapped up in the tree netting

Ella picked ornaments and showed me where she wanted me to hang them

The finished product :-)

Thanksgiving 2007

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun! We spent most of our time at my sister's apartment with my family plus a bunch of Marissa's friends from her grad school program. It was one of the most fun, least stressful holidays in a long time! Yay for hosting Marissa! Here are some pics.
Sitting with GG and coloring!

Marissa's friend brought her son who became Ella's new buddy, they had fun chasing each other under the table!

Different people kept feeding Ella ice cream-she was in heaven!

Ella and her new little buddy

Smiley

My friend Kristin moved to New York City last year to pursue modeling and acting and after a tough first year is doing really well! Her day job is working with a French company that is bringing their perfume and other products to the US. The perfume is called "Smiley" and is supposed to be the first product of its kind that makes you feel happy! (It has cacao and other things that cause endorphins to be released). Anyway, Kristin brought us lots of samples and Ella got to help her pack gift bags she later delivered to stores in the area. Maybe we have the next Smiley model on our hands!







Kristin and Ella also got to play the alphabet game on her computer :-)

Happy Birthday Ella!

Ella is 2!!! It was a busy birthday week and I was quite emotional about it-my little girl is growing up! Last year she had no idea what was going on but this year she knew all about birthday cake, party hats, the birthday song, blowing out candles, getting presents (and saying "thank you"!) and now saying that she's "two!"


Blowing out candles on her cup"cake" at a birthday dinner with my family (GG helped a little)

Cupcake face! (And that's a Curious George tattoo on her arm from her kid bday party)

Showing everyone that she's "2"!!

Ella LOVED the laptop computer Chris and I got her for her birthday-now she can be like Mommy and Daddy!

Ella with her cousin Christopher at their joint birthday party

Lots of Christopher and Ella's little friends!

Blowing out candles (Ella got to do that 3 times this week!)

Happy Birthday Ella!!!

Sleep Update (for my future reference)

So, it's been long enough that I feel confident that Ella's refusing-to-sleep phase is over. I prayed very specifically for God to show me what I should do to help Ella sleep. A friend reminded me that God knows Ella and what she needs better than I do so why not ask Him for a specific answer? That very day I picked up a SuperNanny book Chris bought me when I was pregnant and it described exactly what Ella was doing (whining, screaming, calling us and then waiting for a response and then getting louder and crying more until we give in and come take her out of bed). It confirmed exactly what I'd been feeling-that this is one of the earliest forms of manipulation kids learn-wearing you down until they get what they want. I knew it felt wrong to let her "win" this battle every night and the Super Nanny's advice gave me the confidence to stand my ground. So, we followed the Nanny's "controlled crying" technique.

1.Talk up the going to bed process and all the steps involved during the day
2.Go through her normal bedtime routine
3.Lay her down in her bed and tell her she needs to put her head down on her pillow and close her eyes and go to sleep. Leave the room.
4.Go back in every 10 min, then 15, then 20 but don't pick her up just remind her that you're still here but that she needs to lay down and go to sleep

So, it was rough to hear her cry but waiting for the timer to go off made it easier to handle. Plus we'd pretty much ruled out that she was in pain or anything. The first night it took an hour before she went to sleep but that's less than 1/2 the time it had been taking for almost 2 weeks!! The next day at her nap it took 30 minutes. The next night she cried for 5 minutes and was out! That was over a week ago and now she's going down like the old days with no crying for naps and bedtime. PRAISE the LORD!!!

Getting in the Christmas Spirit...

I haven't laughed this hard in a long time. Enjoy.

toes

My sister-in-law always posts funny conversations with her son on her blog. Finally Ella is old enough to have conversations and this one cracked us up and seemed blog-worthy.

I was freezing Sunday morning when we woke up and was putting on some fuzzy warm socks. Ella was standing by my feet seeming very interested.
Me: Ella are mommy's toes warm or cold?
Ella: (looking intently) umm...dirty

Halloween!

Halloween was so much fun! It's one of my favorite holidays because as the bookish, preppy, straight-laced type of child, it was the one time a let myself be really creative. The only time of year you get to dress up as something else-SO much fun and a highlight of my childhood. So, Ella gets the whole shabang-we went to Larriland in the morning for a corn maze, a hayride, pumpkin picking and then trick-or-treating that night. The only Halloween joy she didn't get to experience was eating candy. She had so much fun learning to say "trick-or-treat" and holding out her basket, then saying "thank you" and has NO IDEA that candy is food. The basket has been sitting here for days and she still doesn't know you can eat the stuff in it. She LOVES chocolate so once we clue her in she'll be obsessed so I'm holding off and enjoying this phase that surely won't last long. Here are some pics!!


Playing in the Pumpkins

An attempt at a group pic of all the kids (think we'll have to wait a few years for that to turn out well)

Holly and Ladybug Hope!

Ella was a Giraffe!!

We already had orange pumpkins at home so Ella picked green ones this time

Hard to explain but this cocked-head look is very "Ella"

Nana and Ella singing songs on the hayride

Ella trick-or-treating with Daddy and Raleigh

We went trick-or-treating with a bunch of friends in Lexi's neighborhood. It was the perfect toddler-friendly street: a cul-de-sac and lots of friendly neighbors out on their porches. Lots of fun!!