Regrets

You know when you do something that you know you shouldn't do but you do it anyway, and then it comes back to bite you in the butt? Well, I am feeling that right now. I didn't want to wake Ella up from her morning nap today because when I wake her up she tends to be really crabby. Now she is refusing to take her afternoon nap and we have small group tonight. It would be really nice if she slept now so she will do well tonight. It seems like this happens a lot. Every time I swear I will never let her sleep too late in the morning again, but I know I will. Because sometimes it just doesn't seem worth it to keep her schedule so tight.

Cookie Baking 2009

Every year for the last 20 years my mom's family has gotten together to do a Christmas cookie exchange, and let me tell you, it is the best day of the Christmas season. Christmas eve and day are fun and everything, but there is just something about our annual cookie baking day that is near and dear to my heart. I love my mom's family, but there are a lot of them and so on Christmas day it is pretty crazy and kind of difficult to have a whole lot of quality time with everyone, especially since we now divide our time with my family and Kyle's. But on cookie baking day it is mostly my aunts, my mom and sister, and my Grandma, with a few cousins thrown in and random extra people. It is a bit smaller (not that anything is small in a family of nearly 50!) and so much fun! We listen to Christmas music cranked up loud and help each other make cookies. There is a lot of laughter and reminiscing about past years and how our family has grown and changed. Except for one year when the kitchen was being remodeled, my mom has hosted every cookie baking. I think there is something special about having this day on the farm. Maybe its just me, but Christmas feels more Christmas-ey when it is on a farm. I suppose I just feel that way because I grew up on a farm.


I stole some pictures from my sister's facebook page to give all of my none family member blog readers an idea of what the day is like:

Here I am showing off dough I mixed up for my mom

Ella "helped" organize the cut outs for sugar cookies

Here are my aunts Paula, Cathy, and Carla, Carla's daughter Calli and me working on cookies

Ella's Words and Noises

Ella has always been a pretty vocal person, but she hasn't used a whole lot of words until just recently. They say that toddlers have a verbal explosion around 18 months, and that is definitely true of Ella. There were a handful of words and names that she has known for a long time, but these days it seems like she is repeating new words almost every day. Here are some of her new favorites:

Monkey
Back
Neck
Wet
Apple
Uck
Duck- luckily she is really good at doing the "d" sound!

She says more than that, but those are the newest and most used. She still doesn't use sentences, or even 2 words together. Hopefully soon she will start actually talking so we won't be so clueless as to what she wants. Another new verbal thing for Ella is making animal noises. Until a few weeks ago she only did cat, dog and cow noises. Now she can do almost every farm animal and some extras. The other animal noises she makes are:

Horse
Pig
Sheep
Goat
Chicken/bird/duck- they all sound the same
Owl
Monkey
Lion/Tiger

The best one is her pig noise. She won't do it very often, but I think it is hilarious! It is really exciting to hear her repeating more words and then remembering them later and randomly saying them. It really does seem like she learns a new word almost every day.

New Man in Ella's Life

Several times I have posted pictures of Ella with the leading man in her life, our friend's son Hurshle. Well, Hurshle moved this fall and there is a new little man competing for Ella's love. His name is Owen and he is another friend's son. He is a bit younger than Ella; in fact he will turn 1 on Christmas Eve. We have babysat him a few times in the last couple months, and Ella loves it when he comes over!

Giving Owen a hug

Parallel Play

Drinking buddies

Fall Fun

It has been a long time since I have posted anything, so I think my goal will be a new post every day this week. I will start with some fun fall pictures I took a really long time ago before this snow storm we are currently being hit with.

This fall I raked up a big pile of leaves for Ella to play in. She actually liked playing with the rake more than playing in the leaves. It is very difficult to get good pictures of Ella because she wants to play with the camera every time she sees it, but here are a few anyways.

She kind of looks like she is swimming through the leaves

Here she was playing with the rake (until she saw the camera!)

This one is somewhat cute

Yay for Productivity!

Today during Ella's morning nap I got a ton done. I cleaned the bathroom, took a shower, got dinner going in the crockpot, balanced our checkbook and ordered some things online for Kyle and Ella! Then Ella got up, we had lunch and went to Walmart to return a few things that I found cheaper online and got groceries. I love days like that, when I get so much done in the morning that I can relax during Ella's afternoon nap. I think I am going to try just doing one nap for Ella from now on though. I have been debating it for a long time, and I don't think Ella is quite ready, but I think I need to. Nowadays by the time she gets up from her second nap it is dark out and she is totally disoriented. She ends up crying a lot and being pretty crabby. I don't think it is worth it anymore to deal with all that when I am trying to make dinner. I think I will mourn the loss of my afternoon break for a long time. Right now when she only takes one nap she doesn't sleep any longer than if she was taking two, but I think over time she will adjust. She will need to just stay up longer in the morning before napping so she is more tired and her sleep is more evenly distributed. I think I will try putting her down an hour later than normal, and slowly keep pushing it back until she is napping from about 1:00-3:00 (or 4:00!). Right now she naps from 10-11 and 3:30-5:00. Tomorrow she will probably be fine even if it doesn't work very well because I am watching Ella's friend Owen during the afternoon and we have small group in the evening so Ella will get even more play time with friends. That always helps her from being crabby.

Oh Papa

Ella really loves her Papa. Every time she hears the door open she says "Papa?" and she comes running when he gets home at night. She loves rough housing with Kyle and sitting on his lap while he works on his computer. I don't think Kyle even realizes how much she adores him. Tonight he came home from work and started helping a friend work on his car, so Ella really didn't get to see him but she knew he was out there and she was not happy about it. She was crying for him so often that I finally went out and asked Kyle to come inside and spend some time with her. I felt kind of bad because his friend's car wouldn't work until they finished, but Ella needed him. You should have seen how excited Ella was to see Kyle! She followed him around all over while he washed his hands, just waiting for him to pick her up. It was very sweet to see. Seeing her love for Kyle inspired me to dedicate a blog to Ella and Papa moments.

The Pants On The Head Game

Ella used to love to stand on Kyle's hands



Ella looks really angry but actually Kyle is just pushing her forehead down

Ella never liked this sling as a baby, but Kyle put her in it one day and she was happy as a clam

Ella's absolute favorite thing to do with Kyle is bath time. He asks her if she wants a bath and she stops whatever she is doing and runs to the bathroom.

Kyle spraying Ella down on a hot summer day

Good and Bad

Today Ella had her 18 month check up. The good news is that she is right on track, 50th percentile for weight and about 40th percentile for height. I am not so sure on her weight though because she was wearing clothes, shoes and a thick fleece jacket. Whatever, I am just glad to hear she is doing well. Lately she hasn't been eating very well, so I wasn't sure how her weight would be.

The bad news? She has the flu. She has a fever and a cough, then I described symptoms Kyle has had recently (fever, cough, chills, aches, fatigue, etc) and they decided to put Ella on Tamiflu and swabbed her nose to make sure she has the flu. The rapid test came back positive for Influenza A, and the nurse said that the test for H1N1 takes a few days but most times when the first one is positive then the second one is as well. So it looks like Kyle and Ella probably have H1N1. That kind of sucks, but it really doesn't seem that bad. Other than not eating well and being whiny (which is normal) Ella seems fine. She was her normal active self all day long, and Kyle doesn't feel good but he isn't bedridden or anything. I asked if Kyle should go into the clinic, and our doctor said that he will probably be fine since he is normally really healthy. They are more concerned about people who are children, elderly people, pregnant women and unhealthy people, so Kyle should be fine. Someone died from H1N1 here in Eau Claire, but she already had health problems.

Ella doesn't like her medicine, so I just mixed it in with her milk. She has to go back in 2 weeks to make sure the medicine worked and to get her vaccinations. I suppose she won't have to get a flu shot now, so that is good. One less shot is always good! I am glad we caught it early and the medicine will kick it out of her system before it gets bad. We will be seeing family this weekend, but Ella will have had enough of the medicine to not be contagious anymore. I asked our doctor to make sure because some of my cousins are still pretty young.

When?

When will it get better? When Ella was a newborn and cried constantly, we were just waiting for her to get older so she would get over the colicky stage and our eardrums could heal. And it got better, for a little while. She started eating and sleeping better and we were feeling pretty good about having her in our lives. Then teething started and it got worse. Then she stopped teething and it got better. Then she started being really clingy and cried whenever I wasn't giving her my undivided attention. Then she got a little better about entertaining herself. Then teething started again. Then the teeth came through and she was fun again. Then she started throwing temper tantrums multiple times daily. Then she started acting out in stores and I would have to leave before I was done shopping. Then she just whined all the time. Then she started refusing just about every food I tried to give her. Then she cried the entire way home from Galesville (a little more than an hour away) when she could have been sleeping.

WHEN WILL IT GET BETTER!?!?!?

Earlier this week Ella and I were having a great time together and I was feeling so awesome about being her mom and getting to spend my days with her, but something always changes and it always starts feeling like more than I can take. Being a mother is definitely the biggest trial I have ever been put through and it is sucking the life out of me right now. I tried to prepare myself for motherhood, but I don't think I could have possibly prepared myself for how challenging Ella is. And the hardest thing is that it is rare for anyone else to experience Ella being this way because she is pretty well behaved when there are other people around and babies to play with. I honestly feel like no one can understand what I am going through. At this point I have basically given up all hope that Ella will ever be a better behaved child. I have a strong willed child who is going to fight me every single step of the way her entire life, so I better get used to it. I better get some sleep now, because tomorrow I have to get up and do it all over again. Oh joy.

25 Years

It has been way too long since I last updated. I guess nothing exciting has happened lately. Well, yesterday was my 25th birthday. It is funny how much life changes as I get older and have a family. I remember when I was younger, even in college, and I thought my birthday was a day to be lazy and do whatever I want. I really don't have that luxury anymore. I can't take the day off work or ignore housework. Not that I did a ton yesterday, but I did do dishes and laundry, along with taking care of Ella of course. We did have some fun though too. Ella and I went to the mall with my friend Megan and her daughter Emma to play in the afternoon. It was fun to spend time with Megan, and Ella absolutely adores Emma, so she was quite excited. Then we sent Ella over to our friends, the Crammonds, to play with their son Owen while Kyle and I went out for dinner. Ella also gets pretty excited to see Owen, so Ella had a great day! It is very rare to eat dinner without trying to feed Ella at the same time. I found myself eating really fast, then realized that I could take my time and it was much more enjoyable! It was fun to have an actual uninterrupted conversation with Kyle. On Sunday we will head over to my parent's house to celebrate my birthday with my family.

This weekend is going to be packed. On Saturday we will be spending the day helping our friends, the Becker's, move down to the La Crosse area, then on Sunday we have a bunch of stuff going on at church before heading to Baldwin. I have to work in the nursery, Kyle is playing drums in the band, we will help serve a meal at church and then we have a church plant meeting. Somewhere in there I will head home with Ella so she can take a nap. Yikes! Ella will love it though because she will get to play with friends and family all day long.


And just because I think posts without pictures are boring, here is one of Ella with pigtails again. Her hair is longer than last time so it worked better. She still won't leave them in but it is fun to try every once in awhile. I have a dream of someday doing fun things with her hair. It may be just that, a dream!

Here We Grow Again Sale

Eau Claire has a semi annual child consignment sale, one in the spring and in the fall. The fall sale is this weekend and I headed over there with some friends to find winter clothes for Ella and some toys to keep her busy once it is too cold to spend much time outside. I was pretty disappointed with the clothing selection, although I did find a really nice snowsuit and a few other clothing items. I was pretty excited to find some fun toys though. I got a swimming pool and put balls in it for an at home ball pit, and I also found a tunnel for her to crawl through.

As soon as we put the balls in the pool Ella jumped in and started playing. She loved it!

She also enjoyed crawling in her tunnel and throwing toys in there

Apparently Kyle likes my make shift ball pit too!

These toys will end up in the basement this winter. I am hoping to find a big carpet remnant to fill up part of the basement so Ella can have a play area down there, which will help me keep our living room a bit cleaner!

What To Do?

What is a mother to do on a weekend free of her child? I am thrilled to have to ask myself that question this weekend. Don't get me wrong, I love Ella and I miss her, but when Kyle's mom offered to take her up north to their lake home for the weekend, I was very excited! I have never been Ella free for more than 36 hours, and both the times she stayed with her 2 sets of grandparents we had something going on (moving and a wedding) and couldn't fully appreciate all the freedom. This morning I slept in about an hour later than normal and had a very leisurely morning. I drank a cup of tea while reading my bible, then I showered and had breakfast. I spent a lot of time working on a new counted cross stitch project I got recently and did some cleaning. I didn't want to spend all my free time cleaning but there are some things that just have to get done. Kyle spent most of the day working on his new truck. Then we had dinner and went for a walk. Tomorrow after church we are going to the MN State Fair and staying in Woodbury until Loretta and Ella get back on Monday. On Monday while we wait for Ella we will probably go to a movie and Kyle will most likely need to do some work.

I called Loretta today just to check in and it sounds like Ella is having a great time. She has been sleeping well and played in the lake for awhile. I really wasn't concerned that she would have fun though! I am sure she is getting all the attention she can handle and playing all day long. It is good for her to have some time where she doesn't have to run errands with me or play by herself while I get things done. I think it is also important for her to spend time away from me. She is very used to having her mama around all time and can be a bit clingy, so this time away will be good for us both.

Thank goodness for grandparents!

A Girl After My Own Heart

We are in the throes of teething once again, but this time Ella isn't just crying more, she is throwing tantrums. Every time we say no to her or take something away she freaks out. It is quite stressful for me, so I decided I needed some chocolate when we were at the store the other day. Normally I don't give Ella treats unless it is something special, but I thought she deserved something sweet since she is suffering right now too. Well, she loved it! Ahhh... like mother like daughter!! I wish I had a picture of her with her chocolate mustache, but I didn't think to run inside to get it. I guess I will just have to buy more chocolate and give her some, just for the photo opportunity of course. Not because I want it or anything! I am always self-controlled when it comes to sweets!!



But seriously, we are having a hard time dealing with her tantrums. She is having them often, even when she isn't teething. We feel like she needs to be disciplined somehow so that she knows it is not ok to react that way when we say no, but we aren't sure what to do. We have decided that we will be spanking her as part of discipline. I didn't want to spank our kids but Ella is particularly stubborn and willfully disobedient, and nothing else has worked so far. Plus, we talked to some adult couples at our church and they were talking about spanking as a teaching mechanism and doing it out of love. My experience with spanking was always that parents did it when they were mad and wanted to punish their child (I wasn't spanked, so my only experience is witnessing strangers spanking their kids or what we talked about in my child development classes). I had never seen or heard of it done in a way that positively changed their child's behavior. Our pastor's daughter actually thanked her parent's for spanking her because she felt like it made her a better person! She is in high school now and gets pretty disgusted with her classmates poor attitudes. She had some attitude issues when she was younger. Her parents spanked her when she acted up and slowly she changed for the better.



The problem with spanking her when she has a tantrum is that she freaks out even more. I don't know if that will slowly change as she learns that she will get a spank if she acts that way, or if she will continue to tantrum even harder when she gets spanked. I have also thought of simply ignoring her when she has a tantrum, because she is really just looking for attention, so if I ignore her maybe she will figure out that it is a poor way of getting attention. I know we need to be teaching her positive ways of expressing her frustration, but she can't talk yet, so how else could she express it? So many questions, so few answers. Does anyone have any advice?

Church Name Survey Continued

In my last post I asked people to comment on which name they liked better for the new church Kyle and I are going to be a part of in La Crosse. I thought after I got a few responses that I should explain the names a bit and get a second opinion.

La Crosse is referred to as the "Coulee Region". That is where Coulee Rock comes from. The word coulee is widely used in the La Crosse area, so it would give the church name regional significance. The Rock part of the name comes from Jesus being the bedrock of the church (Matthew 16:18).

Stone Ridge refers to the stone ridges seen all over the area because of the bluffs, so it is also regionally significant. It also has some spiritual significance because the bible refers to Jesus being the capstone (Psalm 118:22).

Both names have both spiritual and regional significance. Our concern with Coulee Rock is that coulee is very widely used in the area so it might not stand out. our concern with Stone Ridge is that is sounds more like a housing development than a church. Personally I am not crazy about either name and would kind of like to start the process over, but I don't see that happening, so we need help picking between the two names.

If anyone has any opinions on the name now that you know our reasons for choosing them, please leave a comment. We have a meeting on Sunday and I believe we will be making a choice between names, so please respond by Saturday.

Comment Please

Kyle and I are part of a church in Eau Claire that has decided to start a new church in La Crosse, WI in the next year or so, and we are part of the church plant team. That means that in the next year we will be moving down to the La Crosse area, Kyle will be getting a new job and we will be busy getting a church up and running.

Right now our team is trying to pick a name for this new church and I would love some input from people outside of the team. We opened it up for anyone in the church to submit a name idea, then our team voted for our top 5 favorites individually, then we voted again to get the top 2. At our next meeting we will discuss the top 2 and decide which one will be the name of this new church. We have discussed the meanings behind these name choices and all that, but in reality the people down in La Crosse aren't going to know anything about our decision making process or what these names mean to us as a team, so I want input from people who also don't know the reasons why these names were so popular among our team. In short, I would like it if anyone who reads this post would tell me which name they like best, why they like it, and if they would be willing to go to a church with that name.

The top 2 names are "Coulee Rock" or "Stone Ridge". They would either have "community church" or just "church" at the end. We are hoping to attract young families who are currently not attending church regularly.

It doesn't matter why you like one more than the other, please just tell me what you think!

Oh, and here is a picture of our church plant team. There are 20 adults and 13 kids, with 2 more on the way!

Pigtails for Ella!

Ella's hair is getting really long, so I tried putting it in pigtails yesterday. I could barely get her to stay still long enough to put them in, and then she pulled it out, but I got a few pictures for all to see her cuteness! Her hair is still too short to see the pigtails from the front, so here are pics from the back and side. Pretty cute, huh? Now, if I could just get her to leave them alone...

Ella feeding herself

A few nights ago we decided to let Ella try to feed herself. I suppose we should have let her do that awhile ago, but I don't like messes all that much so I have been putting it off. Ella loved it and actually did a pretty good job!

Another Ella and Hurshle Playdate

Last week we watched Hurshle for the day so Josh and Chelsea could work at Country Jam. The kids had a great time of course and we got some pictures of their adventures.

They spent most of the day playing outside

This started out as a hug which ended with Hurshle falling on top of Ella. They played that way for awhile. I don't know about this!

After playing in the sandbox they both had sand imbedded in their skin so they got a bath. I am sure they will be very embarassed by this picture some day!

New Tooth!

For the first time in over three months Ella has a new tooth coming in! Its her first molar, I think. It isn't quite through enough to tell and it is close to the front, but I think it is the first molar after her canines. She hasn't been too fussy thankfully, just sleeping a lot. That's fine with me! I am very ready for her to have some molars so it is easier for her to eat normal food. She still prefers pureed vegetables and doesn't like to eat meat very much, but I am hopeful she will get better with those things when she has more teeth to chew with.


Here are some pictures from the 4th of July:

I made a flag cake for the picnic at my parent's house. It turned out pretty well for my first try!

Here is Ella hanging out on the deck with her "Grandpa with cows"

Not Me Monday

Not Me Monday was created by MckMama as a way to fess up to all the embarrassing things we do and laugh at our own imperfection. Here are a few things from the last week:

I did not let Ella cry/talk to herself in her crib for an hour yesterday in hopes of her sleeping. When I realized it was a lost cause I went in there right away and picked her up. I would never leave her by herself just to have some “me” time. Nope, not me!

I most definitely did not ignore the dishes piling up in the sink and spilling over onto the counter because I was watching an episode of Grey’s Anatomy online. I would never choose a smutty show over housework. Nope, not me at all!

I also haven’t been asking Kyle to get up in the morning to take care of Ella because I am totally crabby when she wakes up before 7am. I would never make my husband get up early when he will be working all day long. Not me!

Our New Place

As promised (a long time ago) I took pictures of our new house in Eau Claire. Blogger uploaded them in the opposite order I wanted them to be in, but I don't feel like switching them, so we will start in the backyard and go forward.

This is our backyard. The tree is great for shade and Ella loves being outside!

This is Ella's room. Our friends (who happen to live next door!) are letting us borrow that dresser/changing table.

Here is another view of Ella's room.

This is our bedroom.

The bathroom is ridiculously small. Fortunately there are two closets in the hallway for storage.

Here is one view of the kitchen

And here's the kitchen from another view. The kitchen is also somewhat small but it has a big pantry, so there is plenty of storage space.

One side of the living room. The tall cabinet was a wedding gift from Kyle's dad, which we used to use for kitchen storage, now it is Ella's toy storage and a bookshelf. I love being able to use it this way! Also worth noting in this picture is the awesome TV Kyle got as a bonus from his boss!

This is the other side of the living room. We love how bright it is with the big window.

Here is the front of the house. It is a ranch style side by side duplex. We also have a basement and a garage that I didn't bother taking pictures of.

What a Week

Well, we survived our first week in Eau Claire. I certainly didn't think I would be describing life in EC as surviving, but it was kind of a crazy week. When Ella came back from Grandma and Grandpa Haley's on Sunday she seemed really comfortable right away and just explored most of the evening, so i thought she would sleep well. But she didn't and neither did Kyle and I. Ella didn't fall asleep officially until 10:30, 2 hours later than normal and Kyle and I had a hard time falling asleep too. Then I was up by 5:30 and couldn't fall back asleep. Monday was a very tired day with too much unpacking to nap. Then Tuesday I watched Hurshle all day, so no relaxing there! Ella loves having friends around though, so it was fun. Wednesday was a pretty good day, Ella had settled in to sleeping pretty well here and I got more packing undone. THEN- Thursday through Sunday was the great sickness for Ella. She has only had one other bad cold in her little life and that was when she was 4 months old. On Thursday she woke up with snot completely covering her nose and all over her face and a pretty bad fever. She barely ate and slept a ton. That was the story until this morning. Saturday was the worst for sleeping, with a grand total of 19 hours of shut eye for Ella. She hasn't slept that much in one day since she was a tiny newborn! I guess if she was going to be sick, this weekend was a good time for it since it rained most of the time and she would have hated being stuck inside all day.

I am looking forward to this week being better. Pretty much all of the unpacking is done, so this week will be more decorating, hanging pictures and such. Kyle has a softball game tonight that I am hoping will not get rained out so that I can take Ella. We also have bible study again this week, which I am really excited about! We took the month of May off because of the end of the school year and other stuff, and I feel like we haven't seen our friends very much, so I am really looking forward to Thursday. It will be extra awesome because we are going to our pastors house and he and his wife will be talking to us about parenting. They have a lot of wisdom to share and I am ready to soak it up!

It feels like summer is finally starting now that we are settled. I am ready for warm weather so we can go to the pool. Come on sun!!!

P.S. I still promise to post pictures of our new place, I just want to wait until we have some things on the walls so it looks more homey.

We're Here!

Yesterday we officially moved to Eau Claire. What a day! We had some awesome help and it only took about an hour to load the trailer and another hour to have it unloaded in Eau Claire. I couldn't believe when I got to our new place after picking up some food the trailer was empty and some boxes were even empty already! Actually, we have unpacked about 80% of our stuff already. I think that is pretty good for getting to Eau Claire at 2:30 yesterday. Once we clear out the boxes and put stuff on the walls I will post pictures of our new place.

Baby Speak

Ella has always been a very verbal child, not afraid to tell us how she feels and such, but lately she is actually using some real words. It is nice that not everything that comes out of her mouth is cries. Here is a list of the things she says:

Mama
Papa
Hi
Cat
Baby
Oh yeah?
What's that?
Jack (Grandpa Haley's dog, Ella loves him but he is terrified of her)

Everything else is babble, which I am sure makes sense to Ella, but we don't have a clue what she is saying.

Ah Sick

Today Ella is at my parent's house and I am continuing to pack. I have decided I am completely sick of packing, especially when moving things in and out of our coat closet unearthed a ton of little bugs! Kyle bought some barley for brewing beer which was in a cooler in the closet. It got buried and we both forgot about it for quite some time. I took it out of the closet to organize and pack stuff up. Then I put it back in on top of another box. When I went back to add something to that box I could see tons of little bugs crawling out of the cooler and up the wall. That is probably the grossest thing I have seen inside this apartment! So I put the cooler inside a garbage bag and put it outside and starting vacuuming up the bugs. I go back to the closet every ten minutes or so and find more that have climbed out of their hiding places. There are several boxes in there and I think it will be impossible to find all the bugs. I feel like we are going to wake up tomorrow covered in bugs! I had obviously gone too long without cleaning that closet!!

Warm Weather

I have a new found appreciation for warm weather since Ella was born. I have always preferred it over freezing cold winter, but I wasn't always crazy about summer. I like fall because it isn't super cold yet but I am not hot and sweaty all the time. Anyways- this spring has been great for Ella and me. Yesterday we went for a walk before her morning nap and after lunch we went to the park. It is so nice to get out of our tiny little apartment. I don't know how we survived being couped up for the winter. I found this great little park with a playground just down the street from our apartment and Ella loves it! I will need to bring our camera with next time I take her because she is supremely happy when we are there. She likes to swing and go down the slide. She is learning to climb up the stairs too. The best thing about this park is that it is mostly deserted during the day so I don't have to worry about older toddlers knocking Ella over when they run past her. It will be nice when we move to have our own backyard.

Oh yeah, we are moving! I don't think I have posted anything about that yet. Kyle graduated so we are no longer stuck in Menomonie. He likes his current job and will be able to go full time there, so we are moving to Eau Claire. That is where his job is located, along with our church and many wonderful friends from church. We are moving to a duplex which has a lot more space than where we are now. The main living space isn't a ton bigger, but it also has a full basement and a garage, so all around we will have much more space. It is also right next door to one of the couples in our small group at church, so that makes it even better! We are looking forward to moving sometime around June 1st. Ella and I are planning to spend most of the summer in the backyard, or at the pool or one of the many great parks in the area. Maybe she won't get so sick of her toys if she doesn't have to play with them all day everyday. We are sad to be moving farther away from family but this move will mean that Kyle doesn't have to commute to work and we will be able to spend more time with friends. Our group of friends in Eau Claire are all married and many of them have babies around Ella's age, so we have been able to really connect with them. It is nice to have a group of really awesome people who are in the same stage of life as we are. It is also nice for Ella to be making friends. It is fun to see her playing with other babies. Just a few months ago they all pretty much ignored each other but now they play together and get really excited to see each other.

Mother's Day

Mother's Day weekend was a busy one for the Haley Family. Kyle graduated Saturday from Stout. He still has some finals left, but the ceremony is the weekend before finals so that people will actually be n town for the ceremony. I was so proud to see my husband walk across that stage. Graduating from college is a big deal, but doing it with a wife, daughter and working mostly full time is quite the accomplishment. After graduation we went to Woodbury. Kyle's sister had prom so I went with my mother in law to grand march. Let me tell you Rachael was one of the best looking girls there! Her dress was beautiful. After grand march Kevin and Loretta treated us to dinner at Outback Steakhouse for graduation/Mother's Day/Kevin's birthday. it was yummy! Then Kyle took Kevin to a movie to celebrate his birthday and Loretta and I went home to get Ella to bed and we watched a movie too. Sunday Kyle made us breakfast, coffee cake, which is my favorite. Then we went to church and headed over to see my mom for mother's day. My brother and sister were home too and we had fun just hanging out and grazing on food all afternoon. When we got back to Menomonie I put Ella to bed and Kyle went to the library to work on some finals stuff so I went to bed early. I love sleeping! It was a busy weekend, but a good one. Its hard to believe that this is my second Mother's Day as a mom. Time has gone by so fast.

Temper Tantrums

Lately Ella has been very sure of what she wants and if we take it away she throws an absolute fit. Today we got back from running errands and she was playing with a thing of baby motrin that she pulled out of our shopping bag. It was still sealed so I let her play with it for a minute while I put everything else away but it was time for a diaper change and nap, so I took it away. And she absolutely freaked out! She actually wasn't even holding it at the moment, she had dropped it on the floor and was playing with something else. But when she saw that it was going away she started her tantrum. Then all through her diaper change she was screaming and trying to get up and arching her back so it was nearly impossible to change her diaper. She drank her bottle well but when it was gone she started screaming again. I rocked her for a bit and laid her down like I always do before naps and she started screaming again. Normally I would let her cry in her crib for a bit because she falls asleep so quickly but this screaming was more than I could take. So I held her and rocked her some more. It seemed like she fell asleep so I tried to lay her down, and more screaming ensued. I gave her some more milk thinking it would calm her down, which it did until it was gone and she started screaming again. So I gave her some more thinking she was just extra hungry. At this point she had drank 12 ounces (she normally has 5) and had been screaming off and on (mostly on) for an hour. I rocked her some more and rubbed her back until she calmed down. Then I laid her down again, she cried some more and she is finally quiet after 1 hour 15 minutes of craziness.

I really don't know what to do about these temper tantrums she is having lately. Normally she freaks out over diaper changes but stops as soon as I am done. If she gets mad because we took something away she usually stops as soon as we give her something new. But this time she was already playing with something new when I took the motrin away. So what gives? Was it just extra aggravated because it was nap time? She slept fine last night and actually napped well yesterday at my parents, so I don't think she was overly tired. She hadn't even shown any signs of being tired before I started this whole process. I have been reading online and everything is saying to just replace the object you took away or remove them from the situation and they will calm down. Give them a hug and everything is just dandy. But you know what? That doesn't always work. So when it doesn't work what do I do? I am glad that I didn't give in to her screaming and give her the motrin back because then she will think she is in charge, and in essence would be. She has been testing me a lot lately to see who has the power. I have not given in and she has been doing better, but today really caught me off guard. She woke up happy and was in a good mood all morning. She was her normal friendly self at the bank and Walmart. I don't know what happened. She continues to be a mystery to me...

Preeclampsia?

This week I spent a good deal of time reminiscing about being pregnant with Ella and her first few weeks. I looked through her baby pictures several times and was reminded of how swollen I got when I was pregnant (not that I had forgotten!) I know that some swelling is normal, but seriously my entire body was incredibly swollen, even my nose! I asked my doctor several times if I should be worried and she said that I should just elevate my feet often and drink water. However, I have been doing some research, mostly because I never want to look that gross again, and I think it might have been a little more serious than she thought. The three most prominent symptoms of mild preeclampsia are water retention, high blood pressure and protein in the urine. Well, I was obviously retaining water, but I also remember my urine tests coming back with extra protein towards the end and my blood pressure went up. My blood pressure is usually really low so even when it went up it was still in the healthy zone, but it did go up quite a bit.

I am not a medical expert by any means, but I think I might have been slightly preeclamptic. I certainly was not a serious case which entails headaches, nausea, vomiting and blurred vision. They probably wouldn't have done anything differently other than increasing my check ups to make sure I didn't get worse. But it does concern me that my doctor was so nonchalant about everything. What if it had gotten worse? Preeclampsia affects the amount of blood the baby gets, therefore they don't get enough oxygen or food, meaning lower birth weight. There are all sorts of problems with low birth weight babies. I try not to be an extremist and I think Ella and I were both fine, but I am a little disappointed with the quality of care I received. My doctor was great in lots of ways and she is still Ella's doctor, but I don't think I would have her be my doctor the next time I am pregnant. I did love the birth center in the hospital Ella was born at and would consider delivering there again if we lived close enough. It was brand new, the rooms were huge, the food was great and it was small enough to get plenty of quality care. I didn't want to leave! I had to go back and pick up something we forgot a few weeks after Ella was born and I stayed and talked to the nurses for a long time. Red Cedar Medical Center is a great place to have a baby, just maybe not with my doctor.

So I have a game plan for next time I am pregnant to avoid becoming a blimp:
1. Drink as much water as humanely possible
2. Avoid salt all together
3. Exercise regularly
4. No caffeine
5. No fried foods or junk food

These are all things you are supposed to do during pregnancy anyway and I tried to do them, but next time I will be extreme. I will try my best to not drink ANY Dr. Pepper (which I had maybe once a week last time), No salt (unless I don't have a choice; if we are eating at a friend's house I might not be able to avoid it) and I will avoid any candy or chocolate. When I was pregnant with Ella I worked at a chocolate shop and therefore ate a lot of chocolate. I actually did really well for most of my pregnancy with gaining weight slowly and healthfully, then BAM! I was huge. That is another sign of preeclampsia- sudden swelling in the face. My face was a little bit bigger throughout, but at the end it got crazy big. I have been a lot better about exercising lately because I take Ella for walks, so hopefully I will stay healthy. The hardest thing will be avoiding pop and chocolate. I really don't like salt very much and I never add it to my food, but so many recipes call for it that it might be an issue, but I will try.

Ella's First Birthday

Yesterday Ella had her 12 month check up and she is doing fabulous. Very healthy and growing well (even though everyone thinks she is such a peanut). Here are her current stats:

28 In. (30th Percentile)

20 lbs. 14 oz. (50th Percentile)

I don't remember what her head measurement was but it was 50th Percentile (who cares anyways?)

So she is a little short but doing great. She also got 4 shots, which she was not happy about. She screamed but as soon as I picked her up she stopped. Maybe next time I will ask if she can just sit in my lap while they poke her. After her doctor appointment, which took nearly 2 hours because they were so backed up, Ella took a nap (1 1/2 hours later than normal) and then we drove to Eau Claire for a birthday party our bible study through for her.

Have I mentioned before that our friends from church are the greatest? I am pretty sure I have, but I will say it again: we are blessed! I was not expecting a party for Ella but since we normally meet on Wednesdays for bible study my friend Julie said she wanted to throw Ella a party. I of course forgot my camera, but our friends Ben and Megan took tons of pictures with their awesome camera and I will post pictures when I get the cd from them. Here is a picture of Ella with the cake that I stole from Megan's facebook page, I hope she doesn't mind!

Isn't that cake the coolest cake you have ever seen? Megan spent 2 hours frosting it! Ella loved chocolate cake by the way! I cut off an ear for her and she picked it up and proceeded to eat the entire thing without ever taking it away from her face. She made a total mess of herself and had a great time doing it! So I gave her a quick bath before opening gifts, which I had to do for her because she was far more interested in a plastic cup that wrapping paper. Then right before we left, which was an hour past her bedtime already, she threw up most of her cake. Yuck. A lot of it got on my hand, her clothes and the floor. And she cried most of the 30 minute ride home. Poor kid was exhausted. In retrospect I probably shouldn't have scheduled her doctor appointment on her birthday. Oh well. She is doing fine today. It was a great day all around and we are looking forward to celebrating with our families this weekend!

Disappearing sections of posts

In case anyone is wondering, the reason my posts are sometimes missing lines and whatnot is because I made the font bigger. It seems that if I am allowed to make the font bigger it shouldn't be a problem, but it still gets messed up with every post. However, the font I chose is incredibly small if I use the normal size. I have been trying to figure this problem out for quite some time and I just tried making the last post font size smaller and it was all entirely there, but so small it was annoying to try to read. Alas, I will stay with the bigger font. FYI- if you highlight the entire post all of it will be readable. Maybe I should just pick a new font that isn't so troublesome?

One Year Ago Today

It is unbelievable that it has been a year since Ella was born. Ella is obviously not aware that today is a special day, but Kyle and I are pretty excited about it. Today Ella has her one year check up, then tonight we are having a party for her with our wonderful bible study friends. Then on Saturday we are having a party with our families. I am kind of sad that we aren't having a big party with all of our extended family, but that would be over 100 people, and that is just a little out of control for Ella. I thought in honor of her first birthday I would tell her birth story. Most of you probably know it already, but today is a day for reminiscing, so bear with me!

The night before Ella was born Kyle and I went for a really long walk. My stomach was hard as a rock the whole time, it felt like a prolonged Braxton Hicks Contraction. About an hour after we got home I started having contractions, but they didn't hurt and were somewhat sporadic, so I didn't think anything of it. We went to bed around midnight (bad idea so close to due date!) and at 1 am I woke up. I was thirsty so I reached for my water next to the bed and I felt a little trickle. Did I pee my pants? Nope, now it is gushing and my water has definitely broken! All I had to do was say Kyle's name in a somewhat panicked tone and he was awake and jumping into action! He ran to the bathroom and got me a towel, although I had already made quite a mess of our bed. I didn't think my water would break on its own, so I didn't even ask my doctor what to do if it broke. That usually happens after the woman is already at the hospital. So I called the hospital and asked what I should do. They told me to keep track of my contractions for an hour and call back. My contractions were consistently 5 minutes apart, so they told me to come in. We got there at about 3 am and I was already 3 centimeters. They hooked me up to monitors and let us rest for a few hours.

I actually dozed decently until about 7:30. The nurse checked me and thought I was at 9 centimeters. All of a sudden there was a flurry of activity as they started preparing the room for the birth. Kyle called our families and told them it was time and they could come and wait if they wanted. Then the doctor came in and checked me and said I was only at 8 centimeters. So they unhooked me from the monitors and had me get up and move around. The contractions were pretty manageable at this point and we actually slowing down. I took a bath, sat on the big ball and walked the halls for hours and hours. I was stuck. They kept checking me and I was not dilated anymore. So we tried Pitocin to speed up the contractions. It sure made them hurt more, but I still wasn't dilated. Up until then I was doing fine managing the pain without any medication. But man that dang Pitocin kicked my butt! I was basically yelling through the contractions at this point (although I was still breathing very well, thank you very much!) Since I already had an IV in they gave me an IV pain med called Nubain. That helped the pain, but it made me incredibly groggy. About the time the Nubain was wearing off they were checking me for dilation constantly and several different people we doing it. Needless to say, I was in a lot of pain!

At that point my doctor called in a consult from an obstetrician and they came to the conclusion that Ella's head was wedged in the wrong way and would no longer descend into my birth canal. So we decided to do a C-section. The anesthesiologist came in and prepped me, and they made Kyle read all these papers to me. It was kind of ridiculous. I could barely keep my eyes open and I was in tons of pain. Who cares, just get this kid out of me! Then they wheeled me off the the OR, gave me the spinal, Kyle came in and sat with me, and Ella was born at 8:31 PM, 6 pounds 11 ounces, 19 3/4 inches long! We got some really cool pictures of her coming out that the anesthesiologist took. He was a frequent customer at Legacy where I worked, and he was great!

There is no way to know if Ella's head was descending incorrectly because of my bone structure or if it was a fluke. So I will have to go through labor all over again and possibly still have to have a C-section. I would rather not choose to have a C-section because the recovery was very painful and the medication they gave me made me really tired and seemed to affect Ella. She would not wake up to eat in the hospital. She screamed really hard every time we tried and maybe only ate twice a day in the hospital. Then we got home, I stopped taking the meds and she woke up hungry and wanting to eat! It would obviously be less work for me if I just did another c-section, but I can't imagine being in that much pain and that groggy when I have a newborn and a toddler at a home to take care of. I won't have 2 weeks to just sit and try not to use my ab muscles at all.

I think posts without pictures are kind of boring, so here are some of her birth and shortly after. I hope you don't have a week stomach!

Ella's head coming out

The rest of her coming out (Notice she is holding onto the tube!)

The first picture of the 3 of us

All cleaned up and beautiful beyond words!

Its funny because I didn't cry when I found out I was pregnant, or when Ella was born, but right now as I write this and look at the pictures, I am struggling to hold back tears!

The Sweetest Thing

You know what my favorite part of the day is? Right before Ella goes down for a nap or to bed for the night. And NOT because I am getting a break from her! I love it because it is the only time the entire day that Ella wants to cuddle with me. After she has her bottle and I carry her into her room, she lays her head on my shoulder and hugs me. It is the sweetest thing in the entire world! She has her head on one side for a minute, then switches to the next, as if she is finding the most comfortable spot. I think she would stay there as long as I let her.

On an unrelated note, I wanted to draw your attention to a family whose story I have been following on the blog the mom created. Her son, Stellan, has a very serious heart condition and needs to have surgery, tomorrow morning, if not sooner. http://www.mycharmingkids.net/ This is a link to the blog Stellan's mom created. This woman is truly amazing to me. She has so much faith in God through these tough times. If you could, take some time to pray for this boy. He was supposed to be stillborn, but he was totally healthy for the first 5 months of his life. At this point it sounds like he needs this surgery to live, but the surgery is very risky and could kill him.

Ella's First Easter

I think it is sad that Easter is not nearly as celebrated as Christmas. I understand in some ways because Christmas is such a joyous holiday and Easter has a lot of sadness before the joy. But the important thing to remember about Easter is that there is so much joy to be found in the remembrance of what Jesus did for us. It breaks my heart to think about all the pain and shame Jesus endured to save us all from our sins, but then I think about the fact that he didn't stay dead. Jesus is Risen! And he knows each and everyone one of us completely and loves us. He longs for a deep and personal relationship with us. I will live the rest of my life to know him and glorify him, and I pray that you will too.

On a lighter note, Ella looked incredibly cute this Easter in her little dress. She was great all day and it was a lot of fun to see her playing with her Easter gifts and "looking" for eggs at my grandparents. I put quotes around looking because really my cousins just put eggs on the ground right in front of her so she could pick them up. I don't have any pictures of that yet (my mom does) but if I get some from her, I will post them. Here are some pictures of Ella all dressed up:

Big Girl Carseat!

Recently we got Ella a new front facing carseat. She was getting way too big for her infant carseat and cried every time she was in it lately. I did a lot of research and debated a lot and decided on a Graco Cargo Booster Seat. It fits kids 20-100 pounds. It will be the only other carseat she needs. I had to order it online and wait for a long time. I think I was more excited than she was when it came! Here she is trying it out in our living room:

The first time she was in it she seemed to really like it because she could see me and I could play with her a bit. She quickly got bored and annoyed that she couldn't move. That had us a little worried that she wasn't going to sleep in the car anymore. We are in the car a lot and we kind of depend on Ella sleeping. Turns out she just needed to learn to fall asleep sitting up. By learning I mean we had to just let her cry herself to sleep, which she did after a hectic Easter. Then today when we dropped Kyle off at work she just fell asleep without any crying! Here she is fast asleep:

Isn't she precious?