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