Ella's Crazy Dance Moves

Last night we swapped our exersaucer with our friends play thing (I don't know what it is called) which Ella can stand next to when she plays with it. She loves it! She was sick of her exersaucer because she couldn't get out of it. She has been playing with this new toy all day. The best part is the music it plays. It took many tries but I actually got a video of her dancing to the music. It is pretty much the cutest thing she has done to date. Enjoy!

Ella's Funny Faces

Look at all those teeth!

Talk about attitude!

Ella The Brute

Ella is the funniest little thing. Lately she loves to pick things up. I swear she is going to be a body builder someday! The heaviest thing she has successfully picked up is a 5 pound sack of potatoes! She picks up her diaper bag, her toy barn and she even tried to pick up her friend Nora on Monday at our play date. Ella was standing next to Nora and she started pulling on Nora's shirt as if she was trying to get Nora to stand up as well. I think Ella needs a little brother to beat on, because she was kind of a bully to the other babies at our play date. Ella was the oldest one there and I felt bad for the other babies because she was stealing their toys, smacking them (not to hurt them, just playing) and sitting on them. It is good when Ella gets to play with her friend Hurshle because he is older than her and she can get out her baby aggression on him instead of the 7, 6 and 4 month old babies who were there on Monday. I don't worry about her beating on a boy who is older than her, but those poor little girls! It didn't really help that I was doing my taxes instead of helping control my child. Our friends bought a turbo tax cd and we used it to do our taxes. Boy does it help having a baby when doing taxes! When I told Kyle how much money we were getting back because of Ella he didn't believe me! We didn't know that babies were such a huge tax deduction. Of course the money we are getting back is basically spent already because we have so much college debt. We are also paying off our credit card and cancelling it. We can not be trusted with credit cards. Kyle and I made some bad financial decisions when we were young and dumb (does that mean we are old and wise now?) and we are working hard to make up for those bad decisions. It would be much more fun to use that money to go on vacation or something, but unfortunately we are adults now who have to be responsible and take care of our family. Bummer....

First Steps!

Last night I was playing with Ella and it looked like she took a step before lunging for me. So I moved her farther away and she took 4 steps before falling into my arms! She has taken 2-4 steps at a time several times since then. She doesn't always want to do it and sometimes won't straighten her legs when we try to stand her up, but it is so fun! That little walker I bought her at the baby sale last week seemed to help a lot. She wouldn't even consider walking without holding onto us or furniture before we got that thing! This morning she seemed to be getting worse instead of better, but I think she was just getting sick of us trying to get her to walk so much. She just wanted to play. We will take it slow with her, but it is so exciting to see our little girl growing up!

My Little Trouble Maker

The other day I was sitting at our table organizing stuff and Ella was playing on the floor about 5 feet away. I had my back to her for about 3 minutes and when I turned around she had figured out how to open the baby wipes container and had pulled out 25 wipes! They were scattered around her in a little semi circle. I felt like I should discipline her somehow, but I couldn't stop myself from laughing! She is turning into quite a mischievous little thing! So I took a picture and then took the wipes away from her. Then she cried. Oh well. She got over it in about 2 seconds once I gave her a different toy to play with. Am I a bad mom for taking a picture instead of scolding her for bad behavior? Well, if I am so be it, because I could not resist taking a picture. She looked so proud of herself!

Here We Grow Again Sale

Today was a hectic day. I dropped Ella off with my parent's and headed to Eau Claire to volunteer at this huge baby consignment sale. If you volunteered for a 3 hour shift you could shop at the pre-sale, which was also today. I got done with my shift and hung out with my friend Julie for awhile, then we met up with our friend Megan and went to stand in line. People started lining up outside the door at 3:45 and the sale didn't start until 5:30! We got there at 4:30 and stood outside in 35 degree weather for an hour, and then the craziness started. The line was half way across the parking lot before the doors opened! The moms were all over the place, grabbing everything in sight. It was great though. I got tons of clothes for Ella, mostly play clothes because I am guessing for her birthday she will get nice clothes for church and such. I also got her a toy that she can push while she is walking. We have been trying to have her practice walking while holding onto our fingers a lot so she will build up her confidence as well as her balance. So here's what I got:

4 pairs of pajamas
1 swimsuit
2 pairs of shorts
1 pair of jeans
1 pair of capris
4 long sleeve shirts
1 sweatshirt
4 t-shirts



all for $52.75!!! That is 18 articles of clothing! I think I might go back on Sunday after church because then everything is half price. I would like to get Ella some more toys but by the time I started looking at toys I was pretty overwhelmed. Here is a picture of all the clothes:

All diapers are not the same

When Ella was born we received tons of diapers at showers and such. Our bible study gave us 6 jumbo size boxes of Huggies diapers! What a blessing!! Because of other's generosity we were able to try lots of different types of diapers and didn't have to spend any money on diapers until Ella was 9 months old. It was a sad day the first time we paid for diapers with our own money. Anyways, I wanted to try some cheap diapers to save money, but let me tell you- big mistake. I bought the Walmart brand, Parent's Choice, and every since then Ella has been fighting diaper changes like none other. It is kind of driving me crazy. She never fought diaper changes before and -Poof- the day I started the cheap ones she tried to roll off her changing table and cried when I made her lay down. You should see me trying to hold her down and wipe the poop off her butt before she sits up and smears it all over the place! Long story short, I am going to suck it up and buy the expensive diapers. It isn't worth the fight to save a few bucks.