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.