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!