The Turley's

Blessings

2012-02-07T12:41:00.001-08:00

Andrew and I are recognizing more and more blessings in our life each day as we begin this scary journey. We're beginning to see just how much the Lord has been preparing us as we learn more about Olivia's condition. I certainly don't want to forget what these blessing's are and I certainly don't want to pass them off as happy coincidences.
First, around the time I found out I was pregnant with Ella I was the visiting teacher for a sweetheart named Alli. She was also pregnant and had found out her little boy had HLHS among other things (he is now three and quite the little superhero.) I had never heard of it but followed her family's journey through her blog, and still do. Naturally, when I found out that Olivia had the same condition I thought to contact Alli. While I followed her blog we didn't talk a ton. But like I said, she's a total sweetheart and has been in constant contact with me since I told her of our situation. She's been informing of what I can expect in all aspects from prenatal appointment and delivery to hospital stays and bringing Olivia home. I have no idea what questions to ask and she's been a life saver at just telling me anything and everything she can think of. She and PCMD have also directed me to a support group called Intermountain Healing Hearts and I have been learning a great deal on their website and forum.
Some of our other blessings were a bit disguised but I certainly don't believe in coincidences. When I was entering high school my mom decided to go back to work. She got hired on at my high school as the teachers aid in the special needs class. I loved going to my first day of school with my mom. She loved her job but didn't necessarily love going back to work. When the Dr's told me that Olivia would be somewhat delayed in her learning skills due to hospital stays and being put on the bypass machine I immediately thought about the 5+ years my mom spent teaching kids with learning disabilities. Olivia won't necessarily have a learning disability but if she's a little behind I know who to go to for help in getting her caught up.
After my mom quite working at the school she took classes to become a CNA and is currently doing phlebotomy classes. Another blessing. All this medical stuff scares the living daylights out of me but if I can have her holding my hand while I get used to all of this I know I'll be fine. I'm so glad she knows what she's doing.
Along with the support of IHH and Alli I am finding so much support in our ward. About a week ago I found out that my visiting teacher (whom I also visit teach) lost her little girl. She had her about 1.5 months early but there were some unforeseen complications and the baby didn't make it. Naturally, she is struggling a ton but she seems to be doing pretty well. Though the amount of comforting we've given each other isn't much at this point I know that we were put together for a reason.
This blessing is kind of silly but it's still a blessing. Shortly after we found out I was pregnant I started looking for a new swing and bouncer seat. The swing we had was an old wind up one and while that was ok it didn't recline very well which was annoying. Also, the entire seat was one plastic piece. So the leg holes were plastic and didn't look very comfortable and the tray didn't fold out so getting Ella in and our was a pain. So I looked on KSL and found a woman who was selling her swing and bouncer seat for $35 total. The swing plugs into the wall and has a fold up tray and cloth seatbelt thing. Much better than the old one. So we purchased both. Well, in Alli's e-mail today, she informed me that HLHS babies suffer from reflux pretty bad until after their second surgery (3-6 moths old) so she suggested getting a good swing that will prop them up a bit. TADA! We already have one. And for a steal of a deal too. The bouncer will also help with the propping them up. Not only will it help with the reflux but when it comes to moving a hurting baby in and out it will be so much nicer than that old hunk of plastic.
And of course, there are all the blessings in the form of sweet people. Since we will have to be in Salt Lake for a while after Olivia is born we have had several offer their homes to us. Of course there were those that I expected like my sweet grandmothers. But the place we will most likely stay and were the most surprised to hear from was my brothers mother-in-law, Alison. She lives just a couple blocks away from the hospital because she's an ER nurse there and offered her spare room to us when my mom informed her of our situation. I've met her several times but was still surprised when she offered her home to us.
I'm grateful for the opportunity to see the Lord's hand in my life each day. It's a scary road we're headed down but knowing that He's helping us through each step makes it a little less terrifying.

Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome

2012-02-03T16:56:00.000-08:00

If you want to know all the really technical stuff I'll leave that to the medical websites. To sum up the problem, the left side of Olivia's heart has not formed correctly. The left side of the heart is what sends blood through your lungs to be oxygenated and then through the rest of your body.
Some families in this situation opt for no surgeries and let the baby die. Andrew and I talked very briefly about that option and it was no question that if she was meant to die then she would just have to do it without our help. We're not going to sit around and watch our kid die when something can be done.
So here's what we're looking at. I will be induced around 38 weeks at University hospital where they will have all sorts of specialists around making sure everything goes well. I shouldn't have to have a c-section. Olivia will then be put on a medication to keep a valve open that normally shuts after birth (more technical info I'm not going into right now.) She will be transferred to Primary Children's shortly after where she will have her first surgery, which will be open heart. Before her first surgery she will be given her nutrients intravenously. So as I suspected, I will not be able to nurse. I can, however, pump and we will begin to store up milk. After surgery she will have a tube inserted through her nose down to her intestines and we can feed her my milk that way. Not ideal but better than nothing. Recovery time after this first surgery should be about a month if all goes well. Survival rate during this surgery is about 75% The second and third surgeries are at 3-6 months and then at 2-3 years old. Their recovery time is about 2 weeks and are less difficult.
At this point we are still absorbing information. We are surprisingly calm but still emotional. Our little girl will be able to lead a pretty normal life but will get tired faster than other children. Due to her surgeries, hospital stays, recoveries etc. she will most likely be slower to develop than most children. Both physically and mentally. They mentioned she might turn blue from time to time which does not make me feel very secure but it's something I will learn to deal with. About 50% of these children have their own heart still by age 5. That means the other 50% have a transplant. This part is really scaring Andrew right now. The part I'm having the hardest time with is the fact that I will probably outlive my baby girl. I made the mistake of asking how long was normal for these children to live. Average was early twenties. I know that a lot can happen in medical advancement in 20 years since they've only been able to "fix" this problem for the past 15-20 years but it's still scary.
There's so much going through my head right now. (Which means I'm in journal entry mode and I will probably crying while typing this so beware of mispellings, random thoughts, and emotional outbursts.)) How am I going to take care of this little one? I feel so inadequate. How am I going to take care of Olivia and not neglect Ella? How am I going to ever be able to say good bye to my baby?
I know I can do this. Because I have to. I've already gotten the unwanted pep talk about "the Lord knows best" and all that jazz. I don't need that pep talk. I don't need to be told that medical advancements are happening everyday, and as long as I pray it'll be fine, and and and. I KNOW all that already. This is not something that will make me waver. This isn't something that will tear me down. This will simply reinforce what I already know and teach me a few more lessons. I am already more mindful of the time I have here with my family. I am even more grateful for my eternal family. No matter how short a time I may have with Olivia I know that I will have an eternity with her later. I know you should never ask the "why me?" But mine aren't negative. I just keep thinking "Why do You think I'm strong enough to take this on?" "What did I do to deserve this special little someone?" or two special someones for that matter. I feel extremely flattered that the Lord has asked me to do this. I still wish He didn't trust me so much but I'll do what He's asked. I have all my friends. I have wonderful inlaws who understand what I'm going through. I have wonderful parents who will give me all their love and support. I have my sweet little Ella who will take care of her baby sister. And I have Andrew. I couldn't have chosen a better man to do this with. All tough and manly, but when it comes to his girls, he's all goo. And of course I have all my friends, siblings etc.
We asked you all to pray and though we didn't get good news today I know those prayers were answered. The reasons for my bursting into tears randomly isn't because of despair, or fear. It's because of the calm. I feel my Saviors arms around me now, more than ever. He knows what I'm going through and He's going through it with me. He fills me with the reassurance that I can do this. He is the only reason that I can say "I'm fine" and not be lying. I've never considered myself a strong person and so I know that the only reason I am fine is because of all the prayers on our behalf. We are so grateful for and to all of you.

2 Years, 4 months

2012-01-31T10:56:00.000-08:00

I know it's early but seeing as I have no idea what the next week holds I'm going to get a little ahead on my journaling.

Ella has so much energy! And she's trying to get rid of her naptime altogether. It's been a small nightmare. She's not ready, but she thinks she is. If she doesn't get her nap, she's touchy and sensitive all day. But she really fights it when I put her down. She'll lay down really well for me but as soon as that door is closed she sneaks out of bed to play. Last Sunday my mom was in town and laid down with her before church. As soon as my mom's eyes were closed Ella would start sneaking, as quietly as she could, out of bed. I know she does the same when no one is in there. It's not until I hear her bump into a toy or play with the wrong toy that I even know she's not sleeping. Yesterday, three hours in her room and no "zzzzz's" It's rather frustrating.

Ella is just all sorts of a stinker lately. She's learned (thanks to her best friend, Adam) how to unscrew lids. First it was the desitin, which her and Adam decided to use as lipstick. This is what happens when I get together with my friend and start talking...Totally our fault. Then, during naptime one day she found her "tinkerbell makeup." It's called dazzle dust. It's just a fine shimmery powder for your skin. It smells good but it sure makes a mess when your two-year-old gets into it. So after coming in to check on her during that particular naptime I realized there was dazzle dust all over her, the floor, the lovesack, her giant gorilla, the armed pillow.

Speaking of being able to open lids, desitin lipstick, and "tinkerbell makeup" Ella has gained a passionate love for makeup. She never used to climb a ton. She'd push a chair over to the counter when I was cooking to see but other than that counters and up high wasn't that interesting to her. Then she figured out where my makeup was. I do my makeup in our bedroom and so it's stashed on the dresser. Ella's gotten clever about how to get it. It's too hard pushing a chair across the carpet so instead, she'll take a laundry basket, dump out the clean laundry and climb on up. She then proceeds to grab my makeup bad and beautify herself. One evening I was in the bathroom and Andrew in the living room. Ella waltzes into the living room to join daddy, sits on the couch, and says "Daddy! Yook at me! I pi-ey!" In the short amount of time I was indisposed she managed to put on foundation, mascara, and eye shadow. Ever since then I've been more protective of the makeup but she's a clever girl and still manages to get ahold of it. She gets particularly excited if she can find lipgloss. I'm a chapstick girl so don't have much lipgloss and I never know where it is. She manages to find it every once in a while and get a bit on before I can go stash and forget it again.

Ella may be stinker of the century but she is loads of fun to play with. Her to favorite things to do are have Disney Dance Parties or play superman. With our DDP's we just turn on some disney music and dance around like maniacs. She marches to the mickey mouse march and shakes her booty to the "Bear Necessities" and twirls to all the mellow songs. She's such a girl. I didn't teach her this but when she twirls she'll grab the ends of her skirt to make the twirl more effective. I guess that just comes naturally. Quick funny story. Since Adam taught Ella to open stuff, we got the Davenports back and now their little boy grabs the hem of his shirt when he twirls. BAHAHA!

Ella really loves playing superman. That one tires mommy out though so we don't do that one as often. Basically all we do is turn on the beginning of the movie so we have the proper music and "fly" I will either have Ella put her stomach on my feet and lift her in the air or actually pick her up and "fly" her around the room. She of course prefers the latter but I get tired lugging around a 30 lb toddler. She's gotten quite good and saying "Up up and away" instead of "123 go" or "ready set" I'm mean and won't fly her like superman unless she has the proper take off. I also make her put her arm out like he does when she flies. I would feel bad about making her be a true superman if she didn't love it.

And lastly, when she's not being a little energetic stinker she's the sweetest thing around. She's been very cuddly and kissy lately. She loves to lotion herself and me. After she does she'll kiss whatevers been lotioned. Including her own legs. That one is pretty funny to watch. She loves to help me lotion my belly and then gives "baby Yibia" kisses. She still tries yelling into my bellybetton, telling Livy to come out. She loves giving "baby Yibia" hugs too. She's going to be such a good big sister. Right now we're working on not talking back to mommy. She's getting quite the little attitude. But when she gives me sass she gets scolded and promptly says sorry and gives me hugs and kisses.

Ella also loves the "Dont' smile" game. She's horrible at it. But she loves it.

She also loves: Curious George, shoes, Pizza, Ice cream, going to gramma's house (Turley or Wright, doesn't matter, either one will do) playing with Uncle Mikey, saying family prayers, reading, playing with her barbies, jumping (on the bed, over stuff, in a sack) wearing dresses, taking care of babies (real and dolls) listening to music, coloring, playing with playdough (she loves making "munashes" aka mustaches) playing with daddy, playing with hair, singing, playing piano, playing outside.

Update

2012-01-24T08:29:00.000-08:00

It's not much but it's enough to make sleep easier. Since my Dr. doesn't do the ultrasound he didn't get the results until yesterday. After looking over them he called to tell me a little more about we were looking at. He did say the ultra sound sucked (in so many words) and there is a possibility Olivia's heart is just fine. She's just such a stinker they couldn't get a really view of her heart. Unfortunately there is still a chance that she does have a heart defect. I don't know what it would be called but what it comes down to is the septum, which separates the heart from left to right, may not be there. This means she would only have a two chamber heart. Surgery would be needed. We had originally looked this up online by ourselves because this is what the other Dr. had said it might be. Online it said it would require three surgeries. One during her first week. One at 3-6 months. And one at 3 yrs. After talking to my Dr. he informed us that it would actually require surgery inutero. I'm not sure if it would require more after birth but an inutero surgery does make us feel a lot better. She'd obviously still be using my blood and oxygen which would make us feel much better. I'm much stronger than a newborn. Go figure! My Dr. did also warn us that when there's a defect other parts of the heart are often underdeveloped. I'm assuming this means valves etc. So those may need fixing too. We won't know their condition 'til the echo.
Obviously we're hoping that her heart is fine and this is just a case of crappy ultrasound and stubborn girl. But we're also trying to prepare for the worst. We're continuing our prayers and will be having a fast on the 2nd. Her kicks are getting stronger everyday. Enough so that I'm being woken up randomly because of them. So even if there is a problem I think she's tough enough to take it on. Thanks for your continued prayers.

Pictures

2012-01-22T17:45:00.000-08:00

Here's our girl. I went ahead and got down on my hands and knees to plug in the scanner so be grateful! The top is her profile in 3d. Best he could get since she's such a little stinker. The bottom is her girly parts.

Unsure

2012-01-20T14:14:00.000-08:00

I fully expected this to be a short post. A simple "It's a girl!" Unfortunately life rarely goes as expected.
Our little Olivia Dawn has a heart defect. I have never been more scared in my life. Andrew and I left for the ultrasound excited and eager to find out who would be joining our family. We never expected that anything would be wrong. The ultrasound started out fine other than her awkward position. The girl has her legs above her head and we could not get her to move. But her brain looked good and her limbs looked good. The tech just couldn't get a good view of her heart. He could see the two major valves but because of her position he couldn't see anything else. He finally had me use the restroom, jump up and down and then we tried again. The girl still hadn't moved so he went and got the Dr. I'm realizing now he was seeing something wrong. The two of them kept looking and finally the Dr. sat down and told me there was a defect. Where there's usually a cross in the ultrasound showing all four chambers of the heart there wasn't one. He explained that they'd send me to Primary Children's for a fetal echo (Feb 3). He also explained that until then we won't know if little Livy will need surgery after birth or if she'll even make it here.
Andrew has taken the rest of the day off work and we've spent the last couple of hours crying. Currently he's out raking leaves to work off some of the emotion. I'm, of course, on here trying my best to make sense of all this. I was so worried for Ella's ultrasound. So worried that something would be wrong. For our little Livy, it never crossed my mind to be worried. I was just so excited. So excited to find out who was joining our family. So excited to put a name to the little thing kicking inside of me. Now, all the daydreams I've been having over the past 20 weeks are impossible. Holding my baby for the first time probably won't be seconds after she's born. I may not be able to feed her her first meal. I may not get skin time after her first bath. I know the Lord knows best and he knows what we can handle but recently a friend posted a quote on facebook by Mother Teresa that sums up how I feel pretty well. "I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish He didn't trust me so much." At this point, with not knowing exactly what we're dealing with, I feel utterly and completely lost. Thoughts are running through my mind a mile a minute. I keep picturing my little angel in a casket or at best with a giant scar/stitches down her little chest. But then I try to be positive and picture my two little girls in princess dresses meeting Mickey Mouse for the first time. Then that starts the cycle all over again and I start crying because what if I never get that chance. I think about the other day when Cyndi, Andrew's younger sister and one of my best friends, mentioned that my father-in-law said he would be the next to die. He had said that he would never bury another child (Andrew had a stillborn sister) but what if he has to bury a grandchild. At this point there are so many "what if"'s. The dr. that talked to us said that it wasn't anything that I did to cause this. That hearts are such an intricate organ. That none of this was my fault. But I can't help but feel that if I had just resisted that pepsi, or been more diligent about taking my prenatal before I was pregnant, or or or. Or maybe I just jinxed it since I wasn't worried about this one. I know the dr was right and I didn't do this to my baby but until I can make sense of all this I know I'm going to continue having these thoughts.
No matter what happens, I at least got to know my Livy during this ultrasound. She's stubborn for sure. She had lots of room in there but refused to stretch out. She wanted to be curled up with her feet above her head. The tech tried moving her down where there was room and still, she want to be curled. This makes me think she's a snuggler. She's like her mommy and likes to be curled up all comfy cozy. And she's such a girl. Just like her big sister. During the whole ultra sound our little Livy had her sweet little legs crossed. The perfect little lady. And modest too. To see that she was indeed our little Livy to tech had to do a lot more jiggling to get her to show us. Most important was that stubbornness. While it may come back to bite me in the butt during her teen years, I'm praying that it's what gets her through this.
The next two weeks will be filled with prayers and tears. I ask you all to pray for our little Olivia Dawn. If you have the chance, please put her name in at the temple. Logan temple is closed and won't open til next week sometime so we won't be able to til then. Thanks.

Half Way!

2012-01-19T10:52:00.000-08:00

I know, I know. You all are waiting to see what I'm having and that post won't be until tomorrow but I want to keep up with my pregnancy documentation and tomorrow's post will be short, simple, and loaded with ultrasound pictures, I'm sure.

At twenty weeks I'm feeling pretty awesome. I still try to take a nap during the day but the exhaustion no longer takes over my life. Instead of waking up tired I wake up normal. Naturally, after lugging around an extra 9 lbs (as of my Dr. appointment on Tuesday) and chasing around a 2-year-old I get a little sleepy. So I take a nap during Ella's. This then gives me the energy to last for the rest of the day.

The second trimester is by far the best. I think most would agree with me on that but I really love it. When everyone around me was getting pregnant I was feeling so jealous because Andrew and I still hadn't decided if it was time yet. Of course, during the first trimester I lost sight of what I loved about pregnancy and kept thinking "What was I thinking?" And I have it easy compared to some. But we all have those moments I'm sure. Now that I've reached the fun part I'm remembering why I was so jealous. I'm feeling the baby a ton now. Feeling a baby growing inside would have to be on my top 5 favorite things that I've ever experienced. Poor kid. This means, I pick on the it. I'll scrunch up on the couch just so it has less room and will start flailing about. I did learn yesterday that I can no longer lay on my tummy on harder surfaces. I tried coloring with Ella on the floor which baby hated. But to top it off I started getting light-headed. I think my laying on my tummy was pushing my uterus into that vein. So no lying on my back or tummy.

Andrew is loving the second trimester as well. He loves to feel the baby and is also feeling it more and more. He of course is loving a more normal and rested Sarah as well.

Other twenty week updates include less ligament pain (though it's still there.) Less gas. I was super gassy during the first trimester. Not farty. I would just get lots of gas bubbles sitting in my abdomen that would hurt. Less room in my pants. I've started wearing maternity clothes.

And some really good news. By this time in my last pregnancy I couldnt' sleep through the night because I had this muscle in my back that would spaz. It still does if I hunch over one of my craft projects too long or such but I haven't had any problems at night with it. Hallelujah for a new mattress! So I'm sleeping pretty well. I'm having to pee less at night too. YEAH! Baby's moving up!

Tomorrow is the big day we find out who's joining the family so I'll post again soon. Last chance for guessing!

Scare

2012-01-10T19:32:00.000-08:00

Today has been a bit of a roller coaster. It started as any normal day except my sweet man got up with Ella. This NEVER happens. He sleeps right on through her knocking on the door. So I got to sleep in. It was awesome. I then got up, ate some breakfast and Andrew agreed to wait a little to go into work so I could shower all by myself. Awesome again. Unfortunately, in the process of getting ready for showering I noticed a little blood. I checked some more and sure enough, I was spotting. I hadn't had any different pain but had had the usual ligaments pain. But of course, spotting is never good and I knew it wasn't due to intercourse because it's been a few days. So I'm thinking, I've had cramps and am so used to ligament pain that I didn't realize it. I showered anyway to try and calm down and then promptly went and got my phone. Andrew may not understand me but he could tell I was upset. So I told him why while trying not to break into tears and really freak him out.
So I called the Dr's and they got me in this morning at 11:30. My blood pressure was higher than normal but not high. I generally sit at about 100/? but today I was at 110/60. Woohoo for stressing. So still, nothing to worry about. The dr. then came in and we checked the heartbeat. He found it pretty quickly which was a relief. And it sounded just fine. He then explained that what I probably had was a placental abruption. So basically a bit of the placenta rips away from the uterus and can cause you to bleed. He pulled out his ultra sound machine (no we couldn't tell sex. His machine's not that great) and we checked out baby. So I did get to see my baby today. That was fun. The heart was beatin' away and babe looked healthy. He checked my fluid and there's plenty surrounding the baby and the placenta wall is good. Any abruption was small enough that we couldn't see it.
Dr. Firth was so sweet. After all was checked and confirmed ok he assigned me to uterine bed rest (no intercourse, running, etc.) He informed us that he had been really worried about me when he found out we were coming in. He then made sure we remembered where he lived and had his home phone so that if the bleeding got worse we could get ahold of him. I really feel blessed to have a dr. that cares enough to worry about me. It was a difficult and scary morning but it has reminded me of the things I am grateful for that I sometimes take for granted.
Our 20 week appointment is still scheduled for a week from now. Hopefully by then everything's back to normal.

Two Years, Three Months

2012-01-08T16:18:00.000-08:00

And we're back...darn tantrums. Darn holidays. At least that's what I'm blaming it on. All the treats, missed naps, new toys. She's not as bad as she was during her first bout of terrible two's but she is definitely trying to assert her independence. That and she's getting used to a little guy that I'm babysitting twice a week this semester. Luckily, we've been down this road so we know what to do and she's snapping out of it pretty quickly. I just have to make sure I pray for patience and take my nap. The tantrums aren't that bed either. There's no kicking and screaming. Just what I like to call extreme whining.

Other than the tantrums Ella is still my super adorable little girl. She's getting more and more excited for baby. Lately we've been showering together since it's getting harder for me to bend over the tub to bathe her. She loves showering. Not only to play but because she gets a great view of baby. When I'm soaping her up she likes to get the bubbles and then "wash baby" so my tummy gets plenty clean. I've also had to start lotioning my belly due to the dry weather and stretching. When I do, Ella will help lotion baby and then give my belly a kiss and say "I yub you baby!" She's going to be such a good big sister.

Ella's definitely experimenting with her independence like I previously mentioned. I try to give her free reign often times so for the most part it doesn't result in extreme whining. She has started saying "I do it!" a ton. Basically anytime you ask if she wants your help she'll say it. And that exclamation mark is not in anger but in excitement. I promise, my kids not a snot :) It's so fun to watch her try to figure things out. She will get frustrated with herself when she can't do it but when she can she is so excited and runs around saying "Mommy, I diyit!" Which, translated is I did it. Sometimes her independence can make her a little stinker when she'll tell you to "go away" but that's a rare occurance.

Even with all this going on, she's still a world class snuggler. And she still loves mommy. If I'm not in the room with her she'll often times run around the house saying "Mommy! Whe a-you?" which is where are you. And then once found "Come on mommy!" I'm promptly dragged to where she's playing. And "Hold you now." I still one of her most common phrases.

Speaking of which, she has now found me and wants me to go snuggle with her and daddy on the couch. Until next time!

Baby Update!

2012-01-02T10:10:00.000-08:00

Not a whole lot new to report. EXCEPT THE MOST EXCITING PART ABOUT BEING PREGNANT! I've been feeling the babe really well over the past week. It's put Andrew into a funk because he was feeling left out. But no more! Babe decided to give daddy a New Years present and for the first time last night, about 20 minutes before midnight, Andrew felt the baby kick.
When Ella kicked daddy for the first time, he was a little weirded out seeing as we didn't know what we were doing, what to expect etc. This time around, now that the nerves are calm and we know what's going on his reaction was the best. I told him the babe was being a little rambunctious and he might be able to feel it. But he HAD to be patient. Something he's not very good at. He was a little hesitant because if he tried to feel it and didn't he would get a little bummed. I made him try anyway. He gave in and I'd feel a kick and ask him if he felt it and "No." Finally, baby kicked good and hard. I didn't even have to ask before Andrew said "Was that it?" I said yes and Andrew got the biggest smile on his face. Such a sweet moment. Here's hoping that this year is filled with a lot of those. Not a bad way to start out the new year.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-26T09:28:00.000-08:00

What a weekend! Saturday and Sunday were kinda crazy but so fun.

Christmas Eve, bright and early we woke up to travel a couple hours to my grandma Fay's house for Christmas Eve Brunch. There was yummy food, family, and good news. One of my cousin's flew in from DC as a surprise Christmas present and another of my cousins is pregnant with my Aunt's first grandbaby. That makes 14 great grandbabies by the end of next year for Gramma Fay. Ella was shy at first with all the adults that she's not used to but once she warmed up she was cute as can be. She found one of those echo-y microphones in Gramma's toy box and marched around the house singing for most of the time. Unfortunately I forgot my camera so there aren't any pictures.

After the breakfast festivities we headed to Andrew's parents to wait for the missionary to call. We even got to skype with him. It was a little crazy trying to fit everyone in but we managed. Afterward Andrew and I headed home because we're selfish and didn't want to share Ella's Christmas morning with everyone. Quick funny story about the ride home. We got into the car and Ella started going "bm-bum-bum! drummer boy!" See, a few days prior we were in the car and she started singing "bumbumbum" and the Little Drummer boy song was on the radio. I taught her the little drummer boy part so she'd actually know what song it was. Turns out it's her new favorite. She is picky about the version though. I don't know who sings it but it's the most popular one where the guys "bumbumbum" in the background most of the song. So on Christmas eve she sang the drummer boy song the ENTIRE way home from Treemonton. That's about 45 minutes. Generally we'll tell Ella she can go to sleep but she sang the whole way. My theory is she was keeping herself awake. Daddy didn't help because he did the whole "If you sleep, Santa will come." And that just got her all excited. But her serenading us on the ride was fun.

At home we hung stockings, read the Christmas story and then sent Elly to bed. Andrew and I then watched White Christmas and relaxed for a bit. Finally it was time to play Santa and we set up Ella's presents, filled the stockings with goodies and took turns for each other. Andrew went first and covered my presents with a pillow so I wouldn't see what I got. Worked out well that way since Andrew got a pecan pie from Santa and I don't think that would've liked being covered with a pillow.

I was the first one up on Christmas morning. 6 to be exact. I was starving but too lazy to get a snack and go back to sleep so I just laid there for a couple hours. Finally I got up, showered, and by the time I got out Ella was knocking on her door wanting out. So glad we got those child locks or we would've missed her Christmas morning. She knew Santa was coming and as soon as we let her out she ran into the living room and straight to her stocking. She would pick up the toys and say, "Open it?" so she could play with it. If we hadn't reminded her that she had more presents or toys she would've kept playing with the first thing opened. Ella hadn't realized that there were goodies in her stocking but once she did she was so excited! She got some "baby m-m's" and "ca-ey canes" and a chocolate covered marshmallow "sa-a cause" and "apple juice" which was really kiwi strawberry capri sun.

Andrew got a lot of practical stuff from Santa this year. Shoe polish, garments, and a nice temple recommend cover. He did get some blu-rays (we don't have a player but they were cheap enough that it was only a little more than getting them on DVD) the pie, and a book.

Santa got me a nice silicon covered wire wisk, bamboo spoons, and a candy thermometer. My non-stick pans are now safe! Woohoo! In our stockings we got most of the same as Elly but we also got some sparkling cider.

Then came time for opening the presents. Andrew normally hands them out but he threw out his back so the old man let Ella do it. It was a tough job for her because that meant she had to choose which ones to do first. She'd pick one up, shake it/feel it, and then put it down and grab another. We'd finally just grab it from her. Naturally, she helped us open ours too. She was absolutely thrilled with every single one of her presents. Well, except the clothes. She didn't really care about those. Let me clarify. She didn't care about the clothes, but was super excited about her new sunday shoes and boots. A girl after my own heart. She got a little people school bus, two headbands, three rose clips for her hair, a puzzle, barbie, spongebob pillow pal, quilt, wall hanging, doodle board, aquadoodle pad and marker, and I'm sure I'm missing some. Not all of this was given to her by us by the way. Though, we did spoil her.

Once all the presents were opened Ella began to play. And play. And play. And was NOT happy when we pulled her away to get ready for church. She was a good sport though and didn't throw any tantrums. She just whined for a bit til we told her we'd come right back and play some more.

Oh, a gift list for Andrew and I. Andrew got a new shirt from mommy. A new shirt for Elly from Elly that says "Dad's Sweetheart" on it. She wrapped it and everything. Even though it wasn't really for him, he loved it. His big surprise was a fancy new ratchet screwdriver. Not that he doesn't have enough screw drivers but this one is pretty fancy.

For me, I got a swiss diamond frying pan! For those of you who don't know what those are, they are AMAZING! They are non-stick, but diamond coated so the non-stick won't scratch. Even ifyou use metal on it. And in case it does you're covered with a lifetime warrantee which includes use of metal. So no matter what I do, I will have this awesome pan for life. I also got a lid for it (they dont' come with it apparently) and the lid has a fancy turn thing to let steam out if you need. I've been wanting one for forever but they're kind of expensive so I'm super excited. Oh and Andrew also gave me a "coupon" for new bras. Woohoo! So very soon I will have some new support.

After church we headed back to tree town where we opened up presents from family and ate and played. I got some nice serving dishes. Andrew got a cocoa-latte machine. Ella got a baby doll and some lock-blocks. And we all got matching pajama pants (on Christmas eve) which we made. The girls were the same and the boys were the same. Andrew picked the boys fabric which is why it's so ugly. But they sure are comfy.
It was a wonderful Christmas. It was crazy, and we're all exhausted but it was so much fun. Playing Santa is way more fun than waiting for him. We can't believe this is Ella's third Christmas already and are so excited for her fourth when she'll be even crazier and more fun.

And after going to temple square last night we are ready to get back to normal and relax. We're planning on having a nice mello New Years, just the three of us. Which means just the two since Ella will be sleeping. So Merry Christmas, Happy New Years, and we hope you all had as joyful a holiday as us!

'Tis the Season

2011-12-20T20:09:00.000-08:00

Just some pics from this month. In no particular order. After putting daddy's present under the tree.

"I did it!"

More Christmas party

I'm so proud of my shoe addict.

Wrapping daddy's Christmas present. Mommy only helped a little.

Opening white elephant gifts at the Turley family Christmas party.

Sitting on Santa's lap after watching her first play, White Christmas. Loved the play. Still not sure about a real live Santa.

Playing in the wimpy snow storm.

16 Weeks

2011-12-20T19:45:00.000-08:00

Hooray! I'm out of the first trimester and starting to feel like it. It's extremely rare now that I feel sick or anything sounds absolutely disgusting. I still don't love chicken, or meat in general, but if it's a part of something i.e. casserole, soup etc. then I'm fine. Oh except pig....I still LOVE bacon, ham, pork ribs and so on. The exhaustion is ebbing as well. Hallelujah! My house actually gets cleaned now and I even found the energy to do some Christmas baking. And best of all!!! I'm starting to feel the little one!

Those are the current pros. Now the cons. I'm still quite soar from stretching ligaments. During Ella's pregnancy I could do whatever whenever I wanted. For example, I rearranged the furniture in our bedroom during the eigth month. I was 37 weeks so what harm could it have done anyway. Still, the man got mad at me. Well, he won't have to worry about that this time. Because of the soarness I am forced to take it easy. It actually hurts this time! If I do any lifting, stand on my feet too long, play too hard with Ella, then I pay until I rest enough to make my uterus happy once more. It's really annoying. On bad days, showering is even standing too long.

My least favorite of the cons; I am carrying this kid stinkin' low! Babe moves and I have to pee. I didn't have that problem til half-way through the second trimester last time. The carrying low really isn't a big deal. My poor bladder is just getting a huge workout and it's frustrating. I have a small bladder anyway and am really missing only peeing once during the night. Here's to hoping the kid moves up soon. And for those of you who believe the old wives tale about carrying low means a boy, I don't necessarily believe that but I was leaning toward boy. Now, I have gone back to having no clue.

16 Weeks

In other exciting baby news, I had my 16 week appointment today. During the heartbeat check I was getting a little nervous because the Dr. was having a hard time tracking the kid down. At the first appointment he found the babe 1.5 below my bellybutton. Super easy. So he's searching and searching and finally informs me that since my torso is so long babe's probably hiding low. Sure enough after digging (yes, digging. It kinda hurt and left me soar) around with that darn tool we found the babe hiding around where you'd normally find your ovary. And once poked with it the kid runs off! So, the kid is low (which I had already suspected) and very fast and squirmy. And healthy as far as we can tell at this point. Other exciting news from our appointment. We scheduled our ultrasound for Jan 20th. So make your guesses.

2 Years 2 Months

2011-12-05T12:38:00.000-08:00

I have the sweetest girl in the world. Don't get me wrong, she's still two and still throws tantrums but they are lessening. So why is she sweet? Because after every tantrum she will give you hugs and kisses and say sorry. This Holiday season mommy has been particularly sensitive due to hormones and all that fun stuff. So mommy frequently breaks into tears during reading time (we've been reading Christmas books lately.) Or she gets a little teary eyed during the pampers silent night commercial. Or she gets teary eyed when she's practicing her Christmas songs on the piano. At first this made Ella very concerned. Now she's used to it and will come give me hugs and kisses and stroke my cheeks. Such a good girl to take care of mommy. She is the same way with Andrew. Not that he cries but when he gets home from work she'll grab his face and kiss him. She's just such a sweetie!
I know I keep saying Ella talks a ton. So here are some of her most frequent sayings.
"I fin em"-I found it,him, her
"Hold you now, pease mommy." Hold me now please, mommy.
"I yub you too, mommy...daddy." I love you (too)daddy. Sometimes she doesn't need to say too but she does anyway. Obviously she spends more time with mommy.
"Watch this now, pease." I think you can get this one on your own.
"Sit down now, mommy!" She doesn't' have to snuggle but it's always better watching a movie with someone.
In response to "What do you want to eat?" "Food" or "Dinner" or "Snack" or "treat"
"You/I get it!" Depending on her mood.
"Pi-ey, pease"-pretty please
"Ooo, pi-ey mommy!" I love that one.
"Look at me, mommy/daddy!" Or yesterday's "Look at me daddy, I pi-ey!" She really loved her dress she wore to church.
"Look at me. I a fog/horse/dog etc."-Look at me. I'm a frog etc.
"Kiss you, mommy/daddy?" Sometimes with and added "On fo-head?" She loves kissing our foreheads.
Ella picks up on so much! Since we've been watching Christmas movies she's learned who Santa, Rudolph etc are. Her favorite new thing is "Can you do the Home Alone scream?" She'll stick her hands on her cheeks and scream low and shake her head back and forth. She still ho, ho, ho's for santa. Ella is so excited for Santa to come. If you ask her what she wants for Christmas she'll say "pessents"/presents. It takes some work to get her to say what exactly she wants. So far she wants a train, a rainbow, and a barbie. I may have already said this but it's still cute.
Ella did get the chance to sit on Santa's lap this past weekend. She was so excited, until she was on his lap. Then she got nervous. Next year though...hopefully.
Some of Ella's favorite things to do are: play in the snow, color, play with playdough, read, play the piano, watch all the usual characters and a few new ones too ("Cha-ie Bown and noopy dog") dress up as superman and "fly", play pretend animals/mommy.
I sure love my babe. She's so fun to teach. Here's a video of her singing. She's singing "Naughty Mommy."

Holy Smokes!

2011-11-30T19:19:00.001-08:00

I'm huge! This is what Thanksgiving dinner did to me. And I haven't deflated. I don't think I will either. They do say you're always bigger the second time around. Well, Happy Thanksgiving anyway!

Happy Thanksgiving

2011-11-23T19:37:00.000-08:00

It's amazing how pregnancy makes everything seem more. More tragic, more dramatic, more special, more important. I am feeling a lot MORE today.
I've spent the evening preparing pies for tomorrow. It's my first time hosting Thanksgiving and I couldn't be more excited.
Originally my brother and his family were the only ones joining us but over the past couple of weeks Andrew's younger sister (who just had a baby) decided her little family would join us too. Then Andrew's parents and younger brother decided to join us too. Then I found out one of my good friends had no plans and so she's joining us as well. So our small group of 4 adults and 5 kids has grown to 10 adults and 6 children. One of which will just be eating milk but still.
As should be, this holiday makes one think of the things they are most thankful for. The small crowd that will be filling my home tomorrow is part of what am most thankful for. The people that I have had the privilege to include in my life are the greatest blessings I could ask for. I come from a wonderful family. I married into a wonderful family. And I have started a wonderful family. And throughout it all I've made wonderful friends. My prayers have been answered through the people the Lord has sent into my life. Most importantly, I am grateful for the Lord enabling me to keep all those most important to me for forever.
This Thanksgiving I am most grateful for all of you. Thankyou for blessing my life in countless ways.

Happy Thanksgiving!

12 Weeks

2011-11-22T15:55:00.000-08:00

I'm not quite 12 weeks but I had my first dr's appointment yesterday. He doesn't have you come in 'til 12 weeks unless there's a history of problems.
In the morning I called to double check the time of my appointment and Dixie, the receptionist, asked my name. As soon as I told her she said "Oh Sarah! We're so excited to see you again!" I felt pretty special that she remembered me. All the nurses did too. Can I just say, I love my dr's office.
Onto the fun stuff. The baby's heartbeat was nice and strong. Since I go to a family practice dr he doesn't do any ultrasounds. At 20 weeks he'll send me to the hospital to get some done. Because of this I did ask him to double check for a second heartbeat. With my families history and my rapidly expanding belly I was a little worried. I knew you grew faster for the second but I wasn't expecting it to be this much faster. Anyway, there was just the one heartbeat. Wahoo!

Some Quick Stories

2011-11-14T08:58:00.000-08:00

*Ella had been getting up before the sun so we sat down and had a little talk about sleeping while the sun does. After that she did really well! She was sleeping in past sunrise! HOORAY! So one morning I woke up and she hadn't started her usual knocking on the door thing yet so I went in to watch the morning news. While watching I heard her doing something in her room so I poke my head in and she's got her head dangling off the bed and lifting up the blinds so she can look out the window. I asked her what she was doing and it turned out she was looking to see if the sun was awake so she get out of bed. :)
*"Wizoboz?" has been the question the past week. And yes, I know what it means. Her new most favorite movie is Wizard of Oz. She's always liked it but lately that's all she wants to watch. And she gets so into it! Every time Toto gets taken by Miss Gulch, Dorothy gets hit by the window, and any other tramatic things she just about has a heart attack and starts shouting "Mommy! Oh No! Doughthy!" (or Toto, Lion, etc.) She's getting to know the movie well enough that she knows when the "rainbow" part is coming. That would be when it goes from B & W to color. And everytime Dorothy opens that door Ella exclaims "OOooo pi-ey fower!" Meaning pretty flower. And Glinda is a "Pi-ey pincess" I think you can figure that one out. I love watching it with her.
*Ella does NOT like daddy leaving for work each morning so she won't kiss him because according to her if she won't say goodby he won't leave. It has yet to work but she will keep trying.
*Ella just got her first cousin on Andrew's side. She's so excited for "baby mannan" aka Madelyn, to be in the family. She hasn't even gotten that jealous. Just once when I was holding her she got upset and started crying "my mommy!"

2 Years, 1 Month

2011-11-09T08:08:00.000-08:00

Ella wearing a playdough mustache.

I thought about cutting down on the monthly updates now that Ella is two but she is still growing in leaps and bounds so I changed my mind.

Ella talks more and more every day. She loves to tell us what everyone is doing (who's not with us) For example, Uncle Bobby is always sleeping according to her. She also has figured out who goes with who. So when we say we're going to see Grandma she'll say "Grampa too?" Or "Mike too?" Same thing with if we say we're going to see Aunt Cyndi, "Bobby too?"

Ella loves singing and is often caught singing "I love to see the temple" and "Eensy weensy spider." She also loves counting. She's understands what it is too for the most part. She understands how many one two and three are but after that I think it gets a little too complicated.

Ella loves playing with me. Playdough, coloring, supermanning etc. It's always better with mommy. The playdough mustache was my idea but she thought it was pretty awesome. She really loves to "supawhy". I think the "why" comes from the PBS show. Basically I hold her hands, she puts her tummy on my feet and I lift her in the air with my legs and sing the superman theme. She loves it and now when she wears my nursing cover as a cape she'll run around the house singing the superman tune.

Ella loves makeup! Ever since Halloween when I let her wear "tinkerbell makeup" she goes gaga over the stuff. For Halloween she just got some glitter. But I often find her going through the bathroom covers looking for makeup. Last night I hosted a MaryKay party and the girl went nuts! I let the sales rep put some lip gloss and rouge on her and Ella was so excited. All night long she kept saying "Ooo pi-ey", meaning pretty.

Ella is so sassy! I am often told that she's just like her mother but I really dont' think I'm THAT sassy. The girl is a little ball of fire. Funny story, which was already posted on facebook but whatever. I was getting her ready for her bath one evening and took off her diaper. It was wet but due to my sensitive nose it smelled very strong to me. So I said "Ooo stinky bum, Ella!" She then turns around, sticks her bum at me and shakes it at me. Then every time we want to change her diaper she takes off running. Either before we've started or as soon as the diaper is off. Luckily, she doesn't do this when she's poopy. Often times she'll be trying to do something, then I'll try to help her and she immediately says "No mommy! I do it!" She's just so independant and because of that her sass really shows for most of the day. It's very cute and I'm glad that my girl is turning out to be confidant but sometimes....

We're working on her patience skills. She's pretty good and doesn't throw tantrums very often but everyone has their bad days.

Ella has the best imagination. I'm starting to wonder if she has imaginary friends. The other night while I was singing to her before bed she asks for a "marshall" meaning marshmallow. I just ignored her and kept singing. She holds her hand out to the room and says "marshall pease." A few seconds later "tank oo" and then she starts snacking on her pretend marshmallow. She did this several times til she'd had enough of her pretend snack and then asked to go to bed.

Ella is learning all about "Saa Cause" and ever since she found out he brings "pressies" she loves the man. While we're at the store she sees all the Chrismas merchandise and points out Santa on all the posters, wall decorations, food items etc. She is so excited! And when we tell her that Santa will bring her presents she remembers her best friend and will ask "Ama too?" So we assure her that Adam will also get a visit from Santa Clause. She is getting so excited for "Me-ey Kissmus" and her presents. She has already made me help her make a list of what she wants. On it so far are: "choo choo twain", "wainbow", and "bobbie" aka barbie. Haven't quite figured out how I'm going to work the rainbow angle but we'll figure it out. We will also be getting her a picture of the Logan Temple and Salt Lake Temple for her room.

The girl is obsessed with temples. She'll make us drive all the way around the logan temple whenever we head that way. Of course we oblige. How could we say no when something so wonderful is one of her favorite things.

And our last bit of big news! Ella has upgraded beds once more! My aunt was getting rid of a twin bed so we thought that would be a good Christmas present for Ella. Except that once we got the bed here we weren't sure where to put it so we put it in her room. There wasn't a sheet so we were planning on having her still sleep on the toddler bed and she'd get sheets along with the quilt I'm making for her for Christmas. That didn't fly. Once the bed was in there she HAD to sleep on it. So she will still be getting a quilt from mommy for Christmas but the sheets she got on Monday and she is one happy big girl.

Halloween

2011-11-04T21:22:00.000-07:00

I love it! But I kinda slacked on pictures this year. I did take my camera to my family's Halloween party but forgot it for Andrew's family's party. And also forgot it when we went trick-or-treating. Oh well. So all the pictures are from my family's party.

Which was the first one! If you can't tell, Ella was tinkerbell. Andrew and I were nothing. I have been to exhausted to get anything ready for us so we went super uncreative. Ella was so funny. My cousins little girl was Spongebob Squarepants. Ella LOVES "Bobbob shoepass" so Ella followed her around for most of the party. We played out annual Halloween white elephant game ate good food and caught up with my aunts, uncles, and cousins.

Andrew's family's party, I did "dress" up. I just stuck a sign on my belly that said "mother of two" and that's how we announced the pregnancy to his family. We played a musical white elephant game to Monster Mash and ate pizza and home made root beer.

On Halloween Ella and I were Andrewless. Andrew's had a huge job in Price so he's been out of town during the week. We trick-or-treated at Lee's. That got Ella excited for actual trick-or-treating so instead of staying alone all night we headed over to his parents to trick-or-treat in their ward. His parents neighbors aren't close so we drove to each place and Ella would tell Grandma, who went with us, and me "trick-or-Treat" in the car but once to the doors just went straight for the candy without saying a word. She at least said thank you afterwards.

And ever since then she asks for candy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Once back from trick-or-treating I fried up some doughnuts I had been working on.

The week before Halloween we had fun picking pumpkins and carving them with my cousin and his wife and another couple from our ward. Ella really just wanted to blow out the candles inside of them but it was fun all the same.

Though we missed spending time with Andrew we had fun and are looking forward to next year. Ella will actually get to pick her own costume so it should be interesting...

Confirmation

2011-11-04T20:42:00.000-07:00

October was a very eventful month. And it started out with a positive pregnancy test. Yes, yes, I know we may be a little early at spilling the beans but even my doctor said that I was a pro at pregnancy and such. Plus, I'm horrible at keeping my own secrets. Especially when they're exciting ones.

So here's some background on the whole Andrew, Sarah parents of two thing. As many of you know though you may not remember, Ella was born the day before my birthday. After that Andrew would joke around that he should get a baby for his birthday too. Well, as the time got closer and we got thinking about things a beginning of summer baby sounded pretty awesome. So we decided that's what we'd try for. There was some drama with insurance and dates getting postponed but eventually we decided that we couldnt' just wait around for insurance to get their act together. So we tried and ta-da! Andrew will indeed be getting a baby for his birthday. I'm due June 8th and his b-day is the 11th. Close enough.

I took the test when I was only a day late but I had been having the sore boobs symptoms all week so I was pretty sure I knew the answer. I waited until Andrew was gone home teaching and peed on the stick with Ella watching (judge me if you want but she wasn't going to let me lock her out.) Ella thought the stick looked pretty cool so once I set it down she tried to snatch it. The positive result was showing up after only 30 seconds so I told her that if it was indeed positive she could give it to daddy. We then ate dinner, gave her a bath and drew "I'm going to be a big sister" on a onesie while we waited for Andrew to get home. When he did she came out with the onesie on and handed Andrew the test. It was dark out by this time and he was sitting furthest away from the lamp so couldn't read the test. He said "So what does it say?" I of course am thinking, why would I give you a negative pregancy test. Instead of saying that is just told him to look at Ella's onesie. The man is blind to details apparently. He then looked at me and says "Really?" All nice and calm. I say yeah and that if the internet is correct I'm due around June 8th. He says "Cool." And goes back to watching TV. LAME! But you have to understand, Andrew and his family don't react very big to anything. So it wasn't until later when he patted my belly and said "Good night baby" that I knew he was as excited as me. He's just kinda silly that way.

Ella is pretty excited too. She says that mommy is having a baby sister for her. But that we'll name her Marshall (a name we like for a boy) Turns out she just doesn't like our top girl name. We really have no preference on boy or girl. Just a healthy baby. Ella likes giving the baby kisses, which inevitably turn into raspberries. She will also talk to the baby. Mostly just saying "hi" and "I love you, baby" I haven't explained that the baby can't hear her yet. No need to ruin her fun.

This next part is more for a pregnancy journal so feel free to read but it's more for my own documentation.

I started feeling sick on my birthday :( so cheese and crackers were my b-day meal. This morning sickness has been very close to how it was with Ella. I felt sick 24/7 for about two weeks but never threw up. After the two weeks it started easing up and I'd feel sick in the morning, or at night but rarely all day. After the 3rd week of feeling sick (this put me around 8weeks) I was feeling pretty good most of the time. Now I really only feel nasty if I get too hungry. Oh, and chicken and bread are not my friends. Unless it's french bread.

With this pregnancy I have experienced a lot more abdominal pain. It hasn't been cramping and I haven't been spotting so I wasn't too worried but I did talk to my dr about it. Turns out, it's just ligaments stretching already. I knew things happened quicker on the second pregancy but I didn't realize it would be that much quicker. Well, my belly has already begun to expand. I dont' necessarily look pregnant but my pants are tighter and there's a nice little crease mark showing up where my undies cross my belly. My grandma is predicting twins but we still have a couple of weeks before my first dr. appt. Oh and my hips are already bothering me too.

Yuck!

2011-10-25T14:48:00.001-07:00

I've felt sick for the past two weeks. If you think you know why, you're probably right.

June 8, 2012

Happy Birthday!

2011-10-13T10:48:00.000-07:00

Last week was pretty packed with Birthdays. Ok, there were really only two. Ella's and mine. But we had three parties.

On October 6th we had a nice little intimate party for Ella. Just the three of us. Since Ella loves chicken we had homemade sweet 'n sour chicken over rice. And the girl actually ate really well! Why is this a miracle you ask? Because Little Miss watched me make her cake right before and had been asking for "cek" non-stop since. Of course as soon as we got her cake/giant cupcake she was asking for "pressies" aka presents. The girl knows what Birthdays are all about. We "made" her eat at least some of her cake first. As the pictures show, it was an Elmo cake. When she finished off his eyes the poor girl about had a heart attack. She was so sad about Elmo's eyes. Then the mouth, nose etc. She was sad about his facial features gone, but not sad enough to stop eating him.

We only let her open a few of her presents since our families were coming over on Saturday for another party. She opened her grocery basket complete with plastic fruits and veggies. Once open she proceeded to "eat" each one then chuck it. She next opened her Elmo doll we got her. Then her Belle Barbie. Once both were open she would make them hold hands then lay them down pat there bellies and say "Elmo, Barbie sleeping." She was so excited to sleep with them that she skipped story time and lullabies and went straight to bed. Of course we caught her out of bed playing with them about ten minutes later but can ya blame her?

Birthday party #2 for Ella was also very fun. Some of my family travelled up from Utah County. Thanks again mom, Ty and Kari and kids! So fun to have you over! We fed those who travelled and then Andrews family came over for cake, icecream and presents. The cake was a BIG hit. My nieces and nephews as well as Ella were so excited to eat Elmo. I haven't loaded those pictures on here yet but the cake was just a giant version of Ella's cupcake from a few nights before. We did presents first this time. Ella would open one and if it was interesting, meaning if it wasn't clothes, she'd pass it to her uncle mike who was next to her. If it was interesting she'd look at it and play for a second. Until she got to her baby doll. Andrew's parents got Ella a little baby doll and Andrew and I had gotten her a little bottle. Once both of those were open we couldnt' get her to open anything else. She just HAD to feed/share the bottle with baby. Eventually we did get her to open some more stuff. Her list of presents included a my little pony, a Buzz doll, two Mrs Potatoe heads (the toy story one and a mini one) coloring book and crayons, clothes, an Elmo and Jack skellington beanie, and I'm sure I'm missing some. Basically the girl was spoiled rotten. It was so much fun! I never thought about how much fun I'd have watching her on Birthdays and Christmas once she was old enough to care. It really is a total blast.

Oh and for my Birthday on Friday I refused to do anything. Andrew was going to make me dinner but I was feeling a little under the weather so we just had cheese and crackers. My birthday dinner is sitting in the freezer waiting for Andrew to cook it now. It's alaskan salmon in case you were wondering. And he's not a total slacker. He's just been super busy with work this week. He got me lego star wars for the wii and lion king. I was surprised I got anything at all since we had gotten me a new vacuum and applesaucer a couple week prior. And he did the dishes for me! What a good egg. Overall it was the perfect mellow b-day for me. I got to relax and spend time with my two favorite people in the whole world. And Ella spent all day since "Happy day to you!" and Andrew even got her to say "Happy Bufday" instead of "Happy day" So cute.

Time Flies When You're Having Fun!

2011-10-07T08:58:00.000-07:00

And the past two years have been a blast. I love being a mom! I couldn't have asked for a better little girl.
At two years old Ella is just plain amazing. When tucking her in at night and saying "I love you" she'll respond "I love you too." Then "I love you more." Then "I love you most." She talks very well though still likes to grunt when she's upset. We're working on that one. She loves to play with her friends. Often times she starts out the morning saying "Ama play?" Ama=Adam, her best friend. She loves to push chairs over to the light switch and then turn the "yights" off and on. She LOVES to dance. Any chance she gets she will. And she still loves to say "shake your booey" while she does. Ella has recently discovered the maniacal laugh. Just in time for Halloween. If you ask her to laugh maniacally she will say "muahaha." Every once in a while she'll even rub her hands together. She loves to watch movies with mommy. When I put a movie on for her so I can get something done often times she'll call me into the room then say "Mommy, sit down!" While pointing to the seat next to her. I love being loved!
She loves to ask for "Chocky milk" every morning. First thing. She heads into the living room with her blanky sits on the couch then grabs my face, turns it towards her smiles with eyes wide and says "chocky milk pease mommy?" I'm such a sucker for that face and she knows it. Works everytime!
Some favorites:
Chocolate Milk
Chicken
Carrots
Broccoli
Cake
Icecream
Toy Story 1,2,3
Wall-E
Up
Pixar in general
Nightmare Before Christmas aka "Haween"
Wizard of Oz
Wearing dresses
Playing with Adam
Playing with Bubbles
Dancing
Singing
Taking baths but not laying down on her back during
Elmo
Kitties
Caillou/Charlie Brown. She'll take either bald kid.
Mommy :)
The past two years have been amazing. Each day there's something new and exciting with this little girl. While it breaks my heart that she's growing up I am loving every new thing she learns. I'm so proud of my little fireball. She's sassy and fun. I couldn't have asked for a better child.

Singing

2011-09-13T16:38:00.001-07:00

She sings! All the time. And I love it!
Favorite songs to sing are:
ABC's and she sings A-G then W-Next time... She's still working on the middle section...and getting the words out a little more clearly. We can understand her but I'm sure few others could.
Happy Birthday. In the tub. Why in the tub I will never know but while she's splashing around she's usually singing "Happy day to you." And so on.
And she still loves singing "Shake your Booty"
This video isn't the greatest quality but here's a taste of her singing.

I'm in love, I'm in love and I don't care who knows it!

2011-09-07T15:25:00.000-07:00

Maybe I'm still a little twitterpated from our anniversary but I've been feeling extra lovey lately. So I thought I'd just share with all of you. You don't have to read this if you're not in the mood for sappy.

Basically this is just about how amazing Andrew is. I've been having a rough time lately with a number of different things and he has been so wonderful through it all. It's no secret that Andrew doesn't do emotional stuff well. Poor guy married a very emotional woman so I've been a learning experience for him, that's for sure. Though he usually is unsure what to do I think he's finally figured out that all he has to do is hold me while I cry. Lately he's gone above and beyond expectations. Rubbing my back, foot rubs, extra hugs and kisses (some might start to think we're newlyweds again) I don't know what I'd do without him.

I've been wanting to make a list of things I love about him for a long time. I'm sure you'll find some of these strange but they are what make him, him.

The wrinkles behind his earlobes.

The way he frowns when he's waking up.

The way he giggles when he's excited.

His imitation singing (he's amazing at sounding just like any male artist)

His road rage when we're stopped at red lights and can't go anywhere anyway.

His extreme need to talk while I'm trying to go to sleep.

His loud breathing at night.

The way he sleeps with his head on his shoulder. (No idea how he finds that comfortable)

Bum snuggles, feet snuggles, arm snuggles, basically if we're touching he says we're snuggling.

His pickyness about how the toilet paper is put on the thingy.

The way he apologizes everytime he farts.

The way he "sneaks" the remote away.

How he won't buy me presents until the day before whatever event because he gets too excited and spoils the surprise.

The way he plays with Elly.

The way he sings to her.

The way he reads to her.

How he sends me shopping because he knows it'll make me feel better.

How he makes me have girl nights because he knows I need girl time.

How he never gets upset when he's starving and I still don't have dinner ready.

His smile.

His eyes.

His closet tenderness. (Yes, underneath that macho man exterior lies a man as sweet as they come)

His hard work.

The way he's a perfectionist.

Anyway, that's all I can think of off the top of my head right now. I sure am a lucky girl. I still can't believe that I was special enough to get him. I'm so grateful that I get him for eternity.

Harvest Time!

2011-09-07T15:06:00.000-07:00

August was a crazy month for us. Well, mostly for me. Andrew had the usual amount of work. I on the other hand was in charge of harvesting and processing our garden. It's been fun but wow...a lot of work. Especially since I was learning a lot as I was going.

So far I have frozen peas, beans, banana and green peppers, zucchini, and carrots. I have also dried zucchini and cherry tomatoes. And then bottled some beans and have just picked more for another batch of bottling. Oh and I've frozen corn though I didn't grow it. Just picked it and did the rest. It's been fun learning how to do all this stuff. I feel like such a grown up.

Soon I will be bottling tomatoes. We have also been growing spaghetti squash but lucky me, I dont' have to process it. Just pick and it lasts forever. Then there's my FAVORITE part about the garden. PUMPKINS!!! Our plant has between 5 and 7 pumpkins and they're all perfectly shaped. I know because I rotate them so they don't get a flat side. I'm so excited for Halloween and hosting a pumpkin carving party! I will post pictures of my lovely pumpkins soon. They are not all the way orange yet but very close!

Getting started...

Cooking...

The finished product! All but one sealed.

Rhubarb pie with fresh rhubarb. Yum.

23 Months!

2011-09-07T14:31:00.000-07:00

This is so weird to me! I'm planning a birthday party for my two year old. When Ella was first born a mission friend of Andrew's sent us a message via facebook that said (basically) "Treasure each moment. It goes by so fast." How true. Time has never flown quite as quickly as it does with a little one. I've tried to treasure each moment but have found that I do indeed forget things that I never thought I would. Thank heavens for my detailed blogging right? So, on that note, here is another detailed blog about my little girl.

Ella amazes me every day. She talks non-stop and it's getting more understandable each day. For that, I am grateful. We were going through a rather rough patch in which the two of us had very little patience for one another because I didn't understand what she wanted. Well, that is no longer a problem! Wahoo! Ella has gotten very good at asking, "Help, please?" "Milk Please?" Though most often it's actually "Chocky milk, please?" The girl is her parents daughter. When asking for chocky milk she usually adds an "I lub you!" You know how Puss 'n Boots gets that wide eyed look in Shrek and everyone melts? Yeah, she adds that in too. I dont' know how she figured that one out but she does it whenever she wants something she knows she's not likely to get.

Another phrase we hear quite often is "Yucky bug!" She absolutely HATES bugs! It just goes to show they are born with their own personality because I purposely acted super excited when we saw bugs. I didn't want a little girl who was scared of EVERYTHING. Well, it didn't work. She won't even touch a couple of those plastic halloween spiders. We kiss them and say "Nice bug" but still she freaks out. Oh well.

A few more of her favorite things to say are "Silly (insert whoever she's talking to)" and "Stinky (insert)"

Ella has always loved "talking" on the phone. Now we can actually tell who she's "talking" too and what she's telling them. She's usually talking to her Uncle Mike or gramma. The conversations usually are about yucky bugs, poopy diapers, or silly mommy.

Funny story: One day I had just finished mowing the lawn so needless to say, I didn't smell very good. I said "Mommy needs to shower. She stinks" Ella then looks at my bum and says "Poopy mommy?" Now she thinks it's funny to periodically ask me if I'm poopy.

I love this little girls personality. I wish you all could spend a good amount of time with her because as much as I try this just doesn't do her any justice. 23 months...wow...

Happy Anniversary!

2011-08-15T09:26:00.000-07:00

4 years and counting! Andrew and I take turns planning out anniversary celebration. I don't think it's very fair to leave it to the man EVERY year, unless that's what he likes of course. Andrew does not like that. It's a lot of pressure on his unromantic self. So, we take turns and this year was his year. We originally were going to fly out to PA to see my sister and take a day trip to NY on our anniversary but alas, car troubles ate up the money for one of our plane tickets. I was super bummed about it, especially since my one other big vacation got cancelled. Guess how many vacations I've been on this summer. I big fat 0! Lame! But that's besides the point! Since our PA trip was cancelled I was a little worried about what would happen on our anniversary. Andrew BOMBED mother's day so I was figuring he'd probably do the same for our anniversary. But the man came through!

On July 30 Andrew and I were heading to a family reunion. He told me to change the input on the radio. I'm thinking "Great he's gone off and gotten himself and ipod without telling me." But then he told me to switch it once more and once I switched it to CD I about died. He had bought the Plain White T's cd and had set it up so it was playing Rythm of Love, my new favorite song. Andrew doesn't do cute stuff like that. He is a manly man who likes action movies with bad acting. He then explained he was going to do a few things for me for next little while until our anniversary. I have dubbed it the "12 days of Anniversary" give or take a few days. Over the next couple of weeks I got new shoes, a trip to lagoon without the babe, back rubs, foot rubs, a break from dishes, a break from dinner making, the remote (and he doesn't like giving that up EVER!) and I even got to watch Sense and Sensibility. He didn't watch it with me but that would be asking a lot of him. He just doesn't do unfunny chick flicks.
Then the day of our anniversary arrived! He started the day with work. Wahoo...After work he took me to Texas Roadhouse. That was a lot of fun seeing as we'd never been. Andrew now has a new love. I have a feeling he'll always tell them it's our first time there because we got free ribs. Dinner was awesome. Even if we were eating with all the oldies. We ate at five and I will tell you why shortly.

After dinner we went mini golf. One of mine and Andrews favorite things to do on a date. It's cheap, and even though I suck, it's fun. Well due to Andrews extreme talent at flooring we got in free. He did a job for a lady who owns a place here in logan. It's...what did her daughter say...a dive. It is pretty run down but it was still lots of fun. And free which is always nice. Especially because of what we did next!!!! Andrew had scheduled...massages!!! From a professional and everything!!! Mmmmm it was sooooo nice. My massage therapist was really good. Even though we were only scheduled for swedish massages she still worked on my knots (without hurting me) I highly recommend massages to everyone. And the whole naked bit isn't even awkward. Of course they tell you dress down to your comfort level. When Andrew and I got out we both looked like we had fallen asleep though neither one of us had. So as you see, we ate super early so while we were getting out massages they didn't rub our dinner right out of us. This put us home around nine and we spent the rest of the night doing what we love. Relaxing on the couch together, eating brownies, watching Who's Line is it Anyway, and enjoying each others company. It was the perfect anniversary. A perfect mix of old loves (brownies, who's line) and new loves (massages, texas roadhouse, and of course each other)

So here's to August 11, 2007 and to the best 4 years of my life. I've learned, loved, and had more fun than I thought was possible. Thank you, Andrew, for choosing me to share your life with.

22

2011-08-01T09:25:00.000-07:00

Another month come and gone and my little girl is still growing in leaps and bounds. Shoes I bought her just three months ago are getting too small already. She can reach up and around the doorknobs (she can't turn the knob all the way yet thank heavens) she can climb onto anything which means she has discovered some of her birthday presents in my closet. She can almost climb into the tub by herself. She's just getting so big!
Though big, she still can hide in small places. And she loves to. She has a few regular spots. One being wedged in my closet between the door and some shelves I have in there. Another being between the bookshelf and the wall. She hides when it's time for diaper changes or jammies. Not because she doesn't want to. Because she wants to play.
Ella has been experimenting with throwing fits again. It seems to be a cycle we go through. I have a feeling it's whenever she's going through a growth spurt and feeling those growing pains because it usually lasts for a few days and then she's back to being her sweet self. Hopefully we only have a few days left.
Other than the occasional fit she still amazes me everyday how sweet she is. We've been teaching her to say sorry and give hugs when she's mean and now she does it without us even telling her to. She knows when she's been naughty and is so good about giving mommy and daddy hugs and saying "sawy" She still loves kissing owies better and finds imagined owies to kiss. If mommy or daddy scratch and itch she's there to kiss it better.
Ella is SUCH a girl. She loves dressing up in my clothes. The other day we watched Wizard of Oz and she had to put on her halloween dorothy costume. She wouldn't take it off for the rest of the day. She loves brushing mommy's hair, taking care of her baby dolls, putting on makeup, and all sorts of other girly things. We went to Andrew's uncles the other night to visit and they pulled out the Barbies. The girl went nuts! Between that and their fake groceries she was in playtime heaven. Which is very exciting for me because I went Birthday shopping a week ago and got her a Belle barbie, fake groceries and some books. I can't wait to see her open all her presents!
Ella is getting quite good with her manners too. On top of saying bless you when someone sneezes she says "scuse you" when she or anyone else burps. Always scuse you. She's also started adding our responses to her sayings. When she says please it's now "Pease ok." Because I say ok after usually. Then thankyou is "Taeto welcome."
Fun story. On the 25th we had some friends over to roast hot dogs and smores. We taught her to say marshmallow and it comes out "Marshall" For those of you who dont' know, I like to plan ahead so we have a potential name list for all our children. Marshall is my favorite boy name so...IT'S A SIGN! We must be having a boy next. And no, I'm not pregnant. I'm just excited to be.
My current favorite thing she does is making faces. We tell her to make faces and she will mimic all the ones you make and more. It's so funny. She adorable!
I don't have any pictures right now so you'll just have to wait.

Happy 4th!

2011-07-08T10:28:00.000-07:00

Our 4th of July was supposed to be spent driving home. We were originally going to be attending a family reunion in Colorado for my dad's family. Instead Andrew got scheduled for a bunch of jobs so we cancelled. Well, turns out we could have gone. The jobs got postponed but it was too late. So instead we kept ourselves busy here in good ol' Cache Valley.
We started out the celebrations on Friday with the car show. Ella and I enjoyed it but it was definitely more for Andrew. It was like seeing a little kid in a candy store. After we decided to go out for dinner. We went to El Sol here in Logan. It was my first time being there. It was good but not my favorite of the non fast food Mexican restaurants. I prefer El Toro Viejo in case you're wondering. They seem to be a little more authentic. Plus, they make their tortilla chips and El Sol definitely just got them out of a bag. Anyway, we then headed home for playing in the yard. Poor Ella. We kept her up for the fireworks. She loved them but she was sooooo sleepy. On a quick side note, our battle for bedtime has been won. She did really well with the toddler bed at first but after she got used to it she decided that she'd climb out of bed to play every night. So her 8 o'clock bedtime became 9 because we'd have to keep putting her back. Well since we wouldn't let her go to bed on Friday she has stayed in her bed every night. WE WIN!
On Saturday we had Andrew's family over for a barbecue. We did hot dogs but had a few requests for our oriental burger so we did those too. After dinner most of us headed down to main street for the parade. Ella was super hot and tired so didn't love it but she did enjoy the old sounding horns and learned to say "aooga"
Sunday, we just chilled for the most part. My old roommate Shannon and her husband and little boy came over for dinner. Still, pretty mellow.
Then Monday, Andrew was thinking we'd do nothing since we'd celebrated all weekend. But he married a crazy woman and I insisted on celebrating the 4th on the 4th. So we went to the Hyrum parade where there weren't any marching bands. BOO! But there were a lot of horses and taffy. So Ella enjoyed herself. For dinner we had barbecued chicken, salad with fresh from our garden lettuce and homemade rolls. But that's not the part that excited me. For dessert I went all out and made a peach pie, and french vanilla ice cream. I know...french vanilla isn't as patriotic sounding but it was soooo good. And that was our VERY busy weekend.

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY

On a quick side note. The picture of Ella on her uncle Bobby's shoulders is what she does when she tries doing the "rock on" and can't keep a straight face.

For My Benefit

2011-07-08T09:12:00.000-07:00

This is just a few quick Ella stories that I would like to document. They are pretty funny so go ahead and read on. But mostly it's so that I don't forget.
*One day as I was sitting on the couch Ella approached me. Once to me, she bent her little head down and started nuzzling my thighs. Unsure of what she was doing I kind of patted her head and she then said "meow." I then said "Good kitty." And she "meowed" again. This went on for about five minutes until she decided that daddy needed some good kitty lovin'. So she moved over to him and let him pet her for a while. Not sure who taught her that but very funny.
*When Andrew gets ahold of her...oh the things she learns. While I was getting our 4th of July barbeque all set up Andrew was watching Ella. When I came back I found that she was saying "Rock on!" Complete with tounge hanging out of her mouth and the little horns hand signally thing. Of course once she had to show me and her aunt and uncle she couldn't keep a straight face so instead just would start out then quickly giggle and cover her face.
*Ella knows that there are a few things we absolutely must do before going out to swim in the pool. First, swimming diaper. Second, swimming suit. Third, sunscreen. She also knows that mommy is somewhat forgetful when she puts things down. I just put stuff down without thinking about what I'm doing then can't remember where I put anything. I had done this with the sunscreen the other day. After looking in all the obvious places I asked Ella, "Where did mommy put the sunscreen?" She looks up at me with her big blues, puts her chubby little finger to her chin, taps it a couple times then gives me the "I don't know" shoulders. Who taught her that? I have no clue but it was very cute and very funny.
*It's a good thing Andrew and I don't have bad habits when it comes to language. Ella is starting to say words we never intentionally taught her. For example, the other day we were at a store and they had a small piano thing in a glass case. She kept saying something over and over. I wasn't sure what but finally she pointed to the piano and sure enough, she was saying "pano." She also has surprised me with giraffe, car seat, glasses, clock, sleeping, lotion and many more. It's fun seeing how much she learns without me trying to teach her. It can be a little difficult though because I'm not always sure what she's saying at first. We get it eventually but not without a little frustration on her part. Her vocabulary grows every day. Some of my favorite things she says are "shocklet", bet you can guess that one. "Heycocker" for helicopter. "Aypee" for airplane. "Jaff" for giraffe. "Taeto" for thank you. "Faffle" for waffle. "Effy" for elephant. Then there are her phrases. "Rock on" "Bess you" for bless you. "Pease ok" I think she does that because I'll say "what do you say" and when she says please I say ok. "Taeto, welcome" Again, because my response is always "you're welcome." "Daddy seeping/work/nose/shower." Seeping=sleeping and nose=blowing his nose. "I you" for I love you. Complete with a half formed I love you hand sign. Bascially she just sticks out her thumb and pointer finger with the rest of the fingers down. She hasn't quite mastered that pinky yet.
Ok, I think I got everything that I was wanting to put down. If not, see you all sooner rather than later. Oh and because she's so cute, here's a picture!

Almost Two!

2011-07-01T10:50:00.000-07:00

My how I love this little girly of mine! She is the silliest, cutest, smartest, happiest toddler I've ever had the privilege to birth (so far). I know. That really doesn't mean much but if I said she was the -est toddler ever I might hurt some feelings.

This month has been MUCH better in the fussy department. I think the worst is over for the molars. Knock on wood. She still has the occasional bad days but who doesn't? Generally she is just such a sweet little thing and so excited about everything!

Now that summer is FINALLY here Ella has found a new love. Swimming! A couple of weeks ago my old roommate and I took a trip to wally world and got our kiddies a pool. They've absolutley loved it. I have to hide Ella's swimming diapers because if she sees them she won't eat or do anything else until she's had a swim. Several times Ella has woken up saying "Swim? Swim?" She also loves running through the sprinklers.

Ella has a new game she enjoys playing as well. I guess you could call it the name game. She points to me and says "Mama?" Then to herself and says "Ella?" Then to Andrew and says "Daddy?" You get the point. She's getting extremely good at it too. For naming people who aren't here she just uses pictures. She knows most of Andrew's family. Her favorites are Matt and Mike (Andrew's younger brothers) though it's hard to tell the difference between the two. She's not quite the "T"s down yet so Matt is "Mak" and she says mike just fine. You just have to pay attention to which vowel she's using. It helps that she is usually pointing at the picture too. She is so smart! She can tell Jacob and Tyler apart (my older brothers are twins.) She does get Evan and Ethan a little mixed up but she knows Parker. We also just call Aunt Allyson Aunt Sissy (which can get confused with aunt cyndi) She also knows most of the Disney princess's. I have only heard her say Aurora but I assume she can say Belle too, at least. She also likes to name her usual friends elmo, buzz, woody or any character from Toy Story, Doug (from Up) Wall-E etc. She loves Pixar by the way.

Ella is SUCH a show off! Anytime someone new is around she just turns on the charm. It's so funny. She flirts, shows off her mad naming skills, does her animal sounds, jabbers on and on like she's telling a story. She does not seem to be like either of her parents. Andrew and I are both shy to a point. This girl may pretend she's shy for about 5 seconds and then that game is over.

Every day there's something new with my girl. She's such a smarty. So curious, energetic and excited about life. Each day, even the stressful ones, I'm so grateful for her. She makes sure to let me know she loves me. If I'm sad she gives me big hugs and kisses and tries her hardest to make me feel better. I am on lucky mama.

Birthday Pictures

2011-07-01T10:37:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday My Love!

2011-06-23T11:35:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday!

Andrew turned 27 on the 11th! With it being a Saturday I was hoping that we'd get to make it a whole day thing but he did have to work in the morning. Pooh pooh. Still, we made due with what we had.

So we started out our party with some yard/house work. Lame, I know but he LOVES working in the yard so he did that while I was inside. Basically we were readying the house for our big guests. You're intrigued now aren't you? Well, it was my parents. They came up to celebrate with us as well as babysit Ella during Sacrament meeting the next morning while we gave talks. Happy Birthday Andrew! (Our talks went just great by the way)

Well, my parents showed up and off we all went to Macey's to see their mini car show. It was a small one but there were plenty of cars to make Andrew drool. We then headed home where we had barbeque chicken, frog-eye salad, and other sides. We played with Elly in the yard and just relaxed. We then headed inside for presents and dessert.

This year for Andrew's Birthday "cake" I decided to do things a little differently. He LOVES LOVES LOVES peanut butter cups so I made some homemade ones and then decorated those instead of doing a cake. They were a hit. He was also very excited about his presents. (I am an awesome gift giver!) He got the real Indiana Jones movies (the original three) some socks and a small airbrush kit. I knew they were a hit when he brought them all to bed. No, he didn't sleep with them. He just stayed up late looking at everything and taking off wrapper etc.

The next day we had another celebration with his family and then on Monday we had one with our friend, Randi. It was quite a busy weekend. I hope he enjoyed himself.

I'm so grateful for my Andrew. It still seems weird to me that I married Andrew Turley. I was so twitterpated with him that I just knew he was too good for me. Lucky for me he thought otherwise. Because of that I've got to spend 5 of his birthdays with him. That is also very weird to me. I'm so lucky to have him. He's a wonderful father, husband, friend, gardener (the sexy kind like in all the TV shows) and so much more. Andrew, I love you more than you'll ever know. Happy Birthday!

(Picture's will come later)

Behind

2011-06-08T12:40:00.001-07:00

Andrew's computer wouldn't let me publish posts and my computer was keyboard-less. Well, i now have a keyboard so here are Ella's last two months. As for Andrew and I, there's really nothing to tell. He works. I work/play. Nothing new to report.

20 Months

2011-06-06T11:36:00.000-07:00

This has been a trying but mostly amazing month. Ella's been quite difficult off and on which I attributed to her bottoms molars still working there way through (they've been doing this dance for two+ months now) Come to find out, she was also working on her top two molars which have actually beat the bottom two in breaking their way our of her gums. I found this out the hard way when she bit me while I was checking her bottom molars. But can you blame the girl for biting things. Her poor little mouth just hurts!

Even with the teething, Ella has been amazingly sweet. Aside from the occasional orneryness and the snotty noses and the not eating she has been learning more and more everyday and is overall enjoying life. And because of the teething she is more cuddly than normal.

Ella really loves kissing! Kissing owies, kissing good night, making mom and dad kiss. For example, Ella and I play this little game where I ask her question after question and she always answers "no" She thinks it's hilarious. Anyway, Andrew was holding her one day and we were playing and I asked her "Can I kiss you?" And she said "no" then I asked her "Can I kiss daddy?" She then grabbed Andrews face turned it toward me then grabbed my face and pushed out faces together. It ended up being a toothy kiss since we were both laughing super hard and couldn't manage a pucker.

Ella still LOVES Ring-around-the-rosie but luckily for me she doesn't have to have me play anymore. She'll just get one of her stuffed animals and spin while saying "Ashes, ashes, down!"

The lucky girl got a swing for daddy's birthday this year! My mom decided to give Andrew his present early so Ella could enjoy it. And she has. We usually have to pry her out of it when we want to go back inside. She loves to just sit in there and relax while pointing at birds, trees and airplanes. All of which she can say. Airplane sounds like "aypee" It's pretty stinkin' cute. Today we saw life-flight so I tried getting her to say helicopter. She did pretty good but then decided it was actually an "aypee"

Ella is now slightly obsessed with Elmo. We have a couple Elmo books and we HAVE to read those before bed time. To get Ella to stay in her bed we have to tell her Elmo is in his bed. We've had to rent some Elmo movies so that she can watch those when she sleeps through sesame street. (And so I don't have to watch Toy Story again)

Speaking of Toy Story, Andrew and I moved them from where they normally are on the shelf (We alphabatize and categorize) We were seeing how long it would take her to find them. Well, we did this on Sat. night after she went to bed. She found them Sunday after church and her nap. So basically as soon as she got the chance to look.

Andrew's absolutely favorite thing that Ella does is say "Bless you" She says it when you sneeze (go figure) but also anytime you make some strange noise with you mouth. So if you burp, cough or have the hiccups.

19 Months

2011-05-09T15:41:00.000-07:00

AHHHH! I am VERY ready for a vacation without Elly. My baby is officially a toddler, with a major attitude and everything. I'm learning a whole new level of patience. She throws fits any time she doesn't get what she wants which means...she throws a fit when she gets dressed in the morning, when she's eating, when she's tired, when she's...ya know breathing.

No, it's not really that bad but sometimes it sure seems like it. Maybe because she's got two molars that have been trying to cut through for about 2 months. Anyway, we're getting an anti screaming routine going to help save my ears. For example, when she doesn't want to get dressed in the morning we play "Clothes Monster" where I drape her clothes over me and sing "I am the clothes monster, so you better run. If you don't, then I'll put clothes on your bum." I do have to chase her down that way but at least once I catch her she'll let me dress her. Another example, when she doesn't want to come inside to play after we've been on our walk/just playing outside I can bribe her with a good game of Ring-around-the-Rosie. She recently learned that one and LOVES it. She calls it "wing" for ring, which I sometimes confuse with swing (because she says them the same) but she grabs my hand and makes sure I know what she means. Smarty pants. Oh on a cute side note, there HAS to be three people in our circle. If it's just Elly and I at home then she'll grab a stuffed animal and they'll join our circle.

Ella's attention span is increasing a lot! We can actually read an entire book together now! Wahoo! She also is sitting through more movies. She still won't sit through an entire movie which is fine with me but she sits through enough to know which is her favorite. And her favorite is...Toy Story!!! Thank heavens there are three of them because several times a day she grabs one of them off the shelf and asks "Buzz, Buzz, Buzz? Yeah?" Until I put it in. And luckily she doesn't care which one I put on. She knows the characters and everything though Buzz is the only one she actually says.

Ella is getting better with names. She's learning a ton! She talks about her friend Molly all the time. Which is funny since they've only played together a couple of times but she goes around saying "Molly?" All the time. And yes, she says everything like it's a question. She also says my name now too! Hooray! Unfortunately she only says it when she's saying "No, no, mom." Other than that she either just squeals at me or calls me daddy. Not sure why...

Ella is getting so big. It amazes me how quickly she's learning and getting into mischief. I'm definitely going to be in shape for the next year or so. In shape and tired...but with this face, totally worth it!

It's hard to be reverant...

2011-04-18T10:17:00.000-07:00

when your kid is so stinkin' funny! Here's just a quick story. Once upon a time, there was a small family of three. A mommy, a daddy, and a baby girl. One day they went to church and were sitting in sacrament meeting waiting for the sacrament to be passed to them. Baby girl was being so good and reverent while she "read" the hymn book. Unfortunately she remembered that when mommy and daddy got the hymn book out they sang. So baby girl decided to start singing very loudly. Mommy and daddy ever so graciously told her, "Can we be reverent and whisper?" Baby girl very calmly looked up into mommy's eyes, put her dainty little index finger up to mommy's lips and said, "Shhhh" then went back to singing. This of course sent Andrew and me into a fit of laughter. Quiet laughter but still... So the moral of the story is...I'm not sure but Ella's certainly not going to let Andrew and me cramp her style. That's for sure.

Feeling old...

2011-04-14T09:02:00.000-07:00

It's true. I do. Why you ask? It's not my birthday, my little brothers aren't engaged, and I do not have any gray hairs.

But last night, for the first time ever, Ella slept in her toddler bed. And LOVED it.

This morning, I took down the crib and put it away.

I officially do not have a baby.

I have a toddler.

I feel old.

Sizes!

2011-04-11T14:03:00.000-07:00

At eighteen months Ella is: Weight-24.63 lbs 55% Height-31.25 in 37% Head-18.4 in 56% So she's a shorty. But she's perfectly healthy, developing wonderfully, and according to the Dr. she is advanced in the fine motor skills area. And she had her last set of shots till kindergarten!!!! She did so well. She of course cried but she calmed down quickly and she hasn't had a fever at all today and she's been her normal happy self.

18 Months

2011-04-06T10:00:00.000-07:00

Nursery here we come!!!! I am so incredibly excited to be able to pay attention in relief society and sunday school again! But I will admit, I will miss Ella. I'm slightly attached to her. I miss her after she's been put to bed. And when Andrew and I go out without her. Sad, I know. But I'm sure the spiritual learning will help with the missing her.

At eighteen months (can you believe it!?) Ella is learning stuff faster than I keep up with. We've been trying to send her missionary uncle a letter a week so he can stay updated and the letters are always a page an a half. Most of the letter being about Ella. Don't worry, I won't make this THAT long but here's a brief description of Ella's amazing little personality.

*Ella loves to imitate. As depicted above, she loves to "clean her ears" "read" "cook" and "garden" She also will "talk" on the phone. The reading and talking on the phone are my favorite! She'll open her book and start "reading" aloud to herself. She's so animated in her "narratives". I wish I could get it on video but as soon as I pull that out she wants to play with the camera. Then there's the phone talking. Basically, as long as she's not actually talking to anyone she'll put the phone up to her ear and babble for 15-20 minutes. But, if we actually have daddy or gramma on the other end she just smiles into the phone. Such a silly girl. I do love that she likes to cook and garden with me but she gets in the way and makes things a little more difficult. Oh and she likes to "pray" I've mentioned before how she's such a good example and folds her arms as soon as she's sitting at the table. Well now, once I start saying the prayer, she does too. She babbles right along with me and once I'm done says "Amen!" It's very sweet.

*Ella has been getting better with animal noises. When it comes to the words she knows she'll only say stuff that is useful to her. Such as "more" "please" "milk" etc. This means, she only made fun animal noises. Like a cow and monkey. Now she will actually woof, meow, caw (which we actually didn't teach her. The stupid crows here in Logan taught her that one) She does elephant noises, snakes, cats, chickens, sheep, giraffe, and penguin. What noises do giraffes and penguins make, you ask? Well a giraffe chomps on his food (so Ella makes nummy noises and pretends to chew something) and a penguin waddle, waddle, waddles. Its very cute. Oh! And she now does pig. She never caught on to the oink oink bit. So I tried the actual snorting thing which she wasn't interested in either til conference weekend. So funny story, conference Sunday we went to Andrew's parents. And as is usual for conference someone always falls asleep. This year it was Andrews father and the man SNORES! Andrew was trying to get Ella to go to sleep and she could see grandpa was sleeping. So she'd close her eyes and "snore" But her snore was more like the throaty spitty sound when you hock a loogie. Anyway, now that grampa has taught her to snore, she snorts like a pig. Oh and thanks to Maximus on Tangled, she neighs now too. (He was the only part of the movie she'd watch with us)

*Ella's word list is expanding. Here are some new ones (and probably some repeats of old ones. I can't remember what I've written) Up, Down, Milk, juice, water, walk, ride, Jesus (sounds like cheese), go, thankyou (which she also signs) drink (also signs) dog, cat, amen, deer, bird (she occasionally just calls them "caws") help (also signs) shoes, teeth, hot, cold, brr, baby, bed, toes, chair, cheese, cookie, cracker, tickle, banana (this one varies between ba and nana) eat, poopy and ew often in the same sentence, and sometimes I swear she says good grief but I can't be sure. Thanks heavens Andrew says that and not something else around her!

*And for the random cute things she does. In the mornings I bring her into bed with Andrew and I (Andrews a lot nicer when she wakes him up instead of me) She loves to get under the covers and have us make a "cake/tent" for her. One morning Andrew kept getting under the blankets with her and "gobbling" her up. So now she gets into her tent and makes gobbling noises every morning. Funny stuff.

She also LOVES to hide. Behind doors, under her bed, behind the couch. But her favorite hiding spot is a variation on behind the couch. Quick, background. Our couch is ugly. My mom made us a nice and pretty afghan for Christmas one year. So I drape that over the back of the couch to hide at least some of the ugliness. On a sidenote, we do have a couch cover but they never fit perfectly and it comes untucked and ends up looking just as bad as the naked couch. The afghan works much better. Anyway, the Afghan covers the back of the couch to the floor so Ella likes to hide behind the couch, under the afghan. She'll even take a book back with her sometimes and "read" while she hides. I'm hoping this is a good sign that I'll have an intellectual child.

My girl is so SWEET! When she's naughty, she gets in trouble and cries but once she's done she comes and gives me hugs and kisses. We've been working on apologizing since she's not the nicest to her friend Adam. Recently, I was showing her butterfly and eskimo kisses. Now she does one of each followed by a regular kiss and a hug. And it's not only when she's been a little stinker! She just loves me! And Andrew too.

And the list of short cute things. She bats her lashes (what a flirt) pretends to sleep, picks her nose to tease mommy, tickles, dances like a maniac, cleans EVERYTHING with her wipes (don't worry, I give her clean wipes to use) climbs on Andrews tool box to watch people, birds, animals out the window, hands me her jacket and tells me its cold (she thinks that I'll be tricked into taking her outside once her jacket is on) brings me her shoes when she wants to go outside, brings me my shoes when she wants to go outside, knocks on the door when she wants to go outside, basically if I let her she would live outside. Bring me diapers when she's stinky, tells me when she wants to go to bed, jumps on her bed, points to my tummy and says baby (No, I am not announcing anything. She just knows that babies grow in tummies) She loves to sit in her cardboard box while she eats her graham cracker and watches sesame street. She loves to lotion herself. We have to watch closely with that one because if I'm not looking she'll eat the lotion. She LOVES to swing.

Well I said I wouldn't make this too long and I failed but for those of you who don't get to see Ella as much as you'd like you at least get to read about her.

They're Here!

2011-03-19T08:20:00.000-07:00

Wahoo! They're here! Jacquel did such a great job. They all turned out really well but there are just so many here's just a few of my favorites.

A Little Preview

2011-03-07T11:53:00.001-08:00

We FINALLY got our family pictures done! Ideally we would've got them done around Ella's one year mark but alas, Andrew was being rather picky about a photographer. Who knew boys could care about that kind of stuff? Well, we finally found someone we both liked with a good price and got them done on Saturday. They were taken by Jacquel Durrant I actually went to High School with her so it was nice to actually know the person doing our photos. She did such a great job and I can't wait to see the rest.

And now for our monthly Ella post! 17 months and one month to go before I get to pay attention in Relief Society and Sunday School!!!! I am so excited! I admit, I will miss her dearly but it will be so nice to learn at church again! Ok, enough of the exclamation points. This past month has been pretty uneventful in the Ella development department. She's still learning new words and motor skills and all that jazz but it's getting to the point where there is no way I'm going to keep up so I think it will suffice it to say, she is a smart little girl and is developing very well. Of course, I will share some stuff because what kind of a mother would I be if I didn't?

Tantrums!...yay...She has been experimenting lately with the screaming and tears and such. I'm hoping she catches on quickly that it doesn't work. If not, I guess she just won't be going out in public for the next couple of years.

I guess I haven't posted a ton about what's been going on in our family lately so here's a quick recap of this past month. Really there's only one major event but it was a big one! Andrews little brother Matt entered the MTC. So I guess I should say Elder Turley. He's now been there for 11 days. He's going to the Russia, Novosibirsk Mission. According to his letter a week ago he can already pray and bare his testimony in Russian. Crazy! He'll be in the MTC 'til sometime in May. We miss him already but are so proud of him. He's the sweetest kid and will make an awesome missionary! And that's our big news...that's not really ours but it's all I have.

Challenge Accepted!

2011-03-02T17:47:00.000-08:00

The Challenge: First one with a six pack gets a prize of their choice.
Andrew's Choice: An iPod
Sarah's Choice: A sewing machine

I will admit I have little faith in winning this one. For one, I am a girl, which generally seems to mean losing weight is harder. For two, even at my skinniest I have never had a six pack. And For three, I have been doing very well at my workout regimen but I do have a tendency to not push myself.

On the upside, in the weight loss department I am ahead of Andrew. Once I stopped nursing Ella for good, the weight just started dropping off (yes, my postnatal friends, there is hope!) I'm hoping that with a little extra work I can get my six pack. Truthfully, I won't be too hurt if I don't win. I'm just happy with myself for sticking with my workout stuff and losing the pregnancy weight...but really...how COOL would it be to have a six pack!?

Before I Forget

2011-02-21T08:40:00.000-08:00

I use this blog to document (obviously) Ella's life. I've been going through my blogs and transferring the info into her scrap book so this entry is more for my benefit than yours so don't feel you have to read it. Of course, if you want to read and leave a comment about how amazingly smart my child is, feel free.
Words Ella Says and understands what they mean:
eye, nose, mouth, teeth, cracker, more (also signs and calls milk more), please(also signs), no, yeah/yes, dad, baby, bobby, bottle, tickle, boo, juice, woof (what she calls dogs) oo oo ee (what she calls monkeys) moo (what she calls cows)
Our favorite things:
Dances to just about anything, indcluding my horrible singing. She will also sing with me if she's not busy twirling. If she can reach it, she brings me the tupperware our cookies are kept in and will then proceed to say "pease, pease, pease" til she gets a cookie. If shes in trouble she squinches her eyes closed to hide. Also, in playing she'll close her eyes to hide from you. She loves hiding behind door, chairs, under the kitchen table and recently she figured out under the bed works great as well. She plays the piano with me but also likes to listen to just me playing. Or plays on her own. She loves looking at new books and will occupy herself for a surprising amount of time with them. (Unless we try to read to her. That means bed time so she doesnt' like us interfering) She likes to color on anything other than paper i.e. my kitchen table, andrews laptop, gramma and grampas bathroom door. Loves putting things in the garbage and putting her toys away. She also loves taking her toys out so it doesn't last long. She loves forts and hiding in them. She loves getting tickled and tickling. She loves moving i.e. getting thrown in the air/in the love sack, getting spun, jumping, running etc. (We assume she will love roller coasters) Playing peak-a-boo when shes supposed to be settling down for bed. Showing me where my eyes, nose, mouth, tounge, teeth, ears, hair etc. are.
Favorite Foods:
Milk, cookies/sweets in general, macaroni and cheese, chicken, broccoli, carrots, grapefruit, banana, bread, beans.

Best Valentines Ever!

2011-02-16T16:18:00.001-08:00

Even after three and a half years he can still surprise me! Probably because he doesn't normally try to. Andrew said he had more in store for me for Valentines day, and I really didn't believe him. It's far from his favorite holiday. In fact, I'm pretty sure he'd rather just get rid of the holiday all together. He says that our anniversary is enough to celebrate our love for each other. Of course now that we have Ella I think he's warming to the idea of Valentines since we can now celebrate our love for her too. But that's besides the point. So I wasn't expecting anything. Especially since he woke up and left for work at 6:45 on Monday. He was working two hours away in Heber and informed me he wouldn't be home til late so I had a couple of my girlfriends come over. We ordered pizza and frosted and ate sugar cookies. We also watched a girly movies as is usual. About half way through our movie I hear some clunking and grinding on our front porch. I poke my little head out to see what in the world is going on and there is my man, muscles bulging, maneuvering a piano out of his works moving truck. I was given my parents piano when I graduated but we hadn't had a way to pick it up. Then winter came and we really didn't have a way to get it unless we wanted it rained/snowed on. But Andrew had his works moving truck for the day and decided to take the long way home. And now I have my very own piano! I haven't gotten to play it much because I certain little girl has been dominating it but hopefully when the newness wears off I'll get to play.

Happy Valentines!

2011-02-14T10:29:00.000-08:00

For my Valentines today it's looking like I will be having a girl party. Due to Andrew's extremely full work schedule (and I'm not complaining) he is working in Heber all week. This means there may be a few nights he just stays with either my aunt who lives in heber or my parents who are about an hour closer than we are. But he says he'll be coming home tonight. It just won't be til late. But, back to the point! Because of this we celebrated valentines on Saturday. I tried being sneaky about asking him for a little extra "grocery" money but the man is not as dumb as he may sometimes pretend to be. He said no, knowing that I would use it for a Valentines present for him. I think he is trying to use this V-day to make up for the past few. See, last year we were both exhausted and poor due to the little one so we didn't really do anything special. The year before I had morning sickness and we got snowed in at Andrew's parents house (at the time all they had to heat the house was a pellet stove and it didn't do the best job ever) not to mention my father-in-law was in one of his moods. Probably the worst valentines ever. The year before that Andrew had the worst case of flu he has ever had so our original plans of going to the parade of homes in st. george were cancelled and I just watched girl movies while he was passed out on the couch. The year we were dating was good but we were both trying to impress each other at the time so what do you expect? So, after three bad v-days Andrew decided that I should plan our date night and he'd be the one getting me presents.

So, we went to Paris! Andrew's not a super cheesy guy so I wasn't sure how he was going to like it but he surprised me. We started out our date with me picking him up from work! Super fun, I know. But I showed up in a dress, heals, makeup done, and I even curled my hair (at least most of my hair. The curling iron somehow broke apart and now RIP's in the garbage can. But that's besides the point!) We came home and while Andrew showered I put Elly to bed. We then had chicken cordon bleu at our fancy restaurant overlooking the eiffel tower (I printed a bunch of pictures for this date and taped them up around the house) We then took a little trip to the Louvre (in our living room) where I was his ever so sophisticated tour guide (I printed out some little blurbs about the art that I had printed) We then went to Notre Dame (in our bedroom) and ended the night watching Count of Monte Cristo. I made him choose from our movies that take place in Paris, or France in general. I was SOOOO excited that he didn't choose Taken. That movie just is not very romantic...at all. It was a lot of fun and a nice simple, yet romantic, cheap date. I was going to take pictures of stuff but my camera is currently dead and I keep forgetting to charge it so, sorry. Anyway, Andrew claims he has more in store for me but he's not one for surprises so we'll see.

16 Months

2011-02-08T11:01:00.000-08:00

Ella's getting taller and faster so naturally I'm getting more in shape and tired. Luckily the house is baby proof enough that I don't need to worry too much. This past month has been more verbal development.
She's says:
*Juice
*Toto (he stuffed dog we got for her halloween costume)
*no
*yes
*bobby (her uncle)
*bottle
*tickle
*please
*more
*dad
*baby
*and she's currently working on cracker but hasn't quite got it down yet.
And I'm sure there are more that I can't think of at the moment.
When Ella can't verbalize what she is trying to say she will "sign" sort of. She'll sign and say more when she wants milk. If we ask her where something is and she's not sure where she'll shrug her shoulders and/or lift up her hands. If she wants anything she'll just starts signing and saying please hoping we'll figure it out. We usually do. She makes sure we do, though she is rarely fussy. I've been told by a few people that she has such a big personality for someone as young as she is. Lucky for me it's a fairly happy personality.
Other than her mental development her personality develops a ton everyday. She's got quite a few things that she LOVES such as:
*stuffed animals
*dancing (still)
*books
*making herself dizzy (she's learned how to spin really well)
*getting tickled and tickling
*Adam (her best friend and one of my best friends sons. And yes, she has kissed him)
*Micky Mouse, Goofy, and (her particular favorite) Donald Duck cartoons. (We're preparing her to not be scared of them at Disneyland) On a side note with this one, she watches them on youtube while I make dinner and just laughs and laughs during the Donald ones. It's so stinkin' cute!
*Singing (also stinkin' cute!)
*hiding. She's started the "if my eyes are closed you can't see me" so she'll go stand in a corner and squinch her eyes closed with an adorably crooked smile on her face. She will also actually hide behind stuff. For example, Andrew scooted her crip away from the wall one morning because she's been playing with the blinds next to her bed and broken a few of the thingy's. I didn't know he had done this so I went looking for her one morning and she wasn't in my room, the bathroom, the living room, and her usual spots in her room (behind the rocking chair or in the closet) I was getting a wee bit nervous till I could hear her breathing and kind of giggling when I'd call her name. Finally, I realized the crip was pulled out and low and behold the girl was hiding in the new open space.
Anyway, that's all the fun stuff I can think of right now and Adam (who is being babysat by us at the moment) has woken up from his nap.

Feelin' Good!

2011-01-27T18:10:00.000-08:00

Well, no physically. I have a cold but that's the only thing dampening my spirits the past few days. Nothing spectacular has happened but we're feeling really good. And here's why. Andrew informed me that he has enough money in the bank for all bills (including rent) for next month already!!! We've been living from paycheck to paycheck for...a long time. But Andrew's boss if finally realizing how hard he works and how much he cares about his work and is compensating him accordingly. Besides that, my car is almost paid off. We may even be able to pay it off a little early. Which means....NO DEBT!!! Wahoo! I'm SOOOO excited! And the best part of all!!!! We are going to be able to do this without me working!!! I'm very grateful for such a hard working man who enables me to have the career I want. Also, on a little side note that is also exciting to me. Without the car payment, we can take that money and put it in our Disneyland fund! I know, I know. I'm a little obsessed but it really is the happiest place on earth!

I LOVE My Job!

2011-01-13T15:11:00.000-08:00

I do! It is the best job EVER! Sure, like any job it has its ups and downs but what's not to love. this afternoon I got to dance around the living room to disney music. Now I am watching Cinderella. And while I sit here on the couch watching the movie and typing this, Ella is cleaning. She pulled out her wipes and is using them on Big Joe's (the big white gorilla she got for Christmas) face and to clean the TV. I love my job!

15 Months

2011-01-11T09:54:00.000-08:00

Ella has been talking...a ton! That's all she wants to do. She hates church because we try to keep her quiet. She can whisper but who wants to do that? This past month Ella has learned to say ball, bottle, please (in sign as well, finally!) one, two, and three (she doesn't necessarily know they're numbers just that after I get to three I'll throw her onto the love sac) no, yes, mew, moo, cockadoodledoo, run, and achoo. There are probably more but I can't think of any and she's napping so I don't have a reminder. I'm loving her talking, even if it gets pretty loud. She has such a sweet voice.

In other developments, Elly's been learning more dance moves. She spins now! It's so cute! She does jazz hands...sorta, and she does this kind of torso twisty thing. And she'll do these new moves to anything. Our disney music, music on commercials, movies, and radio. The girl just loves her music and dancing. Apart from dancing Ella has learned to walk backwards which she thinks is awesome. She thinks it's pretty funny when she backs up onto your lap to sit down. Maybe she thinks she's being sneaky? One last thing, about our Elly. The girl has started using spoons. She's doing a pretty good job. It's messy of course but she loves it.

In other news from the Turley family, I am SOOOO excited! I get kind of bummed in the winter once Christmas is over. I think it's caused by the lack of color and being pent up all day, everyday. So to cheer myself up I watch kids movies and listen to kids music, which means Disney becomes my best friend. And because I have a super awesome husband he said I can plan a trip to Disneyland!!!!!! Nothing is set in stone, but if we can get the extra money we'll go in October for mine and Elly's b-day! We wanna go before I get preggo again since once I have another we probably won't go again till we've got all our little ones here. So the first week of October we're going and we've just about got Bobby and Cyndi (our favorite in-laws) talked into going with. We'll do what we did for our honeymoon and get the southern cali pass so we can go to seaworld, universal, the zoo, and three days in disney. We'll probably stay in Oceanside like we did last time as well. So keep your fingers crossed that we make enough money for my big birthday/christmas present.

has decided

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

2011-01-02T19:02:00.000-08:00

Christmas is even more fun when you get to be the one playing Santa. Andrew and I stayed home this year for Christmas eve and morning, opting for a more relaxed and stress free holiday. We started out Christmas eve night with a nice dinner. I tried my hand at baking a turkey and it turned out pretty darn good, if I do say so myself. Nice and moist and super yummy! Andrew agreed so I'm not just tootin' my own horn. Of course we had to have rolls and sweet potatoes with our turkey dinner which were also wonderful. (I cheated on the rolls though...hooray for pillsbury!) We kept the dinner somewhat small with just the before mentioned and corn. A 14 lb. turkey for just two people is kind of a lot of food. Ella liked all but the turkey. We think it's because of the texture.

After dinner we had Ella open her traditional Christmas Eve present of pajama's. This year they were extra special because....I MADE THEM! Who knew Sarah could sew? I certainly didn't. Thanks to my sweet mother-in-law who held my hand the whole time I was able to make her a cute little nightgown. Elly looks super cute in them and doesn't seem to mind that they're a little long. In fact she seems to love it. She's brought it to me several times, wanting to put it on.

We then put Ella to bed and Andrew and I relaxed while we watched Mixed Nuts. For those of you who haven't seen it, it's an excellent Christmas comedy starring Steve Martin. Normally we'd watch the touchy feely Christmas movies on Christmas Eve but Andrew was dying for Mixed Nuts.

Christmas morning came around 9 o'clock (hooray for babies that sleep in!) and Ella and I woke daddy up. He seemed pretty excited to see what Santa brought him so we headed out and Ella went straight to my stocking. I got a box of oranges from Santa and you know kids and boxes. It only took Elly a few seconds to find her stocking though and she dug in, finding her new toothbrushes, baton, and other small toys. We then, of course opened presents. Andrew recieved a lot of small things. Ella recieved clothes and toys...big surprise there. And I got a sanding disc!!! I know, it sounds lame but I was excited. You see, Andrew found an OLD bike (it looks just like the retro bikes that are popular now but it's a real retro bike!) behind the shed at his work. No one was claiming it so he snatched it and brought it home. It needs a lot of work but the frame is in good shape so he'll sand that down, repaint it, get new wheels and tires, new seat, brakes, handle bar covers, and if I'm a very good girl, maybe I'll even get a bell and basket! I'm super excited!

We then ate breakfast, a tasty sausage casserole made by yours truly, and then we headed to Andrew's parents where we had dinner and more presents. (We got all three Toy Stories!!!) We spent the rest of the day relaxing and putting puzzles together. It was a nice, mellow Christmas. The best Christmas yet!

As for New Years, I have no pics but again, we went to Andrew's parents, partied and ate junk food. That's about it.

Bear Lake and Bar J

2010-12-19T21:23:00.000-08:00

This weekend has been super busy but also super fun! Andrews family rented come condo's up in Bear Lake so we all trekked up there for Thursday, Friday, and leaving Sat. It was nice to relax and spend time with family. We watched Christmas movies at night, and swam during the day or took naps. Ella didn't sleep well the first night so naptime was very special for me. One of the best parts of the trip...Andrew and I got to sleep in a king size bed!!! It was awesome! But I will admit that I missed Andrew after sleeping two nights in such a big bed. We were both so used to our little full bed that we slept on the edges, so we didn't do any of our pre-sleep cuddling. Kinda sad but it was nice sprawling out and not kneeing or elbowing each other.

After our weekend with family we headed home just in time for the Bar J Wranglers Christmas Concert. If you haven't heard of them, they do cowboy songs and such. During the summer they're up in Jackson Hole at the Bar J Chuckwagon. It's a super fun show, even if cowboy music isn't your style. For example, last night we got to listen to a cowboy version of Rudolph. Basically to cowboy-ize it they sang it to the tune of Ghost Riders in the Sky. It was pretty stinkin' awesome. Overall the concert was funny, touching, and super entertaining. At the end of the concert they sang Mary, Did you Know, which normally I don't like. Every version of that song that I've heard has been far from my favorite but they sang it and I cried a little. I'll admit...I'm a boob. But it was awesome. If you're ever up in Jackson or have an oppotunity to see them, I highly recomend it.

Holiday Greeting and Ella Update!

2010-12-06T12:02:00.000-08:00

My girl has stopped growing like a weed and now is growing like...well something else. She getting tall but no more chubs. My baby is getting skinny! Of course she still adorable. Luckily her cheeks are still super chubby and kissable. And as is tradition I will now list off some of her new developments and favorite things.

-Ella loves to color. At the moment I have a nice little scribble tattoo on my ankle/leg. I was feeling generous. Usually when I'm making dinner I can just stick her in her chair, tape some paper down and give her some pencils and she's a happy girl.

-Ella is such a good little example. I'll admit, at lunch time I have a tendency to forget to say the prayer but now, as soon as I sit down with Ella at the table she folds her arms. She knows we say prayer once I sit down at the table. She may not stay focused very long on the prayer and start grabbing for her food ten seconds into the prayer but still.

-Ella loves to be Tarzan. Forget what santa or any farm yard animals say, she wants to be Tarzan. She will sometimes do Santa but usually if you ask her what anything says she just shakes her head and pounds her chest and yells like Tarzan.

-Ella is also starting to like playing with other kids. Her favorite friend is Adam, my old roommate, Shannon's, little boy. She still picks on him a little but he's starting to fight back (Go Adam!) We actually hosted his birthday party because Shannon's place is quite small. Once they arrived Ella went over to Adam and gave him several hugs. She really loves her little friend.

-Speaking of hugs, Ella actually gives them now! Of course it's only when she wants to and usually it's when she's upset or tired but Andrew and I love it! Her little arms barely reach around our necks. It's so cute!

This holiday season has been so wonderful so far. I'm so blessed! I have such a wonderful husband who works extremely hard so that I can stay home with our little girl. Even after he's had a horribly long day of work and is so tired he'll come home and play with Elly Belly and cuddle with me. And on top of him I've got Ells Bells, who, even though she's been teething (finally! She's only got three) and has been a little fussy, still manages to be one of the happiest babies I've seen. And in case I don't blog again 'til after Christmas, Merry Christmas to you all! We love and appreciate all of you family and friends and consider ourselves very lucky to have all of you in our lives. May your Christmas be merry and bright!

I'm Proud of Myself!

2010-12-04T22:43:00.000-08:00

So I need to brag a little. This year, like last year, we are a little short on money so we've been getting creative with gift giving. Now, seeing as some of you will be recieving some of these gifts I won't go into a great amount of detail about what they are but, I will say we're handmaking a lot of them. For my mother-in-law we're making a clock (Andrew will be cutting out the wood and I'll be making it pretty with the help of Andrew's cousin.) For my close friends...I'm not telling! Because you girls read this from time to time. I'm also making some gifts as gifts for others to give. The best part about all these homemade gifts, and the reason I'm so proud of myself is they don't look like the cheap, lame, homemade gifts I normally would've come up with! WAHOO! That is mostly due to the brilliance of my Andrew. He is quite handy in the woodshop. That combined with a few moments of creativity on my part have made it possible for us to make some pretty awesome gifts. At least I would like getting the presents we're giving. Oh, and for the gift we'll be giving members of Andrews family, I even wrote a poem! It rhymes and everything! So, after Christmas I can post it and show you all how extremely talented I am...Until then, I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE GETTING FOR CHRISTMAS!

Got 'em!

2010-11-28T14:16:00.001-08:00

Temple Square lights!

Adelaide and Ella liked helping Andrew play Battle for Middle Earth. Ella helping us put Grammy's tree up.Sneaking some peas when we were cleaning up.

FOOD!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-28T13:32:00.000-08:00

Hooray! A good thanksgiving! We haven't had a real great Thanksgiving for several years, but this year we did! Wahoo! We spent the holiday with my family. Technically it was our year for going to ANdrews family but they were doing it with his mom's family. His mother has four sisters, and four brothers. His oldest aunt has 10 kids, and her oldest has eight. Needless to say, there were going to be a lot of people there and we decided we didn't want to fight the crowd. (Last time we did it with them Andrew didn't get any stuffing, the turkey was cold by the time we got ours, and we only got one piece of pie. Not acceptable on THanksgiving if you ask me.) So yeah, we went with just my family. Turkey, pie, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes...num! Ella didn't love the turkey but the sweet potatoes were a hit. She even like the cranberries! Not the canned stuff. My aunt and cousin joined our family and she made the cranberry sauce fresh. It was quite wonderful.
For our day after Thanksgiving celebrations we skipped our traditional movie theatre trip and went up to temple square instead. Possibly just as crowded but cheaper which is alway good. It was Ella's first time and she seemed to enjoy it. At least she enjoyed the mittens we put on her and waving at everyone.
So our Thanksgiving was a blast. The only downside...Ella has learned to whine. She does NOT like being told no. Wish us luck with that...
Oh and for some reason my pictures won't load onto the computer. I'll post those later.

Just a few more...

2010-11-17T13:43:00.000-08:00

*Ella tickles feet. She'll grab onto your toes and say "tick, tick"

*Ella waves...all the time! I've already told you all about how she waves to everyone at the store, but now she waves "bye" to me when I put her down for her naps and bedtime. She just snuggles right into her blankets then waves with her free fingers while her thumb is in her mouth. Or she'll sometimes actually use her other hand but it's usually holding onto her blanky.

One Year and One Month Later!

2010-11-11T13:56:00.000-08:00

Ella gets cuter everyday! It's no wonder she's got everyone wrapped around her finger. Just look! How can you not love this face?

And now, these are a few of my favorite things!

*Ella loves hats! If we put it on her, it comes off real quick. But, if she puts it on she'll walk around with it on for quite a while until she gets bored with it. Then she takes it off and puts on a different one.

*Ella loves to dance! She used to just head bang but now she'll full out shake her diapered booty, flap her arms, and head bang all at the same time. IT'S SO CUTE!!! She'll dance to rock, classical, and even music in commercials.

*Els Bells loves grown up food! Meal times are very exciting for her now. She loves being able to sit at the table with mom and dad and feeding herself. If we tell her it's time to eat she'll walk over to her chair and wait, not so patiently, for us to get her up and buckled in.

*She loves prayer! She loves showing off how good she is at folder her little arms. We'll tell her to fold her arms and crosses those short little things over her body and then bow her head. It only last for about five seconds then she starts laughing.

*Ella loves sesame street. She won't sit down and watch any of those other kid shows yet (for which I am grateful) but sesame street she will. Now, it could have something to do with it being on after her nap so she's usually still waking up while she watches but still. One day, not so long ago, I was cleaning up the movies she'd pulled off the shelf while she sat and watched. When I looked up her eyes were watering. No, she wasn't crying. She had a huge grin on her face. I guess Elmo is just so exciting to watch she couldn't blink.

*Ella loves to talk! It's still mostly just jabber but she says "Ok" "Whoa" "Dad" "Mom" and then animal noises such as "Bok" "Quack" and "meow" Of course, many of them are mispronounced. "Ok" is more like "Otay" just like little rascals.

*Ella now has a cheesy smile. She won't smile when we tell her too because, lets face it, the girl doesn't do anything when we ask her too. But when we're all laughing and having fun she'll just squinch up her eyes and smile real big in order to get us laughing again.

*She loves forts! If we prop up a blanket either with our own heads or the couch and bring Elly Belly inside she just giggles and laughs playing around.

*She loves her toys! She now loves cars! Such a daddy's girl. She'll take one of her hot wheels (Yes, she has hot wheels) and starts driving it over her belly, my arms, daddy's head. She also loves stuffed animals and dolls so she's not a complete daddy's girl.

Ok, I think that's good for now. I could probably go on for ages but I won't do that to you guys.

Halloween!

2010-11-05T13:10:00.000-07:00

Halloween was pretty darn awesome this year. Unfortunately I missed my familyhe rest of us's halloween party due to car trouble but Andrews family had a party that we did make it to. Andrew's sister and I planned the whole shin-dig. I introduced my family's white-elephant game to them which they seemd to thoroughly enjoy. We had a nice little dinner of monster feet (fried chicken cut to look like feet) and spiderweb seven layer dip. Rules were you had to dress up. Andrew's dad is the only one who got away with not dressing up. He was a grumpy old man which we figured was good enough. Most of the rest of us went with a theme. Can you guess what it was?

We also enjoyed North Logan's pumpkin walk the week of halloween. Bobby, Cyndi, and my good friend Randi all came with. It was pretty awesome. Andrew's favorite was the penguins.

I like the Beatles though.

She talks in her sleep...

2010-11-02T22:06:00.000-07:00

Just like her daddy. The other night I was woken by the "I'm poopy" cry so being the good mother I am, I went and changed my little girl. I then rocked her back to sleep. She was definitley asleep when I got up to put her down but she started jabbering. I layed her down and still, she jabbered away. I got back in bed and could hear in the other room jabbering for another five minutes before she fell into a deeper sleep. Can I just say, it was the cutest thing ever!

Ella's Party Picture's

2010-10-28T14:55:00.000-07:00

Here are those pics I promised! The tops three are from the small party we did with just Andrew, Ella, and me. The bottom ones are from her massive party.

Going Private

2010-10-19T10:13:00.001-07:00

Yup, I'm going private so if you'd like to continue enjoying the boredom that is our life send me your e-mail.

A Change

2010-10-13T21:09:00.000-07:00

So I realized that since Ella was born all I blog about is her. She is much more interesting than Andrew and I but in case anyone is interested here is what the adults in our little family have been up to.

Andrew is still working doing flooring. His boss is FINALLY realizing how good of a worker he is and how much he can do without supervision so he is actually getting his own jobs! This means he gets paid piece-rate rather than hourly. So, yesterday, in three hourse he made what he normally makes in two days! Wahoo! Hopefully this means that our new camera/couch jar might start filling up. We really want a new camera or couch if you didn't gather from the previous statement. Andrew isn't going to school right now seeing as he's still trying to figure out what he wants to do. Poor guy. He stresses so much about what he's going to do when he grows up. I guess for me it was easy since I always knew I was going to be a mommy. But since he's working full time and not going to school that means Ella and I get plenty of time with him. He might not be so thrilled about spending time with me since I make him help me fold laundry and cook dinner but he's a good sport. And of course Ella love's him. He's such a sweet daddy.

As for me I'm trying to keep busy during down time. Of course when Ella's not sleeping I'm plenty busy but during her afternoon nap and after bedtime I have lots of time. And seeing as it's been getting colder and the days shorter I've been getting a little down. So, to remedy this I've been doing some crafting. Yesterday Andrew's mother came over as well as my two sis-in-law's and we made some halloween/thanksgiving decor blocks. I'll post pics later. I've also been keeping up with my scrapbooking. As for the future of project "keep sarah occupied" I'll be doing NaNoWriMo with my big brother Jac. It's National Novel Writing Month which takes place in November. Basically you write 50,000 words for the sake of saying you did. It will most likely be crap that I come up with but it'll be a nice way for me to bond with my brother who lives one state over.

How's that! Two whole paragraphs about Andrew and I! Ella's party was a blast by the way. There was tons of family there and Ella is one SPOILED girl. Ella sure is a lucky girl to have such amazing grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. We love you all! (I will post in more detail with pics later. I still need to upload them to the computer.)

My baby's no longer a baby!

2010-10-09T10:34:00.001-07:00

Yup, she's one! I can't believe it. My heart is breaking but then she smiles and starts jabbering and I feel all better. She's so much fun! So this months developments.

Walking- She has taken several steps and they were a lot sturdier than I expected. So I'm thinking she could walk like a pro if she wanted but figures crawling will get her there faster. So that's what she does. But she took three consecutive steps on October 7th, the most she has taken at one time so far. Happy Birthday mommy!

Talking-El's really starting to repeat things. I guess daddy is going to have to keep his road rage in check. Last night she said "duck" and she really loves saying "button" or..."butt" Maybe she's really saying "but." I don't know though. Last weekend we were at my parents and I asked her if she had a stinky bum and she looked at my dad and said "butt" Needless to say he thought it was the funniest thing since Young Frankenstein. She of course still jabbers like crazy. It's so cute! She's learning more gutteral sounds lately. She'll just explore what the back of her throat can do for hours and make all sorts of strange noises. She thinks it's quite hilarious.

Health-El had her 1 year appointment yesterday. The Dr. called her skinny! Of course she's still a chub but compared to what she was she is getting skinny. So sad. Since her nine month she's gained 1 pound putting her at 21.4 lbs. Sad day. She is also 28.5 inches just FYI. But, she healthy, healthy, healthy and handled the shots like a pro. She of course cried but the nurse was surprised by how well she did.

Other fun things-My living room is trashed! The girl loves pulling my dvd's off the shelves. Then she takes all her toys out of the laundry basket/toy box. Then she spreads them throughout the living room. I can only imagine what things will be like when she finally decided walking isn't as scary as she thinks it is. Luckily she still takes two naps so I have that time to clean up.
Also, she loves macaroni and cheese. Probably because we let her feed herself. She still only has the three teeth so we don't let her do that a lot.
She loves door. I don't get what is so fascinating about them but she'll just sit behind a door and swing it back and forth. She does shut them too which is pretty funny. Once she realizes I'm on the other side she panics.
Oh! She's actually getting a little shy! I'm so proud! She still loves people but instead of reaching for everyone who looks her way now she'll smile coyly at them and lean away or bury her head in my shoulder.
And finally after our move and getting sick she's back to sleeping through the night. Wahoo!

I think that's it for now. We'll be having a party with family tomorrow for her so I'll post pics later. Oh and as for Andrew and I, nothing new to report. Just going through life one day at a time.

Eleven Months!

2010-09-10T22:45:00.000-07:00

Less than a month and I'll have a one year old! I'm getting ready for her Birthday party. Sure, she won't remember it but I've already got her birthday pages scrapbooked and ready for the pictures so she'll at least have those!

This last month has been filled with lots of little developments in the life of our little Ella Jane. Our little stinker can stand by herself but is too darn chicken to do it for very long. Once she realizes she doesn't have any support she plops right down on her bum.

Ella has been really developing her hand eye coordination a lot. Her new favorite thing to do is take things out and put them back in. I gave her my old wallet with a fake credit card and the girl was happy with that for about twenty minutes. Ella also likes sticking pens in the hole on the end of my hair brush and sucker sticks in the holes on rulers.

Aside from the rulers and sticks Ella enjoys putting on hats. She'll try almost anything as a hat. She loves Andrew's hats and the wet wash cloths we use to wipe her face after dinner. She also like necklaces. Often time's I'll find her with a wash cloth on her head and a necklace on just crawling around the living room. Unfortunately she seems determined to not have any pictures of that. By the time I find my camera she's gotten rid of the necklace or the "hat."

In the speach area she has also been developin a lot. Not only does she say dad now but she actually addresses Andrew as dad. When he gets home from work she starts yelling dad 'til he comes to get her. We're still working on her calling me mom rather than just yelling it when she's mad.

Ella is also learning the noises animals make. She still is a stubborn little girl and doesn't always do it when we're trying to show off. Her favorite is "What does a chicken say?" She still needs a little reminding but once you cluck she will "bock, bock" back. Ella also likes to moo. My favorite noise she's started (that we taught her) is "Laugh like Santa" and she will "ho, ho, ho" at you (after you show her how). It's so darn cute! I figure by Christmas she'll have it down.

Island Park 2010

2010-09-05T11:33:00.000-07:00

Andrews family has a deep love for Island Park and because of that we were able to go up to a cabin that my father-in-law rented for a few days. This year was even better than the last. Andrew did a lot of fly-fishing and was the most succesful fisherman out of the 6 boys who went. (That's my man!)

When he wasn't fishing Andrew took me four-wheeling one day and the next we (including his mom, brothers, sister and her husband) went to Johnny Sack's cabin. Johnny Sack was a german immigrant who built a not so small cabin by the forks river. When Andrew originally told me about it I thought it was going to be this little backwoods cabin. It wasn't. It had two bedrooms, a good sized kitchen and two other sitting rooms. I was very impressed.

During the evenings we occupied ourselves with games our favorite being catch phrase. I don't know what it was about the group we had but it was the funnest game of catch phrase I've ever played. Between Andrew and his two young brothers, Matt and Mike, and their sister's husband, Bobby there was a good amount of goofing off. It's amazing Ella slept through all the laughing.

It was a great way to end our summer and are so glad we were able to share our last week of freedom with family.

3 years and counting!

2010-08-16T12:29:00.000-07:00

It's official! August 11th Andrew and I celebrated our three years of marriage. It was pretty low key. Ella went to aunt Cyndi's and uncle Bobby's for the evening while Andrew and I had dinner. Andrew managed to get some salmon from his boss so I cook fish for the first time in my life. It turned out quite delicious if I do say so myself. After dinner we went to the A-Team. No girly movies for us! So we got Andrews action and my comedy. It was a fun movie for those of you haven't seen it. And it's in the dollar theatre so I nice cheap date. It was a really fun evening. I know it sounds kind of lame for an anniversary date but we're saving our pennies because...WE GOT A HOUSE! Ok it's just the upstairs of a house but still! We'll still be renting but we can paint, have pets, and it has a fenced in backyard. We're super excited. So this week will be spent packing...yay...

And because I love pictures here's some of Ella. Some firsts: First ponytail, first trip to bear lake, and first encounter with sand. And believe it or not, she did enjoy bear lake. These pictures just don't show it very well.

10 Months!

2010-08-09T11:38:00.000-07:00

Wow! Two more months and I'll have a one year old! Kinda freaks me out! Well, Ella is cuter than ever. She's jabbering more and more and exploring new sounds. She now says "Whoa" and occasionally "hi." She learned what eyes were awhile ago but now knows what a bellybutton is. She thinks it's funny sticking her fingers in mine. Ella's now cruising along furniture and will stand on her own until she realizes she is. Then she panics and promptly plops down on her bum. What a silly girl. Ella also is learning to love music of all kinds. She loves to dance to AC/DC and loves to sing in church as well as conduct during the musical numbers. She's so cute! She still loves most everyone and is such a good girl.

In other news, we were able to go visit my family this past weekend. It was the Highland fling so we went to the parade which was pretty short and lame. Andrew said it was pretty much a Lone Peak parade. BOO! But my high school marching band was in it and were superb as usual. Ella thoroughly enjoyed the music in the parade especially the bagpipes. Later we had a bbq with my brother's family and some of their friends and Andrews old friend Jake and his wife and baby. And then we watched fireworks from the backyard. That is how you should always watch fireworks! Right above you in your own backyard. Needless to say it was super loud but Ella handled it quite well. She loved them! It was an awesome weekend!

Teeth and Trouble!

2010-07-06T21:08:00.000-07:00

This past month was quite an eventful one for Ella Jane. Ella finally taught herself to sit up and then on the 25th of June Ella taught herself to crawl. At first she would only go a few steps...or crawls? Just enough to get from one toy to another. Now however she is everywhere and into everything. I think I'll be moving the DVD player and stereo up a bit on the entertainment center. Ella loves to stand so she's been pulling herself up on the couch and book shelf. Andrew will be screwing the bookshelf into the wall. Needless to say I'm getting little housework done while I keep her from getting into mischief. A few days ago I also discovered a tooth coming in. It had broken through without us even knowing. She hadn't had any of the signs or fussiness so I was shocked when feeding her bits of banana and she bit me. A few days later the typical teething signs showed up. So, we're keeping a bib on her at all times to catch the waterfall of spit and tissue on hand for the runny nose. So fun...

Ella is also a very social girl. Whenever we head to town she's all smiles for all the strangers, and they love her for it. I have yet to go anywhere without someone stopping me to tell me how cute she is. She is pretty adorable if I do say so myself. I just hope later on she can at least use sense when it comes to being friendly to strangers.

That's about it for her so I guess it wasn't super eventful but the crawling and teething I thought were pretty momentous occasions. An hour and a half ago she turned nine months! I guess that's pretty momentous too. She's been apart of our lives for a year and a half now (I'm obviously counting the pregnancy too.) What a sweety!

This is her after attacking daddy's icecream cone on the 26th of June.

Any Advice?

2010-06-24T10:27:00.000-07:00

My dear little girl has finally learned to sit herself up. Yay! One problem with that is she no longer rolls over and goes to sleep when I put her in her crib. Well, she does and then fifteen minutes later when I'm checking on her she standing up in her crib whispering at the wall. Yes, whispering. I'm pretty sure the little stinker knows she's supposed to be sleeping but would much rather play. At first she didn't realize that after she sat up she could stand up so I would find her asleep like this. Notice her foot up by her head. The other one was the same on the other side but her blanket is covering it.

Now she stands up too and it's a lot easier for her to keep herselp awake when she's standing. So, to those of you mothers who may have run into this problem, is there anything I can do to get her to go to sleep? (As of now I rock her to sleep but I don't want to have to do that everytime.)

Happy Birthday Andrew!

2010-06-15T10:11:00.001-07:00

June 11th Andrew turned 26! What an old man he is! This year he opted for a quiet family birthday. We had my mom's oriental burgers which are amazingly tasty! For fun here is the recipe!

1 lb. hamburger

1/4 c. soy sauce

1/4 c. corn syrup

1 Tbsp. worcestershire sauce

1 tsp. minced fresh ginger or 1/4 tsp. ground ginger

1 clove garlic, minced

*Mix all ingredients and shape into patties. It will be sticky. Grill and eat! (I actually usually mix it all together and then let it sit in the fridge for a couple hours to soak up all the flavors. They're even better the next day.)

His present was pretty boring this year. I got him....Money. Yeah, not super exciting but the money is only allowed to be used for a Wii, which he was super excited about. To make his present a little less boring I decorated the jar I put the money in and then folded some of the money. There's a box, bow tie, butterfly, sail boat, and fan.

To finish off the night we had cake. Andrew's been dying for funfetti cake for quite some time now but whenever he's wanted to buy some he always decides against. So instead of the usual chocolate cake I shook things up a bit. As you can see we both enjoyed it but not near as much as Ella. I looked away for a second and this is what happened.

It was a really fun evening. I'm so grateful for Andrew and everything he does for our little family. He's such a sweet husband and a wonderful father. I love you Andrew! Happy Birthday!

The Great Outdoors

2010-06-11T14:28:00.001-07:00

For those of you interested I used picnik to do these pics. It's a way fun site.
Ella and I were finally able to go on a walk! It's been a few weeks since our last one due to the constant rain, and then being sick. Ella had a blast. She loves the grass. At least she loves the feel of it. As you can see from the lower left picture the taste is not her favorite. After such a succesful outing to the park I decided it was time to take Ella to Willow Park Zoo. The morning of the day we planned on going was beautiful with the sun out and it was quite warm. Well, that didn't last. When we first got there it was overcast but still quite nice. After being there about five minutes, however, the rain started pouring. Ella was pretty silly. She didn't want to be in her stroller away from the rain. She wanted to be out and playing in it. The little stinker kept pulling off her hood so she could feel it better. So, even though we got rained on and had to cut the outing a little short it was another success.

Ear Infection

2010-06-08T13:52:00.001-07:00

So you know how I was telling you about Ella being sick? She got better from that but unfortunately it caused ear infections. Poor little thing got 'em in both ears. After going to visit the doctor and getting some medicine Ella is feeling a little better. The doctor says that tomorrow night I might get some sleep!

Eight Months

2010-06-07T10:36:00.000-07:00

It's amazing how quickly eight months goes by. Ella has been getting stronger and stronger. She's getting close to crawling but still prefers to roll to where she wants to go. We've also been practicing walking. Ella loves it when Andrew or I just hold her hands and walk with her. Ella also is finding her likes and dislikes more now. She loves music and she is starting to dance but only to certain bands/songs...such as Offspring and ACDC. She is her daddy's girl. She likes her Disney music to be on for play time and Enya for nap time. So she's her mommy's girl too. Like all babies she loves chewing on stuff, especially paper. She only gets that on rare occasions when Andrew and I aren't paying attention. When we take it away she throws a mini tantrum until she finds her thumb or another toy. Ella also got to try her first popsicle on Memorial Day. She was a little shocked at first but once she got over the cold and realized it tasted pretty good she loved it. She also figured out if you bite down a chunk would come off in your mouth so she did that several times. That made her very protective daddy a little nervous so the chunks of popsicle didn't stay in her mouth very long.
On a sad note, Ella was sick for the first time ever. She's had little colds a couple of times but they were mild enough to just make her a little sleepier than usual and have a slight runny nose. This time she had a rough time. We're not sure if Ella caught the cold I had a week ago or if she caught something else. My cold was very mild and only last a a couple days. She ended up getting a fever, runny/congested nose, and a small cough. I've never seen her so upset. Needless to say I didn't get a lot of sleep last week. It broke my heart to see her so miserable. But, I couldn't help but feel special. While sick Ella would only sleep with me holding her or at least in the room and when she wasn't sleeping she wanted me to cuddle with her. Even though I was exhausted I kept thinking how being a mom is the best.
Well that's about it for our little Ella Jane. Here's a cute video of her. She's starting to experiment more with noises. Enjoy :) (Oh and ignore the mess that surrounds her. I was doing laundry and made a nest around her while she was on our bed. It was for her own safety...and I hate folding laundry so was avoiding it.)

All New!

2010-06-04T11:35:00.000-07:00

For those of you who don't know, we have moved. It was kind of last minute because the owners of our place decided to remodel and so we were kicked out. They did provide a new place for us which is a lot bigger and overall better. The first little while was hard on our little Elly Belly but she's adjusted and now loves it. There's so much more room for her to roll around and pretty soon crawl. We're mostly unpacked but our room is still a little trashed. It's a lot harder unpacking with a little one who likes to get into everything.
I've also, finally, gotten new pics for everyone! Yay! This past weekend we went over to Tremonton to visit Andrew's relatives graves and then on Monday we headed to Heber for the annual Memorial Day gathering with my family. It was fun to see all my cousins and Ella got to meet and play with her second cousin, once removed Emmet (I think that's how it works. He's my cousins son.)

Just some news from my family that I think is pretty cool. My little brother Evan is joining the army. He goes in for his physical on Wednesday. He's so excited.

Sleeping Baby

2010-05-20T21:02:00.000-07:00

This is Ella a couple days ago taking her afternoon nap. She usual fights her afternoon nap so I just leave her in there while she plays/screams and then finally passes out. After the screaming stopped the other day I came in to tuck her in and this is what I found.

Ella has also decided she enjoys chewing on carrots. I had a couple of carrots for my veggie at lunch one day and she kept eyeing 'em. So I gave her one and she kept herself occupied for about 45 minutes.

7 Months Already!

2010-05-06T21:13:00.000-07:00

It's scary how quickly time goes by. Today is Ella's seven month birthday. It amazes me what Ella figures out. She LOVES playing with her tounge. Sticking it out, spitting, turning it sideways (she can do that both directions) and rolling her tounge. It's so cute! Ella is loving her baby food, though she's not a big fan of banana's. She's a really good eater. Ella hates being in her swing now. It's way too constricting! She would much rather be on the floor rolling around. She's getting closer to army crawling though she still hasn't gotten all the way there yet. But she seems good enough at rolling to where she wants. Ella is now saying "mama" YAY! Along with other sounds like "ba" and of course, her favorite, squeeling. She is such a girl! She squeels when she's mad, when she gets tickled, and just for fun. In fact she's squeeling right now, time for food and bed.
(Sorry but there won't be any pictures on this post because I'm using a friends computer. I'll post some soon.)

Quick update!

2010-04-16T22:24:00.001-07:00

So Ella is amazing! Two days after she turned 6 months she pulled herself to a standing position in her crib! She still won't get herself to a sitting position but hey, no biggy.

Six Months!

2010-04-03T15:27:00.000-07:00

Ella will turn 6 months on Tuesday. I can't get over how big she's gotten and all her new developments. It's amazing how quickly it all goes. Her developments over the last month include saying dada, though I'm sure she doesn't know what that's supposed to mean. She shakes her head "no" which again, doens't mean anything. It's just fun for her and our reaction I'm sure makes it fun as well. Ella absolutely loves to play with her toys and daddy. Mommy is really only good for food and reading. Ella has been eating cereal and we'll be starting her on baby food here pretty soon seeing as milk just doesn't seem to satisfy her quite like it used to. My girl also, FINALLY, figured out how to roll from her back to her tummy. It only took two months after rolling from her tummy to her back to learn. And for Ellas final and most signigicant trick for the month, she learned to sit on her own! Now she rarely wants to lay down to play. So we set her in her crib to play while momma eats breakfast and cleans. It's so nice to ba able to get things done and her not have to be in her swing (which just makes her fall asleep for an unnecessary nap)

Happy Easter!

2010-04-03T14:20:00.000-07:00

It's been two years since Andrew and I have had Easter with my family so this year we made sure to make it down. Of course it's an extra treat to listen to conference with the family too. For our first day of Easter celebrations (today) we had the annual Easter egg hunt at Grammy's. Unfortunately not all the cousins made it due to living out of state (we missed you, Jac and Britt, and Shaun and Ally.) Ella enjoyed playing with her basket more than the actual eggs but she seemed to have fun. Her cousin Lyncoln, who calls Ella "my Ella", was sweet enough to help her get some eggs for her basket. For the rest of the weekend we'll be having some wonderful dinners prepared by my sweet mom and of course while the boys are at preisthood tonight we'll be having a girls night watching a good movie.

She's so stinkin' Cute!

2010-03-18T21:23:00.000-07:00

So just because my little girl is getting so big and is so cute I'm going to post some pictures for all of you.

We've got ourselves a daddy's girl.

Our little princess loves to be naked too.

She wants to be just like daddy. Actually she really likes electronics such as computers and phones.

Almost five months!

2010-02-25T21:25:00.000-08:00

Ella is almost five months! It's so crazy. This past week we were actually able to make it out for a couply walks. We even made it to my old room-mates place to see her and her little boy Adam. Adam is only a month younger than Ella but is so tiny compared to Ella. She definitely is a big girl. Ella has also started eating cereal. She really likes it and eats quite well. Ella is also laughing a ton now days. She doesn't just squirm when she's tickled like she used to. Now she will actually giggle. It's so cute.

Ella is really our only excitement these days. Andrew is just going to school and working when he can. I am working and being mom. Life is pretty simple up here but I couldnt' be happier.

Changes

2010-02-04T20:21:00.000-08:00

The first change I would like to inform you all of is I'm finally escaping hollywood/movie gallery. Ok, it's not by personal choice. They're closing the smithfield movie gallery where I currently work as well as the North Logan Hollywood where I started out my "career." So, in about two months I will be jobless. I'm still deciding how I feel. I won't miss the place for sure but not having a paycheck is a little unnerving. This should be some good motivation to look for a grown up job though.

In other news, and yet again I'm not sure how I feel about this one, my big brother is moving. Jac and Britt are moving next week to Denver. I'm really happy for them but let's face it. I am a human being and as such am also quite selfish. I want them to stay. I'll miss you guys! Good Luck!

And of course, Ella is changing more and more everyday. No giant steps forward but I love her so am going to post some pics :)

Four Months!

2010-01-29T18:54:00.000-08:00

My little girl is getting so big! She is not quite four months but has been growing in leaps and bounds! This past month I've been putting outfit after outfit away for good. My little girl is now wearing 3-6 and 6-9 month clothing. Some 3-6 month things are even too small. Ella also has figured out how to buzz her lips. It's super cute but we have to keep a bib on her at all times due to the bubble goatees this buzzing causes. (I'll post a video later.) Ella loves sitting up. She can't sit without help but if we put her in her boppy she gets frustrated until we prop her up. Another new favorite is being upside down. After scooting a little off my lap one day she decided that's where she wanted to stay. Also, Ella lost most of her hair after she was born but it's finally growing back and so we decided to do a mohawk. I thought it was pretty cute.

Ella and Daddy have also discovered how to work together to make fun sounds. (Sorry for the quality of the video. We took it with my camera and it's not the greatest.)

And here are just some pics that I though were cute.

Three months old!

2010-01-14T21:05:00.001-08:00

My little girl is getting so big! She's now three months old and is quite the talented little thing. On January 5th she roller over for the first time. I had put her on her tummy to put lotion on her back after her bath. When I reached for the lotion she rolled to her back. Ella also has been giggling more and more every day. She's adorable! And here are some much needed pics.

Merry Christmas! and other events in our life.

2009-12-29T14:58:00.000-08:00

I have this whole month to catch up on so we'll start from the beginning.
December 6th- Ella was blessed on this date at my in-laws. Brian and Kathy were kind enough to have ALL our family over to their home. It was sooo crowded. Needless to say, we felt very loved. Ella looked adorable in her dress that my Aunt Kathy made for her. Also, Ella turned two months on this day. I'm trying to do a monthly update on her progress so at two months Ella was smiling a ton, cooing, and sucking her thumb. Though we may not be so happy about the sucking later it's really cute right now.
December 12th- I graduated! So I'm officially done. WOOHOO!
The Rest of December- Ella had her first Christmas. She was more excited about the bows on her gifts than the gifts themselves. Next year though, she'll be excited about the presents too hopefully. As for pictures, I'll have to get to those later. We still don't have internet.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-27T22:08:00.000-08:00

Another successful Thanksgiving! The weekend still isn't over so I'm sure I'll have more posts and pics but here's what we've got so far. Ella decided she wanted her Thanksgiving dinner at the table with us so Andrew was nice enough to let me eat while he fed her. It was also a gorgeous day so we took a little trip into my parents back yard. The thing I'm grateful for this year is my family and my little girl! Thanks everyone for making it such a wonderful weekend.

Busy, busy, busy!

2009-11-13T10:48:00.000-08:00

Life has been pretty crazy around our place lately. I'm trying to finish up school and be a mom all at the same time. It's not so easy but I'm managing. Andrew has been great. Fortunately he had a ton of work before I had her and so when things slowed down for him he was able to take some time off and be Mr. Mom. He's doing fabulously at it. Of course things don't really get done around the house but we're hoping once we get a swing for Ella that will change. As for school, I'm almost done! I finished my senior paper this week and now all I have left for that is to present it, which will be easy. The professor just wants us to read it to the class. That and a few more tests and I'll be done! Woohoo!

So since life has been insane and we don't have internet at home I'm a little behind on updates. We'll start with Halloween! We of course went to the Peterson Halloween party. Ella was a giraffe along with her cousin Adelaide. That was fun as usual. The actual holiday was spent with our friends Jake and Lindsey who were up visiting her parents. Lindsey and her mom were sweet enough to do our family pictures too. They turned out soooo cute! It was a mellow holiday but quite nice. (Ella's the little giraffe. Family pics aren't on my flash drive so I'll have to post them later.)

Our next bit of news is Ella's one month birthday! We didn't really do anything to celebrate but I just thought I'd use this as an excuse to post some new pictures and let you all know how she's progressing. At one month she's smiling a ton! She's holding up her head like a pro as well as pushing herself up with her arms during tummy time. She is awake a lot more which is wonderful. I love seeing her beautiful eyes. She is trying to role over already though she can really only get her bum to move. Those darn shoulders keep getting in her way. If you hold her on your chest while sitting she loves to jump on your legs. She just amazes me! She's getting nice and chubby! She's just so cute! I love being a mom!

(Here's her holding up her head at around 3 weeks. She's even better now)

I had a baby!

2009-10-22T14:08:00.001-07:00

On October 6th, after a weekend of painful contractions (which would stop as soon as I went to bed) my water finally broke. Well, it actually just kind of cracked a little. About two drops came out and then nothing. Conveniently I had a Dr.'s appointment an hour later so I just went in and told him. He informed me that it was probably just urine due to a movement of the baby. But he tested me just to make sure and sure enough, my bladder control was fine and I really was leaking. So Dr. Firth said, "Do not pass go, do not collect $200. Go to the hospital." So I did. Andrew was working so I called him to let him know where I was headed and on my way saw Jake running him home (he didn't really want to spend the day at the hospital in his work clothes.) I arrived at the hospital around 11:30 am and was induced about an hour later. I made it a few hours but wasn't progressing so they turned up my pitocin, the contractions got really bad, and I got the epidural. Yes, it hurt but was SO worth it. As soon as I got the epidural my body relaxed enough and I was went from 4 cm to 10 in about 1-2 hours. Soon I started feeling the urge to push but my Dr. wasn't there. I called my nurse and she said they'd wait about an hour and then I could push. Supposedly waiting an hour makes the pushing go better. Then I started to cry because that is a very uncomfortable feeling. And yet again, the Lord was looking down on me and sent my Dr. He was actually just coming to check on another patient and just popped in to say hi. He saw I was not a happy girl and so had me do a couple trial pushes to see where I was. He then said to keep pushing and would be right back. He went and checked on his other patient and then came back and after 27 minutes of pushing I had a little girl. Now, I still don't have internet at my place so don't have pics with me but I will get some up asap. Ella is now 2 weeks old and doing great. She's holding her head up for short periods of time and smiles/laughs in her sleep. If it weren't so cute it would actually be a little creepy :) She's got everyone wrapped around her finger especially her daddy. We are loving being parents.

Crazy Day!

2009-09-30T08:52:00.000-07:00

It's snowing! Yup, that's right. Our first snowfall of the year. None of it's sticking down here in the valley but the mountains are covered. Crazy! I'm not too thrilled about the snow but am hoping that this storm will send me into labor. We'll see I guess.

My Widget

2009-09-16T08:49:00.000-07:00

I don't know if it's not working for you guys either but the pregnancy widget says eight days left and there's no baby in the pic. I just would like to say, Please bless there are only eight days left! I want to breath freely again without getting kicked in the ribs!

Goodbye Hollywood!

2009-09-14T07:55:00.000-07:00

I'm officially done! Friday I worked my last shift at Hollywood Video and hopefully....keep your fingers crossed that I'll find a grown up job after maternity leave....I'll never go back! Wish me luck!
In other news, school is going well, Ella's room is finished (pics soon to come), and life is good.

Logan Baby Shower!

2009-08-31T14:11:00.001-07:00

I had my Logan baby shower this past Saturday and it was awesome! I really do have the best family and friends ever (including those of you who went to my other shower.) This one consisted of Andrew's family and most of my Logan friends (and to those of you who couldn't make it, stop apologizing! I still love you! haha) Ella is definitely going to be a spoiled little girl with all the biological and adopted aunties she's got. Now, I forgot my camera but Andrews cousin was sweet enough to make me a CD of pics but now it's not loading them for some reason so I'll have to try and post those some other time.

Island Park

2009-08-31T14:04:00.000-07:00

This summer has been pretty uneventful but we were able to sneak away from work for a week. Andrew's family invited us to go to Island Park, Idaho with them the second week of August. Seeing as I am quite a bit pregnant I didn't do a whole lot but was able to go four-wheeling. Andrew was very gracious and took it extremely easy on me.

Highland Baby Shower Pics!

2009-08-31T13:54:00.000-07:00

I've finally remembered to bring my flash drive up to campus with me. So here are pics from the shower. Enjoy!

From Top to bottom: Britty working on the diaper "cake"
My darling momma and Kari getting food ready.
The famous diaper "cake"
The loot!

It's Very Rude to Stare!

2009-08-26T08:32:00.000-07:00

Ok so I know I already mentioned this but I need to vent a little. So I'm sitting here in the library doing my internet stuff and some kid comes and sits across the way from me. Well ya know when you can just tell someone is looking at you without actually looking at them? I had that feeling so I look over at this kid and he's openly staring at me. First he looks at my face then my belly and then back at my face. At least everyone else that has "stared" at my belly has the courtesy to look away as soon as they notice that I can see that they're staring. This kid just kept on staring like he was afraid my belly was going to explode all over him. Just now, caught a guy glancing at my belly and away he looked as soon as he saw that I noticed him looking. Way more polite than this other kid. Nothing makes you feel quite as freakish as when you're being stared at! It's Utah for crying out loud! People are pregnant all over so why not on campus too!? *sigh* Ok I feel better.

My last first day!

2009-08-24T07:52:00.001-07:00

Hoorah! I'm almost done with school! Only a few more months and I will be done. Unless I decide on graduate school but still, that'll be a few years down the road. For now I just wanna focus on being mommy and getting Andrew finished.

For my first day things have gone quite smooth. Seeing as I have only been to one class that's not too surprising. But hey, I was able to get up early enough to even do my hair this morning! (My first class is at 7:30 and I struggle with that time of day.) The most fun part of today is the stares. I've officially reached the point where everyone is scared of me. Scared I'm going to just go into labor any second. It's kind of funny. But of course there are also the stares from the little freshman who don't realize in college there are married students and even pregnant ones. Oh well. Andrew just keeps telling me it's because I'm the sexiest pregnant woman ever. I like that version of things so we'll go with that.

My Pretty Awesome Day

2009-08-15T19:54:00.000-07:00

First I just have to say that I have some pretty darn awesome sisters-in-law. I had my Utah Valley baby shower today (I will post pics after I have my Cache Valley baby shower.) Kari and Britty threw it for me and did such an amazing job. They made me the cutest "cake" out of diapers and other baby odds 'n ends and on top of that gave me some super nice outfits for our little girl. You guys are so creative. It was so nice to see so many family members and old friends that I haven't seen in ages. So to those who were able to come, thanks all! You guys really made my day!

And I just have to share my next bit of info with you all that has made the day even better. Quick background story: One of my professors had asked me to be her aid for her Greek history class and since I absolutely love this lady I said yes. (Not to mention it'll look good on a resume an I get paid $750 for the semester.) Well, since our economy is so super amazing right now... :P ...her funding got pulled and she wasn't going to be able to use me anymore. Andrew and I were kinda bummed because that $750 extra would of course be of some help not to mention it would give us something for Christmas. Well, this wonderful professor decided that even though she could function without an aid she was going to fight for funding and the woman was successful! I got an e-mail from her about a half hour ago and I officially have my "job" back. I haven't told Andrew yet seeing as he's all the way upstairs but after our conversation just yesterday about how stressed he was getting I think he will not only be pleased but a bit relieved. I'm so amazed at how much the Lord blesses us. Though this pregnancy was a bit of a shock it's little things like this that assure me that this is what the Lord wants for us and I'm so grateful for that. I'm continually amazed at how we are blessed through the people in our lives and am so grateful for all our family and friends. Thanks you all for being such amazing people. We love you!