We love fall !!!

I have not been very good about keeping this blog up. Part of that is because I've been busy with the youth group and trying to keep up some sort of social life with my friends. The other part is that I've decided to be completely selfish with my time with Ella. It just hit me like a ton of bricks the other day... she's growing up soo fast and I only get so much time with her while she is this little. I only get so many nights of rocking her to sleep, so many days that she will tolerate cuddling with me or playing patty cake on my lap, so many days that she needs me so completely. And I'm going to try to be there for as much of that as possible, without the distractions of smart phones, tv, and laptops. Yes I have all of those things but at the moment they are playing second fiddle to my beautiful baby :). Ok so enough of my soap box...

Now onto the things you really want to hear... Ella's developments. She's been crazy this month. She is crawling everywhere and pulling up like a pro. She has taken one step in between the coffee table and the sofa ( but I'm not counting it ). This week she learned how to clap. She is also very interested in books and blocks right now.
Normally Sean and I don't really go all out for holidays, but we couldn't help ourselves this fall. We are so excited about Ella's first Halloween and upcoming Thanksgiving and Christmas. We took her to the pumpkin patch and let her crawl around and pick her own pumpkin. It was the perfect little one... just her size. We can't wait to see her in her costume in a few days and we know that she will be taking her first steps soon!



meeting her cousin Daniel

7 months and into EVERYTHING!!!

It has been a while since my last blog, sorry it has taken me so long to update. The reason for this is I have NO free time lately lol. I know I know you are thinking.. Heather you are a SAHM you should have plenty of free time and normally that is true except that this has started....


... and my free time has been turned into chasing Ella around and keeping her out of things. Baby proofing is an absolute joke. She finds the most random things and tries to eat them... and did i mention that she's ridiculously fast! Our poor pug Otis doesn't know what to do anymore. She crawls after him and when she catches him she pulls his whiskers.... luckily for her Otis is so gentle with kids. I'm not so sure most dogs would be so forgiving. As much as I miss my free time to sit and surf pinterest for hours or to spend lots of time baking and cooking, I do love watching her grow. I love watching her eyebrows go up and down when she's trying to figure out how something works. I especially love her little fake laugh she does to get my attention when she is about to do something she's not supposed to. I swear she will be one of those kids who tells on themselves all the time.

I am fairly sure she will be walking by Halloween. She's already walking around the coffee table and along the couch and she has let go a few times and just stood in place for a minute. Ella has also developed some separation anxiety... Mostly just with Sean and I but sometimes she cries whenever anyone leaves a room. She's been talking more and more lately and her new favorite is to say BA BA or BUM BUM and slap her hands on the table.

Ella has also discovered that she likes to sing. Whenver she hears someone singing she starts to hum... needless to say its adorable! I can't believe my little baby is already wearing 12 month clothes and will be walking soon. Now that it is fall I can't wait to do all the fun fall things... pumpkin patch, apple orchard, halloween, sweaters, boots and most of all BON FIRES!!! We still haven't decided on Ella's costume yet, but I will def. be posting pics!

Family Fun

This weekend was a lot of fun! On Friday I drove a bus full of Middle Schoolers to an Indians game... that part wasn't so much fun... but Sean, Jess and Ella followed the bus and came to the game too! It was the first time I have been to a baseball game and even though the game itself is SUPER BORING! IT was fun playing on a blanket with Ella and enjoying nasty ball park food and playing cards with my husband and best friend! Saturday was crafting day! Jess and I picked up all the items needed to do these really neat DIY watermark Tee Shirts http://www.u-createcrafts.com/2011/08/creative-guest-watermark-tee-by-sweet.html They took a little longer than I had expected but turned out great we made her 6 different onesies... this one says Team Wigglekins on the front and on the back it says BEANS and has a #7. Sean and I call her Beans and she was born on the seventh... here is a picture... taken with my webcam.... its not very good quality


On Sunday we went to church as normal but then went to my Mom and Stepdads house for a going away party for my step brother. He is a Marine and was home for the past week. It was fun to play board games and eat delicious grill food with the fam. Ella got to meet some of her family members that she hadn't seen before. She is all over the place now. She is army crawling really well and she has started to crawl on all fours now too. This week she also started trying to pull up and can get up on her knees from her belly. She can also go from being on her belly and sit herself back up. I can't believe how many things she is doing and its all happening so quickly! In a month or so she's gonna be standing and then its walking and then my free time is officially dead :)

Food Fun!

I have always loved to cook and to bake. When Sean and I first got married, like most new wives, I went nuts... cooking new stuff all the time and trying new recipes. However, recently I have fallen into a rut with it all. That is until Ella was ready for solid food. My in-laws had a magic bullet blender and I had heard it was super easy to make your own baby food, so i went to the store, bought tons of produce and proceeded to cook and puree. I couldn't believe how much fun I was having. My birthday was a a few weeks later and I asked for my own Magic Bullet and received one from Sean's Gram. It is probably my favorite appliance :) .

I have been making food like crazy for Ella. peas, green beans, lima beans and brown rice, chicken and pasta, sweet potatoes, mango, pineapple, squash and the list goes on and on. I love knowing exactly what is going into her food and Ella loves it. I actually bought some jars of food from the store when I took Ella to CIY in July and she refused to eat them ( and that never happens). All of this got me thinking about what other things i buy from the store that I could probably make on my own. One easy recipe i found was for crackers. Not something I would have thought about making at home, but it makes perfect sense. You pay what... $4 for a box of good crackers at the store and its about $.50 worth of ingredients. SO i gave it a shot and so far these are my favorites http://busycooks.about.com/od/quickbreads/r/cheesecrack.htm . I made a big batch tonight and they are GREAT! I also whipped up some pancakes that I put applesauce and pears in and now my freezer is officially FULL! I will post pics of all this yummyness soon!

6 months and lots of new developments!

It has been almost a month since I last posted on here and life has been crazy busy. Ella said her first word last month and has since started babbling like crazy. Her first word was MOM :) and then she started saying YaYa and now she says Ba and Da ( but not DaDa ) which makes Sean very sad. He kept telling me that Mom wasn't her first word until we caught it on tape so...




There you have it... Proof :)

We had her 6 month appointment on the 8th and she is weighing in at 16.1 lbs and she is 26 1/2 inches long. The doctor was very pleased with her growth and said she was doing things a little bit ahead of schedule. She is sitting up like a pro now and she is army crawling, rolling and rocking on all fours now. Its like after she hit the 5 month mark she exploded with new things! I love that I am home to witness it all!

Another development is that I have decided to try and start selling some of the crafts I have been making. I've been teaching myself how to make clothes and hair things for Ella and people kept telling me I should try to sell it so I hope to have an Etsy website up by the end of the week! Its been fun, but kind of crazy at the same time. I will post the link when I get everything done. For now enjoy some pics of Ella...

Sitting in a Black Hawk Helicopter




So Sleepy


Modeling one of Mommy's headbands


She loves to eat!

blazing sun, no air conditioning, loud music, amazing high school students = CIY

Well Ella and I had our first little adventure last week! We traveled 5 hours up to Holland Michigan to go with the high schoolers to CIY. For those of you that don't know what that is, CIY, or Christ in Youth is a week long church conference where students have the chance to be a part of amazing worship, go to classes and listen to very powerful speakers.

This year CIY focused a lot on the persecuted church and we got to watch a video called Love Costs Everything. This was such an eye opening film for both sponsors and students. It gave us an up close look at what our Brothers and Sisters all over the world go through in order to worship Jesus. The students were immediately impacted by the scenes on the movie which consisted of eye witness testimonies and real live footage of people being beaten and killed. The true depth of what they had seen didn't sink in until a few days later when they were able to process what they had watched. It was so amazing to watch them react to the information they had been given. To watch them get angry at what is going on in the world and to want to change it. That is what I love about working with High School students!

I was also afraid of how Ella would act this week. It was her first road trip and I was afraid she would cry the whole way or poop in the middle of it and we would have to pull over to change her. My fears were wrong!!! Ella was the perfect baby last week. She slept the entire time we were driving. She stayed quiet while the speakers were preaching, she slept during the loud parts of worship, she went to bed when i needed her to go to bed! I couldn't have asked for a better baby! Below are a few pictures from one day when some of the girls baby sat her for a while! They laid out a blanket and played outside in the shade with her and I have to say she is quite bored with her mommy now that all the girls aren't here to entertain her!

First Time at the Zoo!

I'm sure you might be calculating in your head... wasn't Ella born in February? Isn't she only like 4 1/2 months old... They took her to the zoo? The answer to all of those questions is yes! I got a zoo pass for my birthday and have been itching to go ever since! I will be the first to admit that this trip was probably more about the 3 of us spending quality time together than Ella really getting any sort of education out of it :) I wasn't quite sure what to expect.

The weather was supposed to be rainy and cloudy all day long, however it turned out to be overcast and not very hot. I wasn't sure if Ella would even be able to focus on the animals or be interested at all and it turns out she LOVES the zoo! I think her favorite part was the underwater exhibits. The stingrays particularly because they get SO close to the glass. She kept watching them swim all over the tank and smiling really big when they got close! I can't wait to take her when she gets older and can talk and interact with the exhibits, but it was fun watching her get excited about the animals and seeing things for the first time!