It is so amazing to see how very unique each child is.  As Lilly’s personality develops it is quite clear that she is nothing like her sister in some respects.  Lilly has less patience for some things (like food) and when she wants something she gets mad before even indicating a desire for it.

We have started potty training in earnest with Ella and all seems to be going well.  In fact she is so proud of herself for wearing panties that she fights us when we put a diaper on for overnight.  They are both growing up so very fast and I fear adding in a third may make it all seem faster.  I’ve decided that I need to make an even stronger effort to get back to blogging their lives so that someday, I can present all the little details of their youth to them for their own education and entertainment.  We’ll see how I do.

Now fast forward to last night.  We put Ella to bed at normal time, she had a wonderful chat with Grammy on Skype just before.  Everything seemed like a normal night.  Later around 9pm she cried out which isn’t all that unusual so we thought nothing of it.  When we went in to check on her on our way to bed, we discovered she had gotten sick in the bed.  We woke her up so we could change her clothes and her bed and decided to bring her to our bed, her mattress was soaked and her room did not smell too good.  We got her settled in our bed and back to sleep only for her to wake up a little later and get sick again.  She was so pitiful, she kept saying “I wanna go night-night, Dada”.  We got her cleaned up again and settled and Mommy and Lilly moved rooms just in case she had something contagious.  One more time she woke up but she caught herself before she got sick.  As I sat up she knew it was coming, the poor little hing was so scared about having to throw up.  I coached her through it and cleaned her up again.  The amazing thing is the parental ability to sleep with the smell of vomit in your nose all night.  This parenting thing isn’t always easy, and sometimes it will make you cry, but God certainly makes you strong enough to survive it.  I would never have been able to sleep through the night with that smell if it weren’t my daughter that was sick.

“Is this paper?” Mommy asked.

“No, not,” Ella replied.

“What do we color on, Ella?  Only paper, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Are your hands paper?”

“Yeah!”

“No ma’am, they aren’t.  And your face isn’t either.  We don’t color on our face, that isn’t funny.”

(laughter) “Funny, paper!” (more laughter)

Luckily, baby wipes are amazing little cloths of wonder when it comes to situations like this.  I managed to clean her up completely with one wipe.  This definitely goes in the category of very difficult to be mad about.

By the way, do not worry about the whole “Mommy in the hospital” thing; the doctors were concerned over her blood pressures and protein levels but everything has checked out so far.  She should be coming home tonight or tomorrow morning, they just wanted to watch her and the baby closely for a consistent amount of time.  If you remember our hospital follies from Ella’s time in the womb, then this is basically the same stuff that is going on this time around.

Meanwhile, back at the Mommy-cave… apparently Lilly has enrolled herself in pre-birth gymnastics & karate classes, according to Mama.  All during services this morning I could see Mommy sort of jerk and hold her belly as her eyes rolled just a bit.  She was enjoying feeling the baby move, but it was apparently an extremely active session of punches and kicks for her.  When we got to Sunday School, she said that the baby was settled and napping.  She has since been just as aggressive in her kicking and punching this afternoon and evening.  I am so blessed to have two little ladies to fill my home with love and a wonderful, beautiful wife to share them with!

Mommy would say: “It’s football time in Tennessee”, except we live in Georgia

If you haven’t noticed, I changed the title of the blog.  This is no longer just about Ella, we have to include our second little angel in this blog now too!  (If you are wondering, we do have a name selected, but no middle name just yet, so I thought I would wait to post all of that.  Again, not all that close-kept of a secret, but humor me ).  We have lots of sonogram pictures to post, just like I have months of pictures of Ella to post, some day when I am done prepping a second room in our home and have energy after playing with Ella all evening, I’ll try to get close to caught up.  For now, enjoy the twenty-week ultrasound of our second little beauty!

My second little blessing from God. Isn’t she beautiful?

All was well from this set of doctor visits.  Mommy’s blood pressure was up (I tell her not to be so nervous, but she still is).  The baby is about 1 pound and kicking and moving a LOT more than Ella ever did.  She moved a lot during the ultrasound and we got to see her yawn.

As I am sitting here trying to fill out this post, I realize I started it over a month ago.  It is astounding to me how much can change in a child’s life in such a small amount of time.  At the time I was going to publish this note, Ella had just started to gain an interest in crayons and drawing.  Now she likes to go through several pieces of paper at a time and asks for certain colors (whether she knows what she asking for or not, I cannot say for sure).

Her speech and vocabulary have changed drastically.  She is in the habit of forming completely decipherable sentences at this point.  In July, she was saying simple two to three word phrases, now she can say “Mama, where are you?” or “Dada, what you doing?” and some other questions.  She can sign most of the signs for “The Itsy, Bitsy Spider” and knows most of the letters of the alphabet (even when we show them to her in random order).  She likes to count, she does skip a few numbers here and there, but at least she is doing it.  At the end of July, we took a trip to Statesboro, Ga to visit family and she was in a WalMart reading letters off a sign in the window.  We got a few comments from other shoppers inquiring on her age (she wasn’t being all that quiet with her reading) and they seemed impressed with the letters she knew.  I always take the “what do I know, I’ve never done this before” level of humbleness on these things.  I just assume that she is roughly at the level of all other kids her age and go one marveling at how she learns.

I would love to fill in all the amazing details that I haven’t blogged about in the past few months, but I’m afraid even I don’t remember all of them.  There is something wrong with that I am sure, and I do appologize for not remember every event in her life, but They happen so fast and there are so many, I don’t know how I could ever keep them all straight.  I do know that we have developed a HUGE love of Curious George.  She will ask for episodes continuously (we have to cut her off and distract her to keep her from watching too much TV).  She likes the few books we have of him so much that we read them two and three times in a row.  She has memorized some of her other books to the point I can quiz her on them without even having the book and she can answer (animal / object sounds from “Mr. Brown can Moo”, phrases out of “Hop on Pop”).

Our little girl is turning into a toddler!  It is so awesome and so sad at the same time.  She’s picking up new words all the time, and now that she’s probably less than a month from being an old pro at walking, our hands are getting fuller!  We have to get the rest of our baby-proofing stuff in place.  She has started pulling spices out of the spice rack and she just laughs and says NO! when we tell her no.  She thinks its a great game to repeat no after we say it with great exuberance.

We have an ever expanding vocabulary of signs and spoken words and an emerging toddler-esque attitude to go with it.  “NO” is our favorite word in response to Mommy or Daddy trying to get Ella to do anything.  Who knew putting on P.J.s would cause a temper tantrum.  Ella is growing right along on the standard charts and everything is great according ot the pediatrician.  She still isn’t independently walking, but she is deffinitely getting where she wants to go!  She has a few walk-behind toys that she can pretty much run behind all through the house and you’re advised not to get in her way!

“Curious George” and Elmo are two of Ella’s favorite things to watch.  Daddy actually like Curious George as well.  It is a pretty cute kids show and it is much more educational than what they show on Cartoon Network (which we don;t watch much anymore).  Thank goodness for PBS Kids.  Ella can recognize a few sign-language letters and several animals and words.  We can sign “good girl” to her and she knows what we are saying.  As much as we miss that tiny little bundle we came home with, I am loving every moment of watching her grow and develop her own personality and view of the world.  The simplest things to Mommy and I are new and wonderful discoveries to her.  Its like seeing the world for the first time through Ella.

Mommy went to a few Church consignment sales yesterday and cleaned up on new toys for Ella.  She’s been out-growing some of her toys either from using them so much and getting bored or from them being for younger kids than she is now.  But the new haul of toys was a hit.  As we were carrying them in, Ella was crying on the other side of the gate because she couldn’t play with them right away.  Now we just have to put away some of the other toys for a while or we won’t have enough space to find Ella in her play room!

We’ve been introducing all sorts of new foods.  Some she likes, some not so much.  Ella is a big fan of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and she loves sweets.  Fruits and veggies are still her big go to foods since she’s not so much into the texture of meats still.  She has eaten some significant amount of chicken when cut into a small finger-food size, but she’s a little picky with the meat.  She is also gaining significant independence in the realm of feeding herself.  She does not want her food in small pieces aymore and if you tear off a piece of something for her to eat she will bat it away and reach for the whole object.

Sign language has probably been one of the best ideas we could have had.  Ella signs for food and milk seperately with the appropriate signs and can say “please” and “thank you” very well.  In fact, “please” has suddenly flipped a switch in Ella’s brain that says “I can get whatever I want if I sign please first”.  This has led to many a tantrum from our little angel as she learns that sometimes, even “please” isn’t all that magic of a word.  We taught her the sign for baby and her interpretation is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.  You are supposed to cradle your hands at your waist and rock your arms back and forth like you are holding a baby.  Ella puts her palms on her belly and shakes her whole body back and forth with a big smile on her face while she says baby (or rather, bah-bee).  She can also point to her nose, her ear and her teeth; and she knows how to show your her tongue.  Sometimes, she can even tell you how old she is when you ask.  It took a little while to teach her how to do that one but it is very cute to see.

We gave Ella her first “big-girl” bath the other night.  She has graduated out of her little baby tub and into our large garden tub.  I’m not sure who had more fun that night, Ella or Daddy.  Mommy was sad to see another milestone come and go, but it was a good thing.  Ella had so much fun that she wouldn’t let us take her out of the tub when it was time.  I would ask her if she was ready to come out and she would shake her head no and turn away from me.  In her old tub, she would gladly hold out her hands and reach up to be taken out of the water.

I’m sure there are plenty of things I have missed that she has done since my last post, its been a busy time since she turned one.  I hope in the coming year I’ll be a bit more able to post timely milestone achievements and keep this blog as entertaining as I hope it has been in the past.

She is moving a lot faster as well. Not walking yet but getting closer. She has pulled herself up to a standing position once! If you stand her up on the furniture or the walls she will cruise her way around it as fast as she can!! And she will find a way to get to what she wants. She will also “walk” with the help of her walking toys and if you let her hold on to your fingers. She will walk all over the house if you let her hold your hands!! She is not ready to try it on her own though. She still needs the security of mommy and daddy right now. And she now dances!!!!! I think it’s the cutest thing I have ever seen! She will dance sitting and standing and she shakes her little booty as well as bobbing her head!!! So funny.

We are also in the process of learning “no touch” which is a bit difficult at some points due to the amount of sass she has!

She is just a joy and the light of our lives! We fall in love with her more everyday!

We think Ella may also be starting to sign back to us, but we’re both on the fence about it.  I was feeding her this evening and I would sign thank you after I’d given her something to eat.  She started making a similar sign/motion back to me and I had Mommy watch her to see what she thought.  She didn’t repeat it very much, but it was a step in the right direction.  She also semi-signs for milk when we get a bottle ready for her.  It is kind of a hybrid between a wave and the sign for milk so we’re not sure what she’s trying to do there.

“Kaak, kaak!” was her response.

We, like all new parents, were overly impressed with her ability to mimic and remember and gave her a round of applause and laughed with glee.  She responded by giving us a big smile and “kaak, kaak”-ing the remainder of her bath.  She continued to quack while we got her dressed for bed and played with her until bottle time.  It is so cute when she does the quack, especially since she can’t get the “cw” sound of qu just yet.

Baby girl gets a little whacky when she’s tired and as much as I hate to keep her from her routine, it is very entertaining when she hits her breaking point and starts acting goofy.

She has since gotten pretty good at moving around assisted.  She’s like a little monkey when she slides off of me into the floor from one of the chairs, she looks back up with a sneaky little grin that says “Look what I just did, Daddy!”  She getting really fast at scooting on her bottom too.  She has realized she can get to whatever she wants if she tries hard enough, I think we are in for some “fun” experiences ahead .

Today she was chasing Maddie all around our bonus room while Mommy hung laundry and did some crafts.  Then she discovered the drum set that has always been there, but never held much interest for her.  Apparently she didn’t do much with it, but she knows they are there now, so that could be a fun new experience for everyone as she figures out what they are.

Ella is starting to discover how to make all sorts of new sounds.  Some she learns by mimicing us, others she figures out all on her own.  She’s also starting to mimic word sounds.  She can say whoa! and uh-oh (except it sounds like she’s saying uh-oi!) and of course Mommy and Daddy.  The best sound in the world is when I walk through the front door after a long day at work at don’t even know where she is until I hear that sweet angel squeal “Daddy!”.  She also says dadada which is her way of saying doggy, it has a distinct sound compared to when she is saying my name.  She is such a little smarty!

So this past weekend, we traveled to Louisiana to visit with Auntie Megan, Uncle Shawn and the cousins Emily, Grace and Abby. We left around 7pm Wednesday night hoping to take advantage of Ella’s normal sleep schedule to make the trip easier on her. She took a long time to go to sleep and woke up at every stop we made, but she seemed to be okay with the trip in general. Considering she spent nine to ten hours in her car seat, I think she did exceptionally well!

Ella had a great time visiting and playing with her cousins and they seemed to have just as much fun. They seemed to enjoy the new toys that came along with us equally well. The Quinns happen to live in the town where Steel Magnolias was filmed! Since this is one of her all time favorite movies, Mommy got to visit the house from Steel Magnolias and some of the other areas of the town it was filmed in. Daddy got to enjoy some AWESOME authentic Louisiana cuisine. And everybody got to enjoy some quality family time together. Natchitoches (pronounced NAK-a-dish) is a beautiful little town with a very well maintained historic downtown and some pretty water front parks. Uncle Shawn coaches football at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches. Their neighbor is quite the skilled cajun cook and we never were wanting for food the entire weekend. Mommy and Daddy got re-acquainted with seafood with boiled crab, boiled shrimp and fried shrimp po’ boys. He also cooked Jambalaya for the tailgate festivities at the ball game…yummy! We also sampled gumbo and red beans and rice from a local restaurant.

Driving to and from Louisiana we had the “pleasure” of driving through some of the heavy storms that pelted Georgia with flooding waters earlier this week. Poor Mommy had the driving shift every time we hit the rain. I don’t think that was very good for her other than the fact that she had something to keep her mind off of the lightning and thunder that was all around us. I wish I had thought to turn on the camcorder when we hit the storm on the way out there, the only way to describe it is to show pictures, it was so beautiful and scary at the same time.

Ella recently started two new performance tricks. She can clap her hands and she can flip her lips while she hums (makes a blbb-blbb-blbb sound). I am a bit late on this post, since she started doing these a few weeks ago, but better late than never. I do have video of her doing them, but it may take a while to get it posted online. I’ll do what I can to get it available, but I’m not promising anything in the near term .

Update 1:40PM:

So now I’ve got her down for afternoon nap.  It came a little earlier than I was expecting, but she drained her bottle and talked herself to sleep after 30 minutes of babbling in her bed.  Its been a great day so far.  She was trying to get the dogs’ attention this afternoon, it was very cute.  She’d wave at them and say “Dah…dah-dah.”  That is a different sound than when she says “Da da da”.  It was apparent she meant dogs because when she looked at me, the ‘D’ sound changed a little.  Ella is clearly starting to discern the differences between the sounds Mommy and I make when we name things for her.

Update: The Next Morning:

My day alone with Ella continued on with a lot of fun.  The afternoon nap pepped her right back up and she was a happy baby all over again.  Mommy was home by the time she woke up so we had an extra playmate for the rest of the evening.  We let Ella watch her first ever VeggieTales episode which was an amazing hit.  She loved the silly characters and laughed at the screen.  She kind of bobbed a little to the music at times but onl lasted for about 10 minutes of the show because it was bedtime by then.  All in all, it was a wonderful day!  I love Daddy Days!

She also LOVES oranges.  If she has a few Cheerios in her grasp and you give her a taste of orange, she’ll drop everything and reach for the orange with a bit of desperation in her demeanor.  She got a taste of Clementine tonight and she liked them just as well.  I made the mistake of holding the plate within reach of her after giving her a taste and almost didn’t get it back.  Its so much fun to see what she likes to eat and more so what she doesn’t.  Those are the more dramatic reactions.

In Andy’s eulogy, he gave those in attendance one piece of advice and he reiterated it after the funeral when we went to see him:  Husbands, love your wives.

I do love Mommy.  And I love Ella.  I love them both more than I can ever express.  I cannot imagine losing either of them.  I can only hope that I would have the strength of faith and trust in God to display the courage Andy did today.  I know this post isn’t about Ella and I know it isn’t very upbeat, but I needed an avenue to express my feelings in as cohesive a manner as I could.  I’m still not sure I completely understand my feelings, but I know that I will love my family with more passion every day.

Today, we had a busy day of errands and shopping. I know, I know, it was Father’s Day, but I’d rather just spend a whole day with my family regardless of what that entails. In the middle of our errands we went to lunch at a new Mexican restaurant in town here. They were giving out balloons to the the kids in the restaurant and water bottles to the dads. The weirdest part was hearing someone other than Mommy say “Happy Father’s Day” to me. In fact, I looked at the waiter and said, “Huh?”. I finally got acclimated to the concept. We asked the waiter to let us have a balloon for Ella, since she had never had one before. The link below is video of her enjoying her balloon.

After lunch we headed to Wal-Mart for baby supplies and the such. Mommy was holding Ella and kissing her and saying “kisses” while she did it. Suddenly, she said “kisses” and Ella held her mouth open and looked right at Mommy. So even though they were open-mouthed and a little sloppy (not so gross now that I’m a daddy). She had a good time giving us kisses. When I was putting her to bed, I had her in the nursery and I said “kisses, Ella” and she dropped her pacifier and gave me a big wet one. She is such a cutie!

It turns out that little miss Ella has figured out how to roll from her back to her stomach. But when she did so, she woke herself up and couldn’t get back over. Of course, this upsets a tiny baby and she started crying. Her pacifier was clipped to her onesie on her stomach so that was likely uncomfortable and part of the problem. So we got her turned over nad calmed down and went about the evening business of catch-up. Who knew when you had a kid you’d spend every minute the baby is asleep trying to get caught up before the baby wakes up!

So over the course of the night, she managed to turn herself over five times. Every time except the last, she would cry and wake herself up. In the morning I went to get her out of bed and she was on her stomach playing with her crib toy, smiling at me. The little stinker got to the point where she decided it was fun to get to her stomach!

Ella’s first, lonely tooth now has a neighbor to keep it company. Toothy #2, the sequel popped out of her gums today. She is so cute with her two little tiny teeth under her tongue! When she smiles and moves her toungue these tiny two little teeth peek out from her lip. Its cute and heart-breaking at the same time. She’s growing up waaay to fast. *sigh*

We were visitng Tennessee this weekend for a family cookout and to let Ella spend some time with my family. We were playing together Saturday morning when I started putting a burp cloth over her face and asking her “Where’s Ella?” to see what she would do. She pulled the cloth off her face and smiled every time. She eventually started holding the burp cloth up over her face and dropping it on her own. She even started popping her face up really fast over the cloth before I could ask where she was.

UPDATE: Sunday night after we got home, Mommy was holding Ella on her leg and she was putting her face against Mommy’s shoulder. I asked “where’s Ella?” and she popped up off Mommy’s shoulder with a big smile. We had to stop playing because I was waking her up and it was betime. I love playing baby games!

Here is a direct link to Ella in her bathing suit from the gallery: http://doug.kerplooey.com/BabyBlog/gallery/main.php/f/20090606