We will miss (Great) Grandma Barnes!

On October 30th, 2009 our beloved Grandma Barnes passed away suddenly. We were able to go to Washington for a week to be with family and to attend her funeral. I only knew her 4 short years, but she was an amazing woman and I truly loved her. I look forward to seeing her again someday and am glad that Ella got to meet her. She will truly be missed. Here are some pictures of Grandma Barnes....

Our Wedding Day, August 27, 2005

The day after Ella was born, June 10, 2008

Ella, cousin Brayden, and Grandparents Barnes, January 2009

WE LOVE YOU GRANDMA BARNES!!!

Smith Family visit and Barnes Family Reunion

I have been meaning to post this forever and have been waiting for pictures that I guess I just won't have. This is how we spent our 4th of July:

We drove halfway to Boise and stayed the night at Great Grandma and Great Grandpa Winston's. It was nice to see them. We also got to see Aunt Linda too.

We then drove the rest of the way to Grandma and Grandpa Smith's. It was fun to spend time with them and Auntie Danielle and to see Great Grandpa Winder and Great Grandma and Papa Schaffer.

We then spent the rest of the week at Grammy and Grandpa Winston's and at Great Grandma and Great Grandpa Barnes house. It was the Barnes family reunion. It was so fun to spend so much time on the lake. Ella got to ride on the banana and the tube! It was so fun. Mommy and Daddy rode on the tube together as well. So fun!

It was a very fun trip and we enjoyed seeing so much family. This post does not do it justice as I can't really remember the sequence of events too well and we don't have many pictures to remind me. Next time I will just do the post and add pictures later.

Pictureless Family visits

The beginning of August Aunt Caity came to visit us. We had so much fun with her here. We went to the dinosaur museum as well as the indoor water park. We played games with her after Ella went to sleep at night and really enjoyed having her spend some of the end of her summer with us.

The end of August, beginning of September Grammy Winston came to visit. She brought us some new furniture (from her living room) and some other furniture that goes with our bedding set. Our apartment looks so nice. She also gave me some decorating tips so a year after moving in, our apartment is finally decorated. She came down to bring Aunt Kira to college at BYU. Although she was spending a lot of her time helping Kira get settled in, we got to help out some. It was fun to have her here.

The beginning of September Great Grandma and Papa came to visit us from Washington on their way to Colorado, Texas, and Arkansas for their yearly trip. They took us to dinner and we returned the favor. Grandma and Ella and I went shopping too. We also got to play cards with them one night. It was so fun. Ella would insist on holding Papa's hand when walking through the parking lot and it was just adorable.

We really, truly, enjoy having family come visit us. We have been just awful in taking pictures lately. I am so upset. So here is my pictureless post. We will forever cherish the memories and will be sure and take lots of pictures next time.

A Not So Typical Weekend

September 26, 2009 Saturday

After a long, hard day in downtown Salt Lake City I was left alone with Ella while Amanda went to the Relief Society Broadcast. I was doing something on the computer, I believe it was finances, and Ella was just happily playing with a couple of her stuffed animals. Usually she gets fussy when she get hungry, which is around 5:30 'ish. That is what I was waiting for, a little fussiness. Well, it never came, so I took the prerogative to announce that it was time for dinner. We got her all ready and while I was preparing her dinner, heating it up, I gave her a cup of her milk. She was chugging down on it with sagging eyes the whole time. I was preparing a can of chili for her and decided to give her some leftover noodles from lunch. Chili can be messy and I wanted her to be able to feed herself. I think I gave her some peaches along with her dinner but can't be sure. She ate those noodles right up. The chili was ready and I started to feed her. By this time she was really droopy. I would go "BOO!" and wake her up. She just opened her eyes and looked at me. I took a couple of pictures and texted them to Amanda.


She was suppose to take a bath but after conversing with my wife we forwent the bath and prepared for bed. I wiped her hands, she slept. I wiped her face, she slept. I tilted her chair back so I could get under her chin, she slept. I picked her up and went to go change her into her pajamas, she slept. Now I remember when I was younger whenever one of us kids fell asleep, my parents would be as careful and quiet as could be so as not to wake us up. I have a confession to make. I wasn't. I couldn't. I LAUGHED. The whole time! What did she do? She slept! So there we were, me taking her to her room, and her bumping up and down. She didn't open her eyes until a couple attempts of sitting her up, to take her shirt off. I tried with her laying down but it was so much easier with her sitting. No expression, no sound just staring is what I got. I changed her clothes, her diaper was fine. She still pressed her radio on, and would have turned the light off if I hadn't already done so, and I put her in bed. I left, not a peep the whole time! I LOVE MY DAUGHTER!

September 27, 2009 Sunday

Ok, so now the bath she should of had. I bathed her, and I had to take a picture. Amanda's family bought Ella this cute 'Lady Bug' towel. I have been meaning to take a picture of her with it for some time. This one isn't the best, but it is cute.


Ella is such a good bath taker. She doesn't mind so much when we tilt her back to get her head wet. She even likes to tilt her head in the water. When she is done she patiently shivers outside of the bath, standing on a towel, while we get her very own towel and wrap it around her. I always pick her up an show her in the mirror. Smiles all the way! While drying and putting her diaper and clothes on she likes to help comb hair. It usually is my hair she combs while Amanda, or me combs her hair.

Ella's 15 month doctor's appointment!

On September 15th Ella had her 15 month doctor's appointment. First of all, that was a mad rush of a day for me. I had visiting teaching interviews from 9-10, I went and visited a little girl, I used to babysit, in the hospital, I babysat my visiting teacher's daughter, then I had Ella's doctor's appointment, book club held at my house, and a Relief Society Meeting right after book club. Whew! It was a busy day!

We ended up being at the doctor's office for 1.5 hrs which seemed like forever because I had stuff that I needed to do, like make desert for book club, but finally the doctor saw Ella and everything was fine.

Ella is growing BIG! She weighed 19.7 lbs which is under what she weighed when we took her to the doctor for her diaper area rash, but oh well. She is 31 inches tall which translates to 2 ft 7 inches! Her head circumference is 47 3/4 cm which is average. The doctor talked about how children with autism will not look in the direction that you point to things and will not point themselves. Ella does point and did look as he was pointing because she wanted to see what he saw. Alas, Ella is not autistic (if you know Ella, you would already know that because she is VERY social). Ella also got 5, that numeral is not big enough for emphasis, FIVE shots! She normally gets just 4 but they had to give her a fifth because she didn't get it when she was 2 weeks old. Stinkin' doctors! Oh well. She didn't cry very much but the next day she was sooooo sore! It was so sad! She couldn't get up, she couldn't crawl, walking was difficult, she wouldn't bend over, it was awful! I ended up giving her motrin and she got better. She took 2 naps that day though!

Ella also got her 7th tooth on the 19th. The bottom left one right next to her bottom front tooth. She is getting too big!

We are so proud of Ella and how big she is getting. What an amazing girl!

Ella's TEETH!

Ella now has 5 teeth...well, 5 teeth have broken through the skin and are growing in fast! She got her 1st tooth just before she turned one, 3 more on September 1st and, her 5th on September 5th. Soon she will have a mouth full of teeth!!! She has both bottom front teeth with the left incisor about to erupt, then she has her top right front tooth, the other front one about to erupt, and both incisors on the top. Guess what! I wrestled her and the camera and was FINALLY able to get some pictures of said teeth! Enjoy!

She's broken 20lbs! and other fun things!

Monday Ella went to the doctor for a diaper area rash and they weighed her and....she weighs 20 lbs 2.5 oz! Hooray! Ella has passed that 20lbs milestone! We are still going to keep her in a rear facing car seat until she is touching the back of the seat with her dirty shoes or until it is time to move her seatbelt straps up to the highest setting. This is so exciting!

Oh! Ella has started giving REAL kisses! She puckers her lips and lays one on your cheek (she tries to kiss your lips but I think that's just because she is trying to mimic the shape of your lips. I don't know why else, we've never kissed her on the lips). It is the cutest thing ever! Ella likes to brush her tooth with her toothbrush and helps daddy turn on the stereo before bed. She also insists on sitting on my lap during family prayers! Ella also loves her mommy time before bed. I hold her and we snuggle and then I put her down for the night. She puts her little hand to her lips and blows me a kiss as I am leaving the room. That is enough to melt your heart! We love our little sweetie so much!

Ella also picks her clothes out everyday. She usually chooses a dress and as soon as I get it on her she has to run and look in the mirror. She is so awesome!

Here's what Ella decided to do yesterday:

Ella has learned to remove her shirt. Evidently she didn't like what Mommy picked out for her because she wouldn't keep that shirt on! When daddy came home, the shirt was still off. Silly girl!

Ella is also Mommy's Little Helper! Here's a few things that she helps me do:

She helps me unload the clothes from the dryer to the basket. She is so funny when she does this because each and every time she has to push the clothes down in the basket after she puts something in it. It is really cute. And yes, she will unload the WHOLE dryer. The only time she hasn't is when something is tangled (like a sheet) and it is too hard for her to pull it out. :)

Ella also helps me to unload the dishwasher. She actually unloaded the whole thing by herself last night. She just handed each of the dishes to me, one by one. We got her stool so that she could reach the dishes on the top shelf. What an awesome kid!

Ella likes to try and put her shoes on herself, and LOVES to take them off in the car. She can get both shoes off between each store we go to in the short car ride there. Not the most fun thing in the world but she feels like such a big girl. Maybe she is going to prefer no shoes like Mommy.

Finally Ella is still learning a bit of sign language (when she wants to). She has learned "more" and "eat". She has even put the two together and just this morning we were sitting in Mommy and Daddy's bed and she signed "more" "eat" to tell me that she wanted breakfast. To me, that is a sentence. A nearly 15 month old already using sentences. AMAZING! (I will have to get it on video for you to see).

Oh, and our half a tooth-ed daughter is now getting 3 more teeth! They erupted yesterday, September 1st! Her right front tooth, her left top incisor, and her other bottom front tooth. The incisor and the bottom tooth are coming in diagonally, so let's hope that they straighten out when the rest of her teeth come in. She has a 50/50 chance between a crooked toothed Mommy (before braces) and a straight toothed Daddy. Let's hope she gets the latter.

Ella's friends, the Evans (Sunny, Robin, and Lily), came to play while their Mommy and Daddy went to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple Dedication. They watched Ella for us while we went in the morning. Then they stayed for dinner. It was so fun!

Ella enjoys putting clothes on. Especially Mommy's. This day she decided on my swim suit and swimming in the hallway on her floaty.

Where's Ella?

Ella also loves to play with shoes. Above Ella is carrying Daddy's shoes!

Swimming, Parade, and Ella UPDATE!

Sorry I haven't blogged in a while. I have been so busy doing this and that and basically I have no excuse, well, except for one...we have been slacking on taking the camera anywhere and so I basically have little or no pictures. Ugh! We need to do better because it is pictures that helps us to remember things.

The first set of pictures is of Ella and I and our friends, the Evans, swimming at our apartment pool:

Chad and Ella

LeAnn and Sunny

Robin

Ella and Mommy (Me)

Ella and Sunny

This set of pictures is of the 24th of July Parade. We got up at like 6 am so that we could go and wait until 10:30 ish for the parade to come by. Apparently in Utah the 24th of July is a huge deal (an actual get off work holiday) so it was fun to join in the festivities:

Ella and Daddy

Ella and Mommy and a float behind us!

This float was really cool because it had replicas of all of the Temples in the Salt Lake area

Ella and Me with the Temple float

Ella and Mommy with another float

Ella so sleepy after the parade

After the parade we went to the park and looked at all of the booths. It was so hot that I bought myself 2 snow cones! We then tried some shaved ice when we were leaving. We also had lunch on the lawn. Afterwards we went swimming at our apartment pool. Such a great family day!

Now on to the Ella update:

First off, she is amazing. That's all you need to know. Just kidding. She is amazing, though! She has learned to sign more and eat. She can say "more". She just learned to give kisses (so cute! She kisses her hand and then puts it on your face!). Ella shakes her head yes, and tells you when she is all done. Ella even grabs your finger and leads you to whatever she wants you to give her (usually the refridgerator). It's so cute when she insists that BOTH mommy and daddy goes with her! LOL. We've also started putting Ella on the potty. No we are not potty training, we are just getting her used to it and don't expect her to actually go in the potty. Just practicing.

Well, that's it for now! I am going to post a blog about the 4th of July once I get some pictures, and also post about Aunt Caity coming to visit just recently (I am sooooooo mad at myself because we took ZERO pictures when Caity was here. HOW RUDE!).

She speaks!

Ella has been TALKING for about a month now. It seems it started right after the doctor said that he wanted to keep an eye on her communication. Silly girl!

Ella says:

hi
yeah
WOW
What's that?
Who's that?
No (sorta. We use "no thank you" when we tell her "no" most of the time so that she doesn't just learn NO that she can use against us :) )
Momma
Dadda- REALLY WELL!

I actually have a story about dadda...Ella pulled Jared's deoderant out of the drawer in the bathroom and I was like "Ella, that's dadda's" and Ella said "dadda?" (walked out into the bedroom) "where is dadda" (walked into the hallway) "daaadaaa". I promise she actually said "where is dadda". It was awesome! I also ask her "where's dadda" and she says "dadda?" and walks out to the hallway where she can see the front door and then starts to cry because he isn't at the door.

Wow...this just made me tear up. I am just so grateful to have such a wonderful husband that loves our daughter so much. I am grateful that Ella knows how much her daddy loves her and loves when he is home and misses him when he is gone. What a wonderful family I have.

Yay for Ella's accomplishments!

Ella's first bike ride

Uncle Aaron sent us his bike when he came home from his mission (he plans to retrieve it when he comes here to Utah for college) for us to take care of for him. So we decided to buy a bike seat for Ella and a helmet and take her for a bike ride. It was pretty fun. The helmet doesn't work too well with the bike seat because Ella is too short for her head to go above the top of the seat, but oh well, she'll grow into it.

Recently we've taken a 10 mile round trip ride to the library. It was pretty fun and a great workout!

Lately we haven't been able to go out on a ride because we have been gone and Jared has been working 10 hour shifts, but we look forward to our family bike rides in the future!

Camping at Murray South Stake Campground

Near the end of June we went to the Murray South Stake Campground way up in the Wasatch Mountains (I think) for a ward camp-out. It was fun for the most part and we enjoyed getting to know some of the other families in the ward.

Sleep time was another story. Ella went to bed just fine (we borrowed my parents HUGE "3 room" tent. Us in one of the small rooms, Chad Evans and 2 of his girls in the large room, and LeAnn and their youngest daughter in the other small room) but did you know that deep in the woods in the mountains, there are LIVE animals? There was a raccoon trying to get in the garbage at the camp by where our tent was, so I was worried about Ella and called for Chad which scared Robin(on of the Evan's daughters) and made her cry. Then...this is the WORST part...we laid down to sleep on the hard, bumpy, ground (I could not sleep because I was so uncomfortable) and at 3 am there was this LOUD spaceship like noise with dogs barking, sheep baying, and men SCREAMING. I was terrified OUT OF MY MIND and wanted to go home so badly. I seriously thought that the tripods were coming and we were going to die (have you seen War of the Worlds?). It was the most terrifying experience of my life. But alas, after an hour of metal banging, men screaming, things breaking, noise, there was this loud speaker with scripture verses. I don't know why that was comforting, but after that I was finally able to go to sleep (Ella slept well through most of this occurrence and no, I have NO IDEA what that noise was).

Ella playing in the tent

In the morning we went on a little hike with some of the families in the ward. It was nice and very beautiful.

Some pictures of Ella and her friend Sunny Evans

Overall, it was an okay experience, but I doubt that I will EVER camp at that site again. :)

Grandma Smith and Auntie Danielle's Visit

From the 11th to the 16th of June, Grandma Smith and Auntie Danielle came to visit. They arrived in the wee hours of the morning on the 11th and were both dog tired after driving through the night. That day we pretty much chilled and Auntie Danielle and Grandma Smith rested up a little bit. Then we went to Walmart and got some stuff for Ella's birthday party then we went home and picked up Jared and went to Cafe Rio for dinner. Danielle really loved Cafe Rio but I just thought it was okay, probably because I didn't order the right thing. The cheese wasn't melted in my enchiladas, but oh well.

Ella with her new shades on

On Friday it was Ella's birthday party and barbeque. I already told you all about that, but I was really grateful to have my mom and sister there to help me get everything ready for it.

On Saturday Grandma Smith and I went to Costco, then we went to the zoo. It was pretty fun except halfway through it started to POUR!

Watching the Elephant show: By the way, this elephant, who did the show, was pregnant. I type 'was' because she should have given birth by now. Can you imagine carrying a baby for 22 months!

Ella found a peacock to chase!

The poor peacock!

Ella pushing the stroller. She liked helping out!

This mama had twins! This is actually a male. The male is the one that carries the babies once they are born. No, this guy isn't sick. He is just going bald because of the pipsqueeks on back!

Another funny bird to chase!

The funny bird

We found this neat little "hut" with fun artifacts from that part of the world. It was nice because it was hands on and Ella and Jared got to try on the funny hat. I am 'Raiden' and this is my little 'Raiden'. Confused? Think back in Japan. He was one of the characters I played in 'MORTAL COMBAT'! Anyone remember?

Ella drinking out of the BIG glass

We ate at Buca Di Beppo and it was delicious. Buca is this nice little authentic Italian restaurant that we have discovered here in Utah and just had to take Grandma Smith there so she could try it out. She seemed to like it okay. Because we forgot a bib, Ella had to eat using a plastic bag with the bottom cut out of it. It was our server's idea. How creative!

Sunday was church day. Jared was set apart as the Elder's Quorum 1st Counselor and we got to go for that. After church we went to Uncle Dee's and Aunt Lori's house for a barbeque in Orem. It was fun to see them and spend time with Case's (pronounced KC) wife Adrianne who is having a baby this month (July).

Ella in her church dress

Ella playing with her pinwheel and Auntie Danielle.

Monday Grandma Smith and I went to Costco to return some things and to pick up a pizza for dinner. We then picked up Auntie Danielle and Ella and went to the mall for some fun girly shopping. I bought Jared some Father's Day things so it was pretty productive for me :). Afterwards we went to Ella's doctors appointment (I've already told you about that).

When we returned to the apartment, Danielle and I decided that it was warm enough to swim so while Jared was cooking the pizza and Ella was taking a nap, we went for a swim. Grandma Smith accompanied us to read her book and take some pictures. She was also the ref of our swimming matches! It was fun. Ella even came and took a dip but she was so tired and cranky from her shots that she wasn't too into it.


Lastly, Tuesday Grandma Smith, Jared, and I decided that we would go to the Temple and do a session. We got all dressed up and arrived at the Jordan River Temple to find out that it was closed for some type of maintenance so we had to seek out a different temple. We saw one in the distance (remember, we live in Utah) and decided to go check it out. Well come to find out, it was the Oquirrh Mountain Temple and they were still having it's open house. So that wouldn't work. Finally we decided to head for the Draper temple and after calling and finding out that you no longer need an appointment, we made the trek. When we arrived, we found out that the next session wasn't for another 2 hours and Jared and I had an appointment later in the day, so that wouldn't work. We then decided to do some other temple work which was nice because my mom hadn't done that since she first went through the temple. Overall, it was a great experience and the Temple was GORGEOUS! More on this topic at Jawinston.blogspot.com


After the Temple, we stopped at Panda Express to grab some lunch to go before we headed back to the apartment. We ate lunch at the apartment, then Jared and I went to our appointment while Grandma Smith and Auntie Danielle stayed with Ella.

Some pictures of Ella that Grandma Smith took while we were gone

Ella and Auntie Danielle

After our appointment, we had to say our goodbyes to Grandma Smith and Auntie Danielle, but luckily we knew that we would be seeing them again about a week and a half later, so it wasn't so bad.

YAY! A picture of Grandma Smith and Ella

It was a great visit and we loved having Grandma Smith and Auntie Danielle come and visit us.