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!