Catching Up

I was so busy last week I didn't get the blog updated and I have a ton to write about, so there will most likely be multiple posts today. I'll start with last weekend. We met up with our friends, Kate and Pete, and their son, Liam at one of our favorite parks. We hadn't seen them for quite a while so it was fun to catch up with them. Liam is such a cutie pie. See picture for evidence.


Baby Milestone Alert!: While we were the park, Lily wanted to naw on my finger. When she did, I realized she was cutting her bottom teeth! We had no idea she was teething already. Ella drooled FOREVER before she started getting her teeth at 8 months. And then she was very cranky and irritable. Miss Lily, on the other hand, has been her normal self which is happy and smiley most of the time. I was thinking the teething was part of the reason she doesn't sleep well at night. But we've given her motrin before bedtime and it doesn't seem to make a difference. We had one night this past week where she did sleep through the night. Woo HOO! But the next night, she woke up three times again. BOO! So really that was a fluke! Still not crawling yet, but has that rocking on all fours down pat. Poor little girl, she's trying so hard to crawl and gets frustrated that she can't quite figure it out, but for me, that's fine for now! I also think we may have another fish lover on our hands. Just like Ella, she is mesmerized when fish are on the screen. And she has taken to creating a fish mouth and making bloop noises when she sees a fish on the screen!

Ella is growing up more and more every day. She is becoming slightly more interested in potty training, which is nice, because I really am getting tired of changing a billion diapers a day. Her latest thing is that she likes to talk to Andrew on my cell phone when he's on his way home from work. They sing Little Einsteins together, she says, "Hi, how are you?". And when they hang up she says, "Bye. See you." She can even multi-task already: reading and talking on the phone.

In other news, I believe I broke a toe last week. Clumsy me, walked into the molding as I was going into the kitchen. It's mostly feeling better now, but I still can't wear my tennis shoes. The day after I broke it, I got to go to my friend Renee's house for a Body Shop pamper party. I was a little worried about it, but all the fun lotions and scrubs made my feet feel so good!

Andrew is working on a big project for Toyota right now. They are doing three ten-second spots for the new Toyota Yaris. They also did work for the NCAA tournament again this year. Hornet did all the transitions you see, as well as the logos.

UPDATE: I forgot to include the date in the previous post. WalkAmerica is on Saturday, April 29th. So you still have time to donate if you would like to.

WalkAmerica!

Lily and I will be participating in WalkAmerica this year, which benefits the March of Dimes. Some of our playgroup is planning on doing it and it's at Griffith Park so I thought it would be fun to join them. Andrew and I like to give a little bit away to charity each year. I thought this would be a great cause for this year. We plan on giving a personal contribution. I'm not one for fundraising. But I have created a webpage on the WalkAmerica site. If any of you would like to contribute, you can do so online through that webpage.

http://www.walkamerica.org/hjiwalk

THANKS!

Playareas, books & fun, oh my!

We had another fun weekend. On Saturday we did a little family outing to Burbank. Exciting, I know. There is a brand new playarea in the mall there so we went to check it out. Ella had a great time running all over the place! And it's more spread out than the play area at the Glendale mall so she had more room to run around. From there, we visited the kid's section at Barnes and Noble. We let Ella out of the stroller to explore on her own and she had a fantastic time! She has an instinct for anything Disney I think, she was able to find any and every book relating to Disney. They even had a whole little section devoted to The Princesses. She went around the whole place pointing and saying, "Oh wow!" "Oh look at this!" "Oh wow!" ("Oh, wow" is a new phrase that she spontaneously spouted while at the bookstore). It was so cute! And it went so well that I think we may do this on a semi-regular basis.

As I reported in an earlier post, Ella is saying "E-O" for Nemo. I decided I was going to try and teach her to say the whole word correctly. So I started saying "Nee-Moh" very slowly and exaggerating my mouth for her. Well she is a very good student, but not quite ready for N and M yet. So now she is going around the house imitating my slowness, saying "Eeee-Oooh".

On Sunday, we did our usual walk to Kenneth Village and then in the afternoon, we met our friends Robin & Terry at the Griffith Park playarea. Even though this park has been basically in our backyard all this time, we've never been to the playarea. And it's HUGE! Ella had a fabulous time running around and exploring all the equipment. Robin & Terry have a son, Julian who is only eleven days older than Lily. The babies had a fun time conversing with each other and flirting. There was a clown there making creatures out of balloons. Ella wanted a flower. She was so excited. She loved this flower balloon! She even took her nap with it and fell asleep with it at bedtime!

Lily is Lily. She is still not sleeping really great at night. I've heard from several people this could go on for years. I'm not sure I can handle that! I'm a sleep person. I need it, I love it, I want it! So hopefully someday soon, we'll get at least one good night's sleep! She is still making her "Squeaker" noises. Andrew and I both hope she grows out of this fun stage very soon. I don't mind her vocalizing and experimenting with sound, but it would be nice if she did it at a decibel level that won't shatter glass. She is super happy most of the time and coos and smiles at you. She is eating baby food three times a day and like most babies, she likes her fruit much better than her veggies.

Well I think that's all for this post. We hope everyone had a good weekend!

Cowgirls & Nuks

We had a really nice weekend. On Saturday, we went to one of Ella's friend's birthday parties. It was a "Jessie" (the cowgirl from Toy Story 2) themed party. That's where this gorgeous picture of Ella came from. We all had a great time. There was a Jessie there to entertain the kids. Ella got her face painted (with a "fishy" of course) and played the parachute game which she loves.

Notice anything different about Lily in this picture? That's right folks, Lily has decided she now likes the pacifier! She is sort of a whiny baby and I was talking to a friend of mine this weekend and saying I wished Lily had the nuk. I figured this is why Ella was such a good baby. She always had her nuk to keep her company. And Lily really didn't have anything like that but ME. She would cry/whine everytime I would not be within five feet of her. My friend asked if I had tried the pacifier again lately. And well, I hadn't tried it since she was a couple weeks old. So I thought, what the heck? And lo and behold, she liked it! So now instead of crying every time I can't be right next to her, she is at least satisfied until she spits it out of her mouth.

And look who is already getting up on all fours and rocking! She's going to be crawling before I know it! She's not even 6 months yet!

Ella's up to her old tricks again. I went into the kitchen the other night to start dinner. I had just finished folding laundry and pairing up the girls socks. After about five minutes of being in the kitchen I came out and looked at the girls and this is what I found by Lily....Hmmm.....do you think she did this all by herself? ;-)

I uploaded a few new pictures this morning so check out the March 2006 album!

Oops....

I forgot to put the Super Bowl pictures up on the website. Vince so kindly reminded me of this. So now they are up. Enjoy!

The Ella & Lily Report

The girls are growing up so fast. Lily is over fifteen pounds now and we just started her on a little bit of baby food this week. She's still getting used to it. Andrew has taken to calling her "Squeaker" because she makes this really obnoxious noise with her voice that is sort of a cross between a cry and a scream. And I believe she just likes to make the noise because its fun, not because she needs anything or is upset. But its not a particularly pleasing sound for the rest of the household so lets hope she grows out of that one fast. She has inherited the "Comande Leg Kick". If you go to a function on Andrew's mom's side of the family, you'll notice half the room will have their legs crossed and one kicking. Well, Lily doesn't have her legs crossed yet, but every time she is on the floor on her belly, her left leg is constantly tapping the floor. And its almost rhythmic. She is still not completely sleeping through the night, however, she is sleeping flat all the time. And wakes up at predictable times and is easy to put back to sleep. So we can't complain too much, except that we wish she wouldn't need that middle of the night feeding. And last but not least, she is just about sitting up on her own unsupported.

Ella is saying a lot more these days. She has started saying "Where'd it go?" and "There it is." As well as, "Bye. See you." "Doree and E-O"(Dory & Nemo). And "eez" is please. She can also give you an entire rendition of the Little Einsteins theme song, "Tomorrow" and "Hard Knock Life" from Annie, and beat her chest and do a Tarzan impression. Okay, okay, yes, she watches too much television, but how cute is that! She is galloping (Yes, Ms. Gortenburg, no worries. She'll be able to go to kindergarten and gallop). ;-) And coasting around the house on her trike. She hasn't quite figured out the pedals yet.

And both girls are great at sharing and love each other! If you take a look at the new pictures, there are some adorable ones of them together, holding hands, hugging, and looking at each other. So cute to see them bond.

Time Flies

I can't believe we're already into March 2006. Time just goes by so quickly! Lily is five months old already and Ella is 2 1/2. We have been really busy the last several weeks. As I mentioned earlier we were in WI over President's Day weekend for Lily's baptism. From there we spent a week in MN visiting my family. I think we got to see almost everyone while we were there. It was fun to catch up with all our friends and family. Ella had a good time at the aquarium at the Mall of America and enjoyed Legoland as well. Lily was so stimulated she fell asleep by the end of our trip to the Mall. We saw all the Engelharts on Saturday when they came over to hang out with us and see my dad and Clare's new house. We visited with my mom's side of the family on Sunday. Fun, fun fun!

We made our way back to LA on Tuesday and had a couple days to get organized before we had Andrew's brother Ben, and his wife, Jenelle for a weekend visit. We had dinner in Pasadena on Thursday night where we met up with Jenelle's brother Brian, who works in Pasadena occasionally. We went shopping at the Galleria and Empire Center. We walked up to Kenneth Village for breakfast on Saturday. One of the stores was going out of business because the owner has decided to retire. So I bought a few things, including some whale "fishy" rain boots for Ella. They are three sizes too big, but she'll have fun wearing them for a few years then. ;-) Andrew, Ben, Jenelle, and Ella braved the masses on Saturday and went to Hollywood & Highland, the location of Sunday's Academy Awards ceremony. The street was blocked off and the red carpet was all set to go. They took pictures of it all!

We have several fun things planned for the next several weekends so look for updates here. I plan on uploading pictures all afternoon today so there will be MANY new ones to check out! And as I promised before, I still hope to get Andrew to post about his latest doings.

Brrr....

We are visiting in the Midwest right now. We had Lily's baptism this past Sunday. We did it at Andrew's church in Wisconsin. She wore a beautiful dress my mom made and was wrapped in a wonderful shawl our friend Allison made for her. Lily did great during the christening. She slept through the whole thing and didn't even wake up when the Pastor put the water on her head. Hmm....wouldn't it be nice if she slept that good during the night?

I will post pictures after we return. I guess I have a lot of updating to do! I still have Andrew's Super Bowl pictures to upload as well. And I know I said he would write about his trip to Detroit. I still hope to get him to do that. (Andrew are you reading this? ;-).

He's back in LA working while we're visiting family and friends in Minnesota. It's freezing here! Not much snow, but much colder than we like. Ella is a little out of sorts lately from all the houses we are visiting. But we are planning on visiting the Aquarium at the Mall of America tomorrow. I don't think she can resist having fun with the fishies! Lily is just going about her day as usual, napping and eating.

Not much else! Hope everyone is having a good February!

New Link

There's a new link in the sidebar to a different blog I've started. Anyone that knows me pretty well, knows I really enjoy reading, I enjoy browsing (and buying) books on the web and in book stores, I like reading about books. So I've created an online book journal called On My Bookshelf. Just as I ramble on about our daily life on this blog, I'll ramble on about my reading hobby on this one. I know quite a few people who are readers so I hope you enjoy this new blog and I invite anyone interested to contact me if they would like to be regular posters on the book blog. I guess since I ended my online book group this is the new way I'm going to try and reach out to the book world. I really enjoyed our book group because I read some great books that I never would have tried on my own. I'm hoping maybe this will work the same way. We'll see how it goes. I've spent the past week or so putting the site together and still have a few links to work on. But Readers, enjoy!

Not much to write....

It's another Friday here in Cali and its sunny and pretty warm. Gotta love the weather here!

So I don't have much exciting to write this week. (Although, I'm sure I'll ramble on here for a few paragraphs). Andrew actually took a personal day yesterday to spend some time with us. It was wonderful! We had forgotten how much fun it is to all be together as a family, it'd been so long--like 24 straight days! I was also just dying for a break to not have to worry about the kids for once. I'm also looking forward to this weekend because Andrew will be home the whole time and we have absolutely zero plans. Whoo hoo!

Ella is saying "yah" this week to counter her very accurate use of "no". She also is trying to put sentences together. I think I understand what she's saying, but then again, I could just be making up what she's saying. There is hope that she may become a girly girl someday. For some reason, she has started wanting barrettes in her hair! She asks me to put them in and she stands very patiently while her anal mommy gets them just right. Then she leaves them in! At least for a little while. She still runs around like crazy and they get all messed up. But she looks so cute with then in! And it controls her wild hair a little bit!

In other news, we have moved the crib into the living room temporarily and we are attempting to get Lily to sleep through the night in it. (if it hasn't been apparent in previous blogs, the crib has been in Ella's room--we don't want to have two kids awake in the middle of the night so we are planning on seeing if she'll sleep through the night in the crib and then move her back into Ella's room) I'm sure many of you who have visited us are wondering "Where the heck did they put the crib?" Well it's on the wall under the pictures. The couch is now next to the balcony where the loveseat used to be and the loveseat is up against the bookcase. Not ideal, but not horrible either. I can live with it for a little bit. Now, back to Lily's progress. Unfortunately for me and Andrew, she's not progressing. She is getting up two to three times a night. We are slowly trying different things to see if we can find the right combination to her to sleep. Last night it was having an extra fan running for white noise. This definitely seemed to help for her afternoon nap. She slept great. But it didn't help at night. So tonight, we'll add a night light to the mix. Maybe its too dark and she gets scared or something. I swear, trying to figure out a baby's mind is so hard! You'd think it would be simple, their brains are not complexly developed yet. Well think again!

So send us good thoughts for a good night's sleep soon! We need it!

See, I had no problem rambling on even though I had nothing to say. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

4 Months!

We just got back from the doctor for Lily's 4-month checkup. She now weighs 14 lbs, 12 oz and is a whopping 27 inches long! That would be 75 percentile for weight and 102 percentile for height!! Ella was 14 lbs, 9 oz and 25 3/4 inches at her 4 month check up, just for comparison. The doctor also said her head size was off the chart. I took this to mean we have a genuis on our hands. ;-) The doctor was very amazed at how incredibly strong Lily is and that she is almost sitting up already.

Okay all for now on our Wonder Child #2.

Oh yeah, PS. Andrew agreed to write about his Super Bowl experience some time this weekend so look forward to that next week!

A Great American Tradition & Ode to Anatomy

The Super Bowl. It's funny to think about. Tons of people all over the country left their homes today to flock to other people's homes to sit in front of the television and watch two teams they care nothing about throw a football around. The game wasn't a nailbiter by any means. And well, I think, other than knowing Andrew was sitting there watching it live and me living vicariously through him, it was not that exciting. I was even disappointed by the commercials. It was obvious that ABC's parent company, Disney, bought out 1/3 of the advertising time to promote its own movies. I was thrilled to see the preview for Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and Ella got all excited to see the trailer for Cars. United had a nice spot with the Knights of the Round Table guy. Maybe, I missed the great commercials while I was doing stuff around the house. Please inform me if I did. I think the bar has just been set too high. It seemed about five years ago, the commercials started getting really great. It's hard to top that every year, so I guess the advertisers have decided to lower the bar again and just show movie trailers and beer commercials.

Now, on to the great television viewing of the night. Grey's Anatomy! Oh my God! That show is so awesome. First of all, McDreamy has to be one of the best nicknames for a television character of all time. And Patrick Dempsey sure has come a long way in the looks department from Can't Buy Me Love and Lover Boy (anyone else remember him from these 80's movies?) And Sandra Oh deserves all the kudos she has been receiving. I also love Dr. Bailey's character. She comes in to deliver her baby and starts ordering people around. It's great! Okay, the show took a more serious tone after all that. And I am definitely going to be riveted to my television set next Sunday for the exciting conclusion of this week's episode. Will Meredith and all of Seattle Grace blow up? Will Dr. Bailey's husband come through brain surgery? Will McDreamy finally declare his love for Meredith when he finds out her life is at stake because she has her hand on live ammunition in a human body? All interesting questions. Inquiring minds want to know. Tune in next week.....

The Ella & Lily Report

I thought for this week I would give a more indepth update on the girls. It's a lovely Friday again. Ella is off at Jenn's and Lily (get this!) is taking her morning nap in the crib! And for the second day in a row! I decided yesterday to finally clean out all the stuff we've just been piling up in the crib. I hung her Baby Neptune on the side. Then I put her in there fully awake to see what her reaction was. She loved the Baby Neptune and she seemed happy in there. So, when it was naptime, I gave her her bottle in there and she fell asleep and slept there for two hours! The new challenge now, is to keep Ella out of the room while Lily is sleeping. It worked pretty well yesterday. I just kept her entertained in the living room. The only issue is that now, it's a little tougher to get Ella to nap when I want, I may have to push her naptime back to accommodate Lily's new napping home. But it's so nice to not have her sleeping in the swing for once! And off in another room so I don't have to worry about waking her up while I go about my day.

Lily is also rolling over from back to tummy very consistently and even went back on to her back the other day. I know its very little time before she figures out how to roll to where she wants to go. She even started scrunching her butt up in the air this morning when she was on her belly, like she wanted to try and crawl! She just can't wait to keep up with Ella. She is also enjoying the Farm (our exersaucer has a farm theme). She is grabbing at all the toys I lay in front of her and she is almost grabbing at the toys on the Farm.

She goes to her four-month doctor appointment on Tues. Feb. 7th so I'll be sure to post an update about her height & weight progress.

Now, Miss Ella. Hard to believe she'll be 2 1/2 this Sunday. Although sometimes it seems like she's 2 going on 5! I cleaned out the wardrobe in our living room, which used to be home to my desk. In recent months, it had become a refuge for toys and random things I didn't know what else to do with. So now it is Ella's toy closet in the living room. She gets to play with one toy at a time and has to pick up the first toy before she gets to play with the next. She is very good at obeying this rule and even starts picking up the first toy before I have to ask her!!

She is actually trying to stick the stickers in her books in the proper places in the book, as opposed to sticking them all in one big blob on one page. I see this as an improvement! She is also trying to color the objects on the page in her coloring books instead of just scribbling on the whole page.

She loves the television show "Little Einsteins" on the Disney channel. I have to say as a parent, this is one of the greatest shows you can let your toddler watch (if you let your kid watch tv--Sidebar: I know this is a very touchy subject among parents out there. Someone in my mom's group posted a question about tv and babies and it received 45 different posts about it. Generally, our comments receive around 5 posts!). Anyway, back to the show. Each episode they feature a piece of artwork and a piece of classical music. Four little kids go off on a mission where they encounter said art and music. Ella loves this! She dances and sings with the show. And, believe it or not, yesterday after watching the show, she went to my bookshelf and got one of my art history books down and started thumbing through the pictures! I kid you not! And that is not something she does on a normal basis. Anyway, I'm done with my shameless promotion of child television watching.

Ella is starting to talk more too. She opened up the fridge the other day and pointed to and said "apple". I nearly fell over on the floor from shock! Instead, I quickly composed myself and praised her. Haven't heard it again, yet. She also started saying "down" very clearly. And will count 1-2-3. Which is almost always succeeded by "Go!".

She is a tall girl, already wearing 4T shirts (she has a really long waist) and 3T pants. Although really she is right inbetween a 2T and a 3T right now. Wouldn't it be great if they made kids clothes in 1/2 sizes? I guess they just figure you buy the bigger size and they'll grow into it eventually. I digress...

Hmmm.....I think that's all I have for now. Hope everyone enjoys their Super Bowl weekend!

Helpers & Super Bowls

Well, since I last wrote, Andrew has moved on from a conference in Vegas to a conference in Universal City. This is good because he doesn't have to commute to work everyday and the conference is about 15 minutes away. However, I've scarcely seen him for more then 15 minutes the last four days! Thankfully, my mom has come out to help me while he's so busy. So it's been really nice! I get fed without having to do the cooking or cleaning up of the kitchen, and I pretty much only have to take care of one kid at a time. It's been great!

We have gone for walks, shopped, and visited the zoo. The girls have loved all the attention of having an extra person around. All their wants and needs are taken care of immediately instead of waiting their turn for my attention. And I've also been able to get some stuff done around the house.

This weekend is the Super Bowl! And I'm sure many of you are planning to watch the game, maybe go to a party or something. Well, Andrew will be attending the game! He and two of his coworkers are traveling to Detroit for the festivities. I'm extremely jealous that I can't go. But then again, I would have liked to travel to a non-Northern city if I were attending the Super Bowl. Since I don't get to tag-along, I can afford to be picky about my Super Bowl requirements. ;-) (I'm not jealous at all or anything.)

Oh yeah, I should probably explain why he gets to go to the Super Bowl. Hornet used to do work for the NHL All-Star game and the guy that was in charge of that now works for the NFL. So he is using Hornet (actually Hornet has a new division now called Famous) to create a few of the in-game graphics for the big game.

Hopefully things will calm down for Andrew after he gets back and maybe I'll even be able to convince him to write a post about his trip and all the things he's been working on.

Hope you all had a great January! It's just amazing how time flies!

Carnival of Golf

I forgot to mention in my previous post, the Knox Alumni Carnival of Golf now has a new home on the web: www.knoxcarnivalofgolf.com. You can see where the guys have been in the past with links to the courses if you want to check them out online. Also, there is a photo collection of Alumni Golf Outings including the last two Knosher tournaments as well as Carnivals '04 & '05.

Just another day...

I had a nice birthday weekend. I tend to turn my birthday into a weekend long event as opposed to just celebrating the day. ;-) Actually, Andrew was in Vegas for a conference for work (yeah, I'm sure they worked a lot) Sunday night through last night so my actual birthday was not that exciting. But Andrew watched the girls much of Saturday so I could have a break. And then he surprised me by arranging for the girls to go to the sitter Sunday afternoon so we could go to lunch and shopping. It was nice to spend time with just Andrew and not have the girls around.

In other news, we finally gave in and have rented a storage unit. We are in the process of cleaning out all the extraneous junk from around the condo. Gone is the corner by the couch where we just threw all our extra blankets (all 15 of them), gone is the wooden chair from upstairs, and the two rocking chairs. We are cleanin' house! I can't tell you how happy this makes me. I've gotten so sick of staring at all our stuff we don't have room for. So now I have a new project of organizing everything around here. I just have to find the time to do it!

The girls are doing well. Nothing too exciting to report with them. Ella doesn't have a new word of the week yet. She's still stuck on "Hello". Oh, "Go!" is a new one. Andrew counts down, "3-2-1...Goooo!" and when he gets to the "go" part she says it with him.

We want to say congratulations to our friends Erika & Aaron Ford who just welcomed a bouncing baby boy on January 19th! We can't wait to meet him!

Mmm...Mmm...good

Another baby milestone to report: Lily has started eating cereal! I'm hoping that eventually the cereal eating will curb those late night wake-ups. She did great her first time. She was so excited! She would grab at the spoon and even simulated chewing a little bit. And the third night (last night) she had it down pat. She would get so excited as the spoon came toward her mouth. And of course, I would make silly noises and smile and tell her how good the cereal tasted. What a cutie pie she is!

TGIF!

Ahh, I'm in love! Yes, seriously in love with Friday mornings! Ella is at the babysitter's house until this afternoon. Lily is all snuggly in her bouncy seat taking her morning cat nap and here I am free. Free to do whatever I want. These moments are few and far between these days. I used to get them a lot on the weekends BL (Before Lily) because Andrew would so generously watch Ella. But now we're on a man-to-man defense where we each take a kid so neither of us get any time to ourselves anymore.

This week has seemed to be eternally long. First, Wednesday felt like Thursday. Then, for about two minutes when I woke up Thursday morning, I seriously convinced myself it was Saturday morning. Then both kids started crying at the same time and I woke up out of my reverie.

Perhaps the week seemed long because I didn't have a car for two days (Andrew needed the Pilot for work, have you ever tried to get two kids, carseats, and a double stroller into a Hyandai Elantra? Not gonna happen.), and was stuck at home. Or maybe its because Lily has decided its fun to wake up once or twice a night. Which wouldn't be so bad if I could fall back asleep right away, but my silly mind starts going and doesn't want to shut off.

Or maybe the week seemed long because it's Week 2 of my Weight Watchers diet. In a moment of insanity two weekends ago, I signed up to lose the rest of my "Lily weight" as I like to call it. Have you ever started a diet but just weren't entirely mentally ready for it? I am a person who LOVES to eat. So watching every morsel I put in my mouth is no fun. And takes the fun out of eating. But WW works. So I guess I shouldn't complain. I'll lose the weight and then I can maintain by eating all the lovely carbs I want! (In moderation of course, so as to not gain the weight back).

I should take a moment to say Happy Birthday....to me! Yep, the big 2-9 is on Monday (the 23rd). Only one year away from the really big 3-0. Hard to believe I've been on this planet that long already. Well, actually, I can. I feel older than 29 already. Again, waking up at night sucks! So, I guess I have to quit my month-long shenanigans of reminding Andrew that he is a year older than me. Really, he's just a month and half older, but for that month and half I like to remind him he's older, which means he'll be turning the big 3-0 before me! HA!

I also want to take a moment to throw out a congratulations to our friends Garth and Beth who recently became engaged! Yay! Garth was in town for his job so Andrew met up with him at the Cheesecake Factory last night.

Okay, I'll stop my totally random-nothing-really-to-say post.

New Photos!

Finally! I have about 165 new pictures uploaded to our photo site. Just click on the Latest Pictures link in the sidebar.

When you get there, scroll down and start with the December 2005 album (I've added new pictures to it) and work your way up.

ENJOY!

Our Lives this Week

Let's see, I do promise to get pictures up very soon. I just have not had any free time to go through them all. I am working on it though. I suppose you're probably sitting there wondering why she isn't working on the pictures now instead of spending time writing posts for the blog giving excuses why she can't get the photos uploaded? :-) Well, this is something quick to do and I can cross it off my to-do list and have a feeling of accomplishment that I actually got something done for once. ;-)

Okay, enough blabbing. This week has gone by fairly quickly for us. Ella had a playdate here at the house with her good friend Camrynne. They had a blast running up and down the hallway together. I'm sure the Old Lady in 208 (she actually signed her holiday card this way--well without the "old" in front of it) LOVED us that day. Ella also showed Cam how to climb into the crib to turn on the DVD player (I'm sure Cam's mom is thanking us for Cam learning this new trick). I also was nice and got Megaland out of hiding for the girls to play in. So I have been picking up plastic balls all over the house all week. Sadly, Megaland has returned to its storage spot today while Ella is at the babysitter's.

Lily is really growing up already! For a three month old, she is grabbing at toys and bringing them to her mouth to chew on. She is also grabbing her toes. So cute! She smiles and "talks" all the time. Something Ella really never did. Well, Ella still doesn't talk--at least not a lot. Although, she is improving. I think I'm going to start a new blog thing where Ella has a word of the week. (I know you all are brimming with excitement and will tune in each week to find out what her word is!) This week's word is: HELLO? She says it like a question, like "Is anyone in here?" She also says it as a statement. But its much cuter in the question form. She will pick up her play phone and say "Hellooo?" Or knock on the bathroom door and say it. She will also just go around her room when she's playing by herself, saying the word to no one in particular.

Not much else exciting this week so far. We are going to a birthday party for one of Ella's friends tomorrow. And I am going to Mom's Night Out (MNO) for the playgroup that Ella and I are in. Once a month, the mom's get together on a Sunday evening and go out to dinner sans kids and hubbies. Yay! Lots of fun! I haven't been since probably August. So I'm really looking forward to it. It's also to celebrate the group's two-year anniversary. Ella and I are among I think five other members who have been the group the longest. There are about thirty members now.

So I guess that's all. I'm finally taking the Christmas tree down this weekend. I suppose I've procrastinated long enough. I'll post when I've finally got the new pictures up!

Have a great weekend!

Not So Breaking News

(Another completely random post here) I just have to say the news about Angelina Jolie being pregnant with Brad Pitt's baby is first of all, completely sad that this is the top news story all over the place. Are we really that surprised by this? They've been playing the domestic family thing for almost a year now. And aren't there more important newsworthy events happening out there? But at any rate, I could have sold this story to the press more than a month ago and we'd be rich now!

We were at the Hornet Christmas party and talking about babies since three different people (us included) there had babies this fall. And somehow it came up that Angelina had been seen at one of their OB offices this fall. So I just figured that she was pregnant. And now the truth is out! Man, the opportunities we miss. ;-)

Seriously, I think the whole paparazzi thing is ridiculous out here so even though I had reasonably hard evidence, I would never want to contribute to the madness. ;-)

I'm a Big Girl Now!

Here's a picture of our nuk-free Ella on her new tricycle!

I have posted some pictures from when we opened gifts on Dec. 17th. I will hopefully be posting many more soon from our week in Wisconsin!

The Pacifier is Gone!

Whoo Hoo!

I think this process this weekend was harder on Andrew and I then it was on Ella! At least it was hard on me, I felt just awful about taking her nuk away. But it really was time. Saturday morning after Ella woke up and gave us her nuk, I took the two remaining pacifiers we had in the house upstairs and cut the tips off. This nearly brought me to tears. I felt like I was cutting the head off her favorite doll or something. I felt like the meanest mom in the whole world. I put them back in the cupboard in their normal spot.

We made a trip to Toys R Us later in the morning and bought a few things. One of which was a new tricycle for Ella. We were going to get the nice metal Radio Flyer variety, but she tried out a cheaper plastic model with buttons that made different sounds. So, of course, she liked that better than the nice metal trike. Andrew took her out to the car while I purchased the bribe, I mean, trike.

We came home and left the trike in the car. When it came time for her to take a nap, she went to the cupboard, like she always does and pointed for her nuk. So I gave her one of them. She looked at it, was a little perplexed at the missing tip and showed it to me as she said, "Oh nooo." I told her, "Uh oh, it's broken, that means we have to throw it out." So she went to the trash can without really thinking about it and threw it out. She knows there seems to be an endless supply of pacifiers in this house. Then she went back to the cupboard and reached again for another one. I gave her the second and final "broken" nuk. She looked at that one and promptly threw it in the trash can. Again, went back to the cupboard. This time, I picked her up and showed her there were no more nuks there. Then Andrew said, "You don't need those nuks anymore, you're a big girl now. Big girls don't need pacifiers." She cried for a little bit and went in her room and was sad. While she was pouting, Andrew went down to the car and got the trike and brought it back up.

She wasn't too interested in it right then, but after a few minutes, she cheered up, got on, and Andrew pushed her around. From then on, she didn't need the nuk. She never did take a nap on Saturday, but she did go to bed just fine without it, slept all night long too. Then today, she took her nap and went to bed without it. She did ask for it a couple times yesterday and I just reminded her that they were broken and we threw them away and that she was a big girl and didn't need it.

It really is amazing how quickly kids grow up. She loved her nuk from the first day she was born. I hated to take it away from her, but I also hate seeing four year olds walking around with them in their mouth and they are talking around it. We were definitely headed in that direction. She is such a sweetheart! I do hope she finds something new that will make her just as happy as the pacifier did!

Exciting Times

I said I would use this blog to keep you all informed of baby milestones. Well we are hitting two of them! The first happened yesterday. Lily rolled over from her back to her tummy all by herself at three months! Ella didn't do that until she was almost five months old. We were playing on the floor and she was trying to do it so I gave her a little help. Then I put her back on her back and went into the kitchen to help Ella get some juice. When I came back out, Lily was on her tummy! She did it again today all by herself. I can't believe how much more advanced she is than Ella was at this age!

And the second milestone involves Ella. We are retiring her nuks this weekend. We have decided to do it cold turkey. She was really good for a long time about only needing it at nap time and bedtime, but for the last month or so, she is demanding it pretty much all the time. We don't give in, but I am sick of her asking for it all the time, and I don't really think she needs it anymore. She also has gotten very mischievous about it. She will go and grab her pjs out of the drawer and give them to me to put on her. To her, this indicates its bedtime and therefore will receive her nuk, even though its only 6pm at night. She will also go to the cupboard and ask for it at like 10am in the morning and go lay in her bed for like ten minutes because to her this is taking a "nap". Then she will get up and play with it in her mouth for as long as I will let her have it. So, tomorrow morning after she wakes up, she will join us at the garbage can where she can see that we are throwing them away. We have told her for the past two days that we will be getting rid of the nuks and that she is a big girl now and big girls don't need their nuks anymore. It makes me sad to be getting rid of it, because this means she really is getting older and not a baby anymore. But it's time. I know she will be upset. But I have faith she will get over it (hopefully quickly) and become attached to something else. She's already getting attached to her new Nemo blanket I got her so I think that may become her new security object.

So wish us luck as we become the "mean, tough love" parents this weekend! I'll let you know how it goes on Monday! Feel free to weigh in with your comments about how mean we are. ;-) I just hope we don't traumatize her forever.

What's in a Name?

I wouldn't be me if I didn't post something totally random every now and then. I get these emails from babycenter.com that tell me the normal progress of growth for children (our kids are right up there of course!) and also provide parenting articles. I received one the other day that listed the top 100 baby names for 2005.

Out of curiosity, I checked it out. You may be interested to know that Ella is now ranked #16 on the list. Holy cow! Her name was ranked #89 back in 2002, which is why we picked it. We were trying to be original and wanted her to have a unique name. It jumped to #44 in 2003, #29 in 2004 and then the astonishing #16 last year. Lily was ranked #52 in 2004--yet another reason we picked it, not incredibly popular. And now, its ranked #26 for 2005! It was #69 in 2003, and #79 in 2004. What the heck?! So much for unique names!

Part II: Happy New Year

So we flew back to CA on Jan. 1. Our plane was supposed to leave at 8:50AM which is pretty tough to do with two kids. That's mighty early. Not to mention, I'm not really a morning person. So we get to the airport, get all checked in, fine, dandy. March to the gate area and learn that our flight has been delayed somewhat indefinitely due to a mechanical problem. The plane was currently in the hanger getting fixed. Okay, by all means, take all the time you need to get that bird up in the air properly so we make it back to CA safe and sound. But, I could have slept another two hours!

We finally get on the plane around 10:30 and end up departing about two hours behind schedule. Fine, dandy. Then we hit a bunch of turbulence, so we have to fly at 24,000 feet instead of whatever you normally fly at. Fine, dandy. Just get me home in one piece. Then we hit 90mph headwinds, which added at least a half hour to our trip. Fine dandy. Then we have to fly into LAX the opposite direction from normal because of the winds, we circle over the ocean at leaast three times before we're allowed to safely land on California pavement. Then we have to taxi ALL THE WAY AROUND THE AIRPORT to the one existing gate (Gate 36) for Midwest airlines. Now, we are finally back. Fine dandy.

Everyone flew great, except for me who was in a bit of a mood by the time we got into the Burger King line at about 2pm.

On the way home, I said to Andrew, "Well that was a fun way to start our new year off." He replied, "Yeah, it's like starting off with a bogey on the first hole in a round of golf." I agreed. Although, usually, a bogey would be a nice way to start off a round for me (instead of a double bogey or a snowman). Then he said, "I did finish a round with a 68 after bogeying the first hole though, if that tells you anything." So, we're hoping the year ends up with a round of 68!

Then on Jan. 2nd, we decided to try and get pictures taken at Penny's. We needed to get Lily's 3 month pictures taken, and it would be fun to have a picture of Ella and Lily together, and a nice family picture. We realized all this was quite ambitious, especially knowing our girls and their feistiness. As soon as I pushed the stroller into the photo studio, Ella started screaming and melted down. Okay, so we started with Lily. We got two really cute pictures (one vertical and one horizontal) and then Lily started to have a meltdown. The photographer was really nice and gave us time to try and get the kids calmed down while she took someone else's pictures, but it was just not going to happen. So we packed it up, ordered some pictures of the two cute ones of Lily and were on our way. I'm thinking we may not get any good pictures of Ella and Lily for like another year. So, I hope no one out there is holding their breath for a cute "sister" picture. But we will be sending out the Lily photos with our Christmas thank yous, so you might receive your thank you a little later than usual. ;-) Oh, but we did find two Christmas ties for Andrew on sale, they were 62 cents each! Originally, $25 and they are not hideous at all, they are actually pretty nice for Christmas ties. So the year is looking up!

Jan. 3 turned out to be a good day, our round of golf is shaping up so far. I will promise not to use the golf metaphor too often throughout the year!

Happy New Year to everyone! Hope you end up with a round of 68 too!

Part I: Merry Christmas

Okay, since I never did get around to posting while we were gone, I will probably add a few posts instead of doing it all in one long one.

So, we had a very joyous holiday celebrating with the Christmas Trifecta. That would be three straight days of holiday cheer. We started on Christmas Eve night celebrating with the Comande family (that would be Pat's side) at Grandma Iz's house. Unfortunately, Ella only got in a 45 minute nap before we headed over there. She was still on California time. So she had a meltdown for about an hour and half. But after that, she was cute and bubbly and waited patiently for us to open each of her toys to play with. I think one of her favorites was her new microwave! Much more high-tech than the one-button wonder on her play kitchen. Now, she has one that beeps, countdowns, has real buttons, and the food spins around! She also got a lot of other great gifts from everyone.

Day two of the Trifecta was quite busy. We opened gifts with Andrew's immediate family in the morning and then headed over to Aunt Sue's house for Christmas dinner. Everything was great there as well, despite a small meltdown again from Ella. We're beginning to think she's not so into family gatherings. ;-). She did love Aunt Sue's Finding Nemo aquarium musical snowglobe though! Christmas night we headed over to the Marriott to have dinner and open gifts with my mom and Dave. Ella was actually quite well behaved and didn't have any meltdowns! Yay!

Then we have day three of the Trifecta which would be the Isaacson Family Christmas. Now, these people know how to celebrate! Things got going around noon and didn't end until 10 or 11pm! It was so much fun to see everyone and with that amount of time, you really do get a chance to visit with everyone! We had another Ella meltdown. But we figured out she was getting her two-year molars so we gave her a little Motrin (love that stuff!) and she was a happy camper again.

We spent the rest of the week after Christmas taking full advantage of our in-house babysitters, Grand Tom & Grand Pat. We went to dinner and a movie (The Family Stone) with Ben & Jenelle. The next night, Andrew and I went to dinner and a movie (Harry Potter 4--excellent!), we went shopping, had lunch with a friend, saw some other friends, went to a wedding and out for dinner with the Comandes for New Year's Eve. I think both girls were really missing us by the end of the week! But it was so nice for Andrew and I to get out without the kids!

Hopefully I'll get some new photos posted soon! I have 250 new ones to go through. Look for those soon, maybe after the weekend.

Christmas Lights Galore

If you want to see the ultimate Christmas light display, you have to check out this guy's light display!

Wizards of Winter Light Show

Holy cow! He has way too much time on his hands and I'm sure his neighbors just love seeing this every night for a month. :-)

Santa Arrived Early!

We had another nice weekend. I spent Saturday getting ready for us to have our Christmas that night. We had finger food type appetizers for dinner, some Asti, and we all opened presents. Ella had the most work to do since she was in charge of helping Lily open most of her gifts too. Ella is a getting really good at opening gifts now. And she plays with each thing before moving on to the next one. The gifts were under the tree for a whole week and she left them alone. I was pretty impressed by that! She really seemed to like everything she received. We have a bunch of pictures that hopefully I'll get posted before we leave for the blistery cold of Wisconsin.

Sunday morning we woke up and Santa had taken time out of his busy schedule at the toy workshop to deliver a few gifts early. There were gifts waiting for Ella & Lily by the fireplace. Ella was excited that he was nice enough to make an early delivery for us! Then we spent Sunday relaxing most of the day and had a very enjoyable evening visiting with our friends Matt & Allison. They live in Madison and were out here visiting Allison's family. We made our annual trip to Don Cuco's. We first took them there three years ago and now Matt requests that we go there each time they visit. ;-) We don't mind since we only seem to get there when people visit. Matt is going to be Lily's godfather so it was fun to see him meet her for the first time. And we look forward to meeting up with them again during the holiday week in Wisconsin.

So now, we are just gearing up for our big Christmas trip. I've got to find the winter coats, scarves, mittens & hats. Our poor blood has thinned after so many years in warm weather winters. And from what I hear there is tons of snow already and its really cold so far this winter. Oh joy.

Actually, it will be nice to have snow for once. The last two Christmases in the Midwest have been virtually green Christmases. This will be Ella's first real experience with snow! It will be so fun to see her reaction. Don't worry I'm sure we'll be posting photos and probably even video of it. So everyone will get to see her have snow fun!

I'm sure I'll send a post or two from the snowy Midwest. But, we hope you all have a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanakkuh, or just a Happy Holiday! And a great New Year!

Busy Times

Well I have all our Christmas shopping done except for two things I still need to buy. I mailed several packages at the Post Office yesterday. So the gifts should arrive in plenty of time for Christmas. We went to the Harvey's baby shower on the 4th, then the Hornet Christmas party was in Santa Monica on Thursday, the 8th. Andrew got home early and we dropped the girls off at Jenn's house. It was the first time we left Lily with someone other than grandparents. Jenn is awesome though and we knew both girls would have a ton of fun. It was also the first time Andrew and I really have gone out together since we've had Lily. It was a fun evening with really good food, drinks and gambling. They had casino tables set up for black jack and roulette. The room was pretty swanky too, like one of those VIP rooms you hear about with celebrities. There were couches and lounge chairs as well as big comfy booths. (There are pictures in the December Hornet album on our pictures site)

We spent the weekend trying to get caught up on stuff around the house. We never seem to get ahead with the house these days. Last night we drove around Glendale and Burbank looking at Christmas lights. Both girls were great in the car and Ella really seemed to enjoy herself. She would point at the houses that were really lit up. She is starting to recognize who Santa is and she would point out all the inflatable Santas she could find. The left picture above is the best house in Glendale and the right is the best house (or two houses) in Burbank. :-)

Have you ever noticed how every year there seems to be a new trend in Christmas decorations? Several years ago when we were living in Lubbock it was the icicle lights, then a year or two ago, the inflatable decorations popped up. It seems this year's newest fangled must-have item is the inflatable snowglobe with fake snow floating around on the inside. At least, out here in California that's the trend. Maybe because the fake snow is the closest thing we get to snow/winter around here. I wonder if this is the trend all over.

Today is Andrew's birthday, so he got breakfast in bed with the girls (just Pilsbury cinnamon rolls from the can, but still yummy). And then he opened his gifts from us. He's spent the morning watching football and keeping an eye on his fantasy league. He doesn't have to worry about his team this week because he's seeded #2 in the Playoffs and has a bye into the second round this week. Anyone else out there excited that the fantasy football season is almost over?!

This afternoon we are going to a birthday party. Not for Andrew, but he will get cake on his birthday! The party is for Ella's little friend, Xander who is turning three.

This next week should be a little quieter and more relaxing for us and we're looking forward to celebrating our Christmas with the girls next Saturday! Santa's even going to make an early delivery for us since we'll be in the Midwest for the actual day.

Nana & Papi visit

My mom and Dave came for a visit last weekend. They got in on Thursday, Andrew picked them up from the airport and brought them back here to meet Lily. Lily just loved being cuddled by my mom. In fact, whenever my mom held her, she fell right asleep and wouldn't let my mom put her down or she would wake up. And Dave did a great job of being in charge of bouncing Lily in the bouncy chair. ;-) We went to our favorite Mexican restaurant in Glendale, Don Cuco's for dinner. It was very tasty as usual and I got to have my first real margarita since getting pregnant with Lily. YUM!

On Friday, my mom, Ella and I made the dough for our gingerbread men and cut-out cookies from the store bought Pilsbury sugar cookie dough. The Pilsbury dough was really good and a lot less work and cleanup than making them from scratch. We cut-out the gingerbread men on Saturday and frosted the other cookies. Ella did really well. I measured out the ingredients and she helped me put them in the bowl. She helped stir and she cut-out the cookies as well. But her favorite part was eating the mini m&m's I bought for the eyes and buttons on the cookies.

Saturday afternoon, we walked up to Kenneth Village. They were having a sidewalk art fair in the afternoon. We looked at the art (paintings, ceramics, knitted things) and then sat at the coffee shop and had a snack. It's so great that Ella is getting a little older now. She gets out of the stroller and sits by us at the table to eat her snack. She wanders a little bit, but she knows to stay right by us. This is much improved over 6 months ago when she would want to get out of the stroller and just run everywhere.

Sunday, we spent much of the day lounging around the house. Andrew and I went to Greg and Kelly Harvey's baby shower in the evening. Nana and Papi babysat Ella. Nana had a great time playing with Ella in her room and Ella even gave her several hugs! Ella was a little nervous we weren't going to come home though and stayed awake until we walked in the door. ;-) The shower was very nice. It was at the restaurant in Barney's department store in Beverly Hills. We had a great meal and it was fun to bring Lily to meet the Harvey's baby girl, Grayson as well as our friends Robin & Terry's little boy, Julian. Julian is just 11 days older than Lily and Grayson was born on November 2nd. It's fun that Lily already has a built-in playgroup!

It was sad to see my mom and Dave go, but we'll see them again in Racine over the holidays along with the rest of the Comande/Isaacson clans!

Birthday Wishes!

The cookie making was quite a success with me, my mom and Ella. I will post more about our weekend with my mom and Dave and update pictures shortly.

I did want to quick post that Andrew's birthday is on Sunday (Dec. 11th). He'll be the big 2-9, only one more year left of the twenties! If any one would like to wish him a happy birthday, you can leave him a birthday message in our guestbook!

Now I'm off to try and finish my Christmas shopping this morning. Only 16 more shopping days until Christmas!

2-Month Check-up

Lily had her 2 month check up on Friday morning. She did great! She now weighs 12 lbs. 4 oz. and measures 24 3/4 inches!! She is off the charts for length! Just for comparison, Ella was 11 lbs, 10 oz. and 23 1/2 inches at her two-month check up. Lily did really great getting all FOUR of her shots too. Poor little girl!

We brought Ella with us to get her flu shot. Now, she has a HIGH tolerance for pain. She totally watched the nurse the whole time, watched the needle go right in her arm and everything. And didn't even flinch or anything! Nothing. No crying. What a trooper she is!

'Tis the Season

Well, we have polished off the Thanksgiving leftovers (yes, including the two pies--that I believe I probably ate most of by myself--here come those holiday pounds!). We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with Erin and DJ. The dinner turned out perfectly, even though my mom wasn't here to help with the cooking this year. And as always we played board games in the afternoon and evening. I can't really recall past years' records, but the Women squashed the Men this year in a rousing 4-0 victory (one game of Trivial Pursuit and 3 games of Scene It!). And for those of you that know my reputation for winning at Scene It!, I would just like to say this was an even match. All three games the guys were close, and actually had the chance to win at one point. But Erin and I persevered! Stay tuned next year for the rematch of Battle of the Sexes!

We are not a little tipsy in the photo above. ;-) Just the camera is. We were trying to get a picture of all of us and the camera kept tipping after Andrew hit the timer button and was running back to his chair.

Andrew, the girls, and I had a really nice rest of the weekend as well. We got the Christmas decorations out and made the house look festive while listening to holiday tunes on the iPod. I saved all the unbreakable ornaments for Ella. When she woke up from her nap, she helped me put the finishing touches on the tree. She is a really good helper when she wants to be!

So now we are all decked out for the holidays and my mom and Dave are coming in today for a few days. My mom and I plan on trying to make Christmas cookies with Ella. I'll let you know how it goes!

There are Thanksgiving pictures up as well as a few of us decorating the tree (in the December 2005 album) and trying to get a cute picture of the girls in the outfits my mom bought them for Christmas. Happy December! Only 25 more shopping days until Christmas!

Our Little Artistic Genius

So, Ella is a budding artist, can't you tell? I mean clearly the picture she drew above is the ocean (with all the different blues and greens she used) and with little "fishies" (the fish stickers) swimming in it. Andrew and I were just amazed by her talent!

Gearing up for Turkey Day!

Well, we have all the groceries bought, the turkey is resting peacefully in the refrigerator, the roasting pan is on the counter. I'm picking up two Marie Callendar pies (pumpkin and cherry) tomorrow. I bought them from Ella's babysitter's son. They had a fundraiser at school, so not only did I get the pies for the same price as if I went to the restaurant and bought them, part of the cost went to the school. Now that's Thanks giving!

I have to say Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday of the year. I love everything about the meal and stuffing myself without feeling an ounce of guilt. Plus the Macy's parade, football, and that nice sleepy feeling you get for the rest of the day from all the tryptophan in the turkey. Although according to the "how stuff works" website, it's not really the tryptophan that makes you sleepy. If you're the curious type, check out: "Is there something in turkey that makes you sleepy?"

Anyway, we are really looking forward to our visit with our friends Erin and DJ. Andrew and DJ are planning on playing golf on Wednesday afternoon, while Erin and I get organized for our cooking extravaganza. Then on Thursday morning, Andrew will get the bird ready and start baking it while we sit and relax until all the side dishes need to be made. Then the rest of the day will be spent with good spirits (yay, a good excuse for some wine!) and good friends.

I'm also excited because I plan on decorating the house for Christmas this weekend. I want to maximize decoration time since we'll be traveling for Christmas. Also my mom and Dave are coming to visit Dec. 1-5 so I'd like to have the house ready for their visit.

As we think about everything we are thankful for this year, and with the holidays approaching, let's remember there are those less fortunate than us. Please think of giving a little. Toys for Tots is a great charity. Barnes and Noble also has a nice charitable opportunity. Our local store has a holiday book donation drive. You can buy a book for a child of a specific age (ie: Girl, age 2) and that book will be given to a child fitting that description for Christmas. I bought one last weekend with Ella in mind. I hope they are doing this particular drive in the future because I'd like for her to help me pick out the book and for it to come from her. This way maybe she'll realize she's fortunate to receive all the things she does and that some kids have a lot less than her. Plus, I love the educational value of giving a child a book.

Okay, I'll get down from my soapbox now.

Also, please keep my cousin, Michael in your thoughts and prayers has he gets ready to leave for Iraq. He is in the army and is leaving next month to go there for a year. We hope for a quick year and his safe return!

We hope all of our friends and family have a wonderful Thanksgiving! We are so thankful to have all of you in our lives!

Mega Millions and Smiles

We don't typically play the lottery, at least not on a regular basis.
But sometimes, you just gotta buy a ticket. Last Friday, the Mega
Millions jackpot was $263 million dollars. So, feeling lucky, Andrew
stopped on his way home from work and bought some tickets. He always
plays one ticket with our important dates (birthdays, anniversary,
etc) and then one ticket with computer chosen numbers. We had $5 worth
of tickets. And won absolutely nothing.

Since no one won the jackpot on Friday, we decided to go for it this
Tuesday and the $315 million jackpot. He used the same approach with
his choice of numbers. So last night, we watched and wrote the numbers
down. Then grabbed our tickets and started comparing. Whoo hoo, one
number. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Whoo hoo, one number, AND the MEGA
NUMBER! We won $3! We were one of only 110,019 people to win $3.

We didn't win the millions but we were close. The winning ticket was
sold at a store in Anaheim! At least we were in the same state.

In other news, I woke up this morning and said to Lily, "Good Morning
sweetie pie!" And she looked right at me and gave me an enormous
smile!! I was so excited. Her first real, non-gassy smile! Of course,
she wouldn't really do it again for the camera. But we'll get it one
of these days. ;-)

New photos!

I just got done uploading new pictures to our Shutterfly site. Check out the November 2005 photo album when you have a chance. I'll be updating the album throughout the month as well!

Tom and Pat visited us this past weekend. It was a little bit calmer than the previous weekend. Thursday evening we attempted to eat at the Elephant Bar restaurant (a favorite of ours to take visitors to). The evening was capped off by Ella having a small meltdown in the restaurant. So it wasn't the most pleasant experience. On the other hand, Lily slept the whole meal so that was a plus. ;-)

Friday morning, Tom and Pat watched the girls so I could have a little time to myself (spent browsing at Barnes and Noble). Then we spent the rest of the day around the house. Grand Tom and Grand Pat took Ella for a walk and got Baskin Robbins for everyone. Yum! And we finally got around to carving our pumpkins that had been sitting on our balcony for about a week. Check out Carving Pumpkins to see the results.

Saturday we took a trip to the Brand Library park. The library building has a lot of great architecture and foliage around it. A perfect setting for a California Christmas card picture. Although Ella wasn't real cooperative all weekend with having her picture taken (notice her absence above and in the pumpkin picture with Tom and Pat in the carving movie), we did manage to get a halfway decent picture of the four of us and the six of us. Ella is only slightly scowling. Not too bad.

Andrew and I were also able to get out just the two of us to do a little shopping. We decided to run errands together instead of doing something like going to a movie. Funny, how your priorities change. A few years ago, we would have loved to go to a movie (in fact we went almost every weekend before kids). But now, it seems kind of a waste of time to sit next to each other and not talk, staring blankly ahead. Don't get me wrong, I still love to go see a good movie. It just seems like more fun to actually spend time talking with Andrew than just sitting there with him. ;-)

Saturday evening, we invited Andrew's cousin Ed, Yolie and Patrick over for pizza and to meet Lily. We had a really nice visit with them. It was nice to get caught up with Ed and Yolie. We don't see them as often as we should for them only living 45 minutes away from us!

Sunday, we all piled into the Pilot (it kind of feels like you're riding in a school bus with all those people in it, especially when you're sitting in the waaay back and you go over bumps. You fly up in your seat just like on a school bus!) and went to the Glendale Galleria. Ella ran around the play area a bit and then we all headed over to the Disney store where Pat stocked up on stuff for both Ella and Lily. We just spent the rest of the day relaxing and watching football. We got to see some of Hornet's graphics for the Jets on television. I guess the Hornet crew who were at the game also got on television. But we deleted the game from the DVR before we had a chance to see them. ;-(

Tom and Pat had a safe trip back on Monday. And now we are looking forward to our next visitors, Erin and DJ for Thanksgiving!

Warren called...

As many of you know, yesterday was Election Day. If you've been paying attention to the national news, you may have heard there were four major ballot initiatives by the Govenator. All of which were totally shot down by the voting public. The last several weeks have been a barrage of political commercials and phone calls around here. We tend to not answer the phone when an unknown number comes up. These ever tenacious callers leave us nice long-winded messages in response to our machine picking up. Well, Andrew finally listened to two of them when he was cleaning off the machine this morning. And whose voice did we hear? Warren Beatty! I got all excited. I said to Andrew, "You mean Warren called our house, and if I'd picked up the phone I could have talked to him?"

Well, turns out after we played it again, it was just a recording. I guess they didn't expect anyone to pick up the phone in all of Southern California. ;-)

Cute movie

Since Benjamin was kind enough to plug our website on his blog, I thought I would return the favor. ;-) He posted a cute little movie of Ella from last Easter. Here's a link to it: Ella Easter Movie. That's Andrew's Aunt Gail playing with Ella in the video.

Christmas is coming!

Now, I don't want people to think we like Christmas because of the gifts. But since it's inevitable that someone, somewhere is going to buy a gift for one of us, I thought I would make life easier this year. I have created Amazon wish lists for all four of us. And all you have to do is click on the link in the sidebar. Once there, just click on our name and the list will pop up.

Many of the items on our lists can be bought in stores other than amazon.com. If you purchase something from the list from somewhere else, just shoot me an email and I'll mark it off the list. If you happen to get something for me, just email Andrew and he'll mark it off my list. I also have the preferences set so we can't see what someone has bought for the whole month of December.

Please let me know if you have any questions. We'll keep the lists on here even after Christmas and update them about one month before each of our birthdays.

Lots of Visitors

Last weekend my dad, Clare and Sam came to visit us and meet Lily. Even though we originally thought the trip would just be laid back and relaxing, we ended up packing a lot into the weekend!

On Friday, they babysat the girls for me so I could get a much needed haircut. What a nice break for me! And when I came home everyone was happy and cheery! Then we took a trip to Target. Okay, so maybe Friday was more relaxing then exciting, but you gotta love Target! I should probably buy stock as often as I spend money there.

Saturday, my dad, Andrew, Ella, Lily and I went up to Kenneth Village, a little shopping area in our neighborhood. They were having a fall festival with food, drinks, bounce houses, and a children's costume parade. You can check it out through the Fall Festival video clips on our new movie website. If you watch the clips, see if you can spot Jaws and also the macaroni and cheese. We think they were the best costumes.

In the afternoon on Saturday we ventured over to Pasadena and walked around the Huntington Library and Gardens. It's a pretty cool place. They have vegetation from all over the world and orgranized the gardens so that you're walking through different areas. For example, there's the desert area, subtropical, etc. They also have an awesome Japanese garden with a koi pond and bonsai trees. BONSAI!

Sunday, Andrew took everyone (I stayed home with the kids) on a driving sightseeing tour of LA. Our usual trip: the studios, Hollywood, and then Rodeo Drive. Sam was in search of the most expensive pair of jeans he could find (not to buy, just to look). They found $650 at Dolce and Gabbana. I'm sure there are even more expensive jeans out there too! Sunday afternoon, my dad, Ella, Lily, Andrew and I went to a Halloween birthday party for one of Ella's playmates. There are some video clips from there also on the movie website.

Sam's birthday is on Halloween but we celebrated a day early and went out to dinner at Maurizio's Italian restaurant here in Glendale. It was Lily's first trip out to a restaurant. Aside from wanting to be held the whole time and not sitting in her carseat, she did great. Ella did pretty well too. ;-)

Monday we all just relaxed and hung out at home. And they made it back to MN safe and sound on Tuesday afternoon. Next up, we have Tom and Pat visiting this weekend!

Happy November everyone!

Anemones and Swifers

Just a quick Ella update.

Can you believe that Ella can say the word ANEMONE? She has this Nemo book with buttons you press and one of them says a little saying and ends with "I live in an anemone." After it finishes, Ella always says, "anemone". Andrew and I both just looked at each other flabbergasted when we first heard it. This is from the girl who won't even call me "Mommy".

She also likes to clean things up, a surprising quality in a two year old. She likes to get the Swifer or the broom out of the closet and "clean". Granted, she won't clean up her room, but she likes to keep the rest of the house clean.

New website feature!

If you look in the sidebar on the right you'll notice a new feature: Isaacson Movies

If you click on it, you'll be directed to a new website that hosts our latest movies. I'll also post raw video clips from time to time since we don't have a lot of extra time these days for editing fun movies. There are two movies uploaded right now "Lily's First Days" and "The Many Faces of Ella". They are Quicktime movies and you'll have to be a little patient with them. They load the whole movie and then just start playing on their own (there's no control bar for the movie).

I hope to post a little Halloween footage in the near future as well as Halloween photos on our Shutterfly site so check back by the end of next week!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Hope everyone has a fun weekend for Halloween! We are having my dad, Clare and Sam (Clare's son) come visit us this weekend. But our Halloween fun started last weekend. We took the girls to this play area at the mall for a Halloween party! Several of Ella's playgroup friends were there. We all had a blast. I'll upload some more pictures after this weekend, but here are two so you can see the girls in their costumes (just ignore the fact that Ella is pulling her dress up. ;-).

I think Ella has a busier social calendar than we do, I suppose that will be the norm now until she leaves the house all grown up. She has a Halloween birthday party to go to on Sunday so we'll get more pictures then and we may try to go trick or treating on Monday, we'll see.

There are also a few Halloween displays around here we may check out this weekend. One of them is at the house of one of the producers of The Simpsons. If you're curious check it out here: Boney Island.

Our Darling Ella

I said I would post about Ella's latest shenanigans. Well, she had a doozy this week. So I put the gate up in her bedroom doorway when I'm going to take a shower. Well, I happen to talk to my mom on the phone for about ten minutes on Wednesday before I was going to jump in the shower. Ella seemed to be playing nicely in her room while I did this. Maybe too nicely....it was awful quiet. So before I went to jump in the shower, I peeked in through the doorway. And what do I see? My darling daughter with a tube of Desitin (that would be gooey white diaper rash cream) in her hand! And the evidence of her "quiet play" ALL over her face, arms, legs, and not to mention smeared all over her room (for those of you familiar--the little table, her blue chair, the dresser, crib, her kitchen, and several spots on the carpet!) So guess who got to take a bath before i could take my shower?

So as if that little episode wasn't bad enough. The next morning she was upstairs with us. And she stealthily reached into the pack n play where we had Lily's Desitin, grabbed it, then quietly, nonchalantly made her way downstairs. About five minutes later Andrew came downstairs and peeked in her room and all of sudden I hear, "Ella, where did you get that?!" Luckily this time she just had it on her hands and face and hadn't done much damage to the room yet.

Ironically, I think this sort of behavior may be genetic. I believe I may have heard a story a time or two from my own mother about how she came into my room when I was little and I had Desitin all over my face and the crib. ;-)

More pictures

I know I keep saying I will post pictures and then days go by and I don't do it. ;-) So now the aquarium pictures are up. They are mostly of Ella and Andrew. There are a couple new pictures of Lily too.

Things are calming down

I just realized it's been quite awhile since I posted anything new. Andrew went back to work yesterday after having two great weeks off. It was so nice having the four of us home. And definitely not something that happens on a regular basis. I think it was the most time Andrew and I have spent together since our college days!

Lily is doing great! She is a really good sleeper (even though Ella's little screaming fits!) and a good eater. When she's awake she has wide wide eyes, checking out the world around her. Ella is super sweet with her. She asks to hold her and gives her kisses. She likes to make sure Lily has her nuk (even though Lily isn't really into the pacifier). Ella also brings her toys and books for me to read to the both of them.

Aside from adjusting to the big sister part, Ella is doing fairly well. Actually, she's pretty much the way she was before Lily came home. She took full advantage of Andrew while he was home, getting him to do things Mommy wouldn't let her do. And she had her meltdown moments.

While Andrew was home, he took Ella to the zoo and the park. For his last day home on Tuesday, the four of us ventured down to Long Beach and visited the Aquarium of the Pacific to see the "fishies". Ella LOVED it! She ran from window to window looking at all the fish. Her favorite was the "Dory" window. I'll post some pictures in our October 2005 album.

The first day back yesterday went very well. She was great for the first half of the day and a little irritable for the second half, but that's pretty much normal routine for her. ;-)

Congratulations!

We just wanted to throw out congratulations to Andrew's brother, Benjamin. After six months of training, he ran in his first marathon this morning! He didn't quite make his goal, but we think the fact that he ran and completed 26 miles is a huge feat!!! I can't even run one mile!

We are so proud of him!

Comparing Our Girls

Ella is on the left and Lily is on the right. I tried to find two pictures that were similar.

Lily Pictures

Okay, I finally have the pictures uploaded! Enjoy!

We're Home!

Hi Everyone!

Well we brought little Lily Grace home from the hospital this afternoon! We are all settling in pretty well so far. Just to give everyone a recap. We checked into the hospital Wednesday morning at 8am and I was supposed to be induced then. We had to wait around for a room because there were so many ladies having babies that day! It was about 10:10 when they got my IV started and things progressed well. I got my epidural pretty early on (my theory is why should I feel any pain if I don't have to!) and things were smooth sailing. Then all of sudden I felt a lot of pressure. The nurse told me to go ahead and try pushing to see how things were going. She pretty much immediately told me to stop and went and called the doctor. Dr. Sofia left a patient in the exam room to come deliver Lily! I pushed all of about five minutes or two contractions and she was here at 3:41pm! So it was about 5 1/2 hours from beginning to end. Ella was still quicker at 4 hours 50 minutes but she was also a week late.

We spent a little extra time in the hospital this time because Lily was go big at 9lbs, 1oz. They wanted to make sure she was getting enough to eat etc. She's doing great! All of her checkups and tests went well. She looks sooo much like Ella did when she was born (I'll have to post a comparison picture soon!).

Ella is a great big sister so far. She has tried to give Lily toys when she was crying and to give her the pacifier. She doesn't seem too jealous yet. Just seems to have accepted that this is the way things are right now. We'll see if they continue to go well.

Oh, and Lily has webbed toes on both her feet just like me and Andrew! (Ella didn't get the webbed toe trait) Lily also liked sucking her thumb when she was first born. She was having trouble finding it later though and we've had her "burrito" wrapped in a blanket most of the time. And she hasn't latched onto the pacifier quite the same way as Ella. So it remains to be seen if she finds that thumb again.

Thank you to everyone for all their well wishes and congratulations! And check the latest pictures link on the right for more pictures of all of us!

Like Father, Like Daughter

The Return of the Ginormous Belly!

39 weeks pregnant with Ella on the left, and pregnant with Baby #2 on the right.

Who knew my belly could get larger than it was with Ella?!

The Ella Report

Since a lot has been focused on her little sister lately (and she's not even here yet), I thought I would give a little update about our sweet little Ella. She had her two-year checkup at the beginning of August. She was in the 50% for weight and 90% for height. So maybe we have a little basketball (or volleyball) player on our hands. She also has excellent hand-eye coordination and fantastic motor skills (I'm not a proud parent or anything).

Her verbal skills are really starting to come along as well. Although we might like her to say useful things like: juice, food, etc. She has chosen what she says carefully and it works for her. Her current favorite words and phrase are: "Ah man" if something doesn't go her way; "Heeey" for when we change the television channel from cartoons to football; "uh oh" for everything if she drops it or breaks it; and "boop" for going #2 in her diaper.

She also says "baby" now and seems to fully understand that there is a baby in Mommy's tummy. She comes over and lovingly pats (okay, she smacks) my belly. She also gives the baby stickers by putting them on my shirt near my belly and brings small toys over and sets them on my belly. So it's nice that she is sharing with the baby already. ;-)

Her latest shenanigans involve jumping from various pieces of furniture to the floor and doing a tuck 'n roll type landing. She also likes to try to do somersaults but mostly just ends up looking through her legs as her head sits on the ground. She doesn't fully grasp the rolling over part of it yet.

We are thinking of sending her to NAA (Nemo Addicts Anonymous) because she is completely obsessed with anything and everything that has Nemo, a Nemo character, or even a fish resembling a Nemo character. Although, she does like to have a daily dose of watching A Bug's Life. Nothing seems to get her reved up like Nemo.

New pics

I've uploaded pictures from our baby shower onto the photo site if you want to take a look!

False Alarm

Well, we almost thought we were heading to the hospital at 3am Saturday morning. I started having a few contractions on Friday night around 10:30pm. They started increasing and getting stronger by 2am. They were 2 minutes apart for 45 minutes. We called the doctor and while we were waiting for him to call back, we quickly ran around the house packing a bag for me and a bag for Ella (we are dropping her off at a friend's when the big moment arrives). The doctor said it sounded like I was in early labor and if we were concerned at all to go to the hospital. Then all of sudden the contractions started to subside. So we decided to wait at home and see what happened and they eventually stopped.

It was a good fire drill for us though! And we realized how completely unprepared we were for the baby's arrival this early. So we have spent the weekend getting better prepared.

We almost missed our baby shower! Some friends of ours threw us a little shower on Saturday afternoon. It was so nice of them and they really went all out. They had all kinds of great food, games, gifts, and cake! It was a family shower so the significant others and kiddos were there too. I'll post pictures on our photo site in the next couple days.

And HAPPY GRANDPARENTS DAY to all the grandparents out there!

Check it out!

For the past four months I have been redesigning my dad's website for his condo business. And it's just gone LIVE! Check it out if you want to: Gary's Big Sky Condos

Let me know what you think! And if you are at all interested in visiting Big Sky, Montana for either a summer or skiing vacation, you should contact him! It's a great place to vacation.

Okay, that's the end of my shameless promotion.... ;-)

Hopefully, only four weeks to go...

Ironically, I'm wearing the same shirt in both pictures. I didn't plan that, I swear....I'm carrying much more basketball-like this time, so my belly looks a little larger than with Ella. But I have gained less weight overall. So, we'll see what we end up with. ;-) (left picture is Ella, right is Baby #2)

Labor Day Fun!

Hope all of you enjoyed your Labor Day weekend and were able to relax on Monday. We had a nice weekend with Tom and Pat visiting. Their time was filled with fun trips to entertain Ella intermixed with house projects. Tom has trouble sitting still when he comes to visit so we always try to find a little project for him (and Andrew) to work on while he's here. Although, we are pretty much all projected out now. Next time, he comes to visit he may just be forced to relax.

This trip's project was putting new faucets in our bathroom. We pretty much added all new fixtures in there except for the lovely gold and white faucets installed by the previous owner. They just aren't my style and well, just didn't match anything else in there. So we got new faucets. Of course, everything with a household project cannot run smoothly, so after working on it all weekend, the sinks are finally done. You can see the faucets here: Before and After.

Aside from household fun, I took Tom, Pat and Ella to the LA Zoo on Friday morning for a couple hours. As usual, Ella liked to just be free and run around as opposed to really looking at the animals. But she did spot a few of them. We were fortunate enough to hear quite a choir concert from one group of monkeys. On Saturday, we visited a place called the Kidspace Museum in Pasadena. It's for kids ages 2-7, but a lot of it really was for older kids. They had a babbling brook set up that you could wade in and Ella loved that! She was a tad bit angry with us when we told her it was time to go (after being there for at least an hour!)

Saturday night, Andrew and I were able to actually go out and enjoy a long peaceful dinner just the two of us while Tom and Pat babysat for Ella. We also went to see the Wedding Crashers (I'm sure we're the last people in America to see that movie this summer). We both really enjoyed it and found it pretty funny.

We went shopping at the Galleria (our mall here in Glendale) for a few hours and managed to find some good Labor Day sales. Monday, we went to the Hilton where Tom and Pat were staying and went swimming. So all in all, we jammed just about everything we could into one holiday weekend!

Check the Latest Pictures link on the right in a few days for new pictures!