Sign of the times...

Just thought I'd ramble a bit tonight...

It's amazing how much kids really change your life. When I was pregnant with Ella, Andrew and I both felt like, yeah our lives were going to change, but we'd still go out to eat, and do the things we really enjoyed. Before kids, we went out to eat at least once a week, we usually saw a movie (in the theater!) and sometimes two in one weekend! Plus, we watched them at home. We were really into it, analyzing them, comparing how they were made. For obvious reasons since Andrew worked in the business. And we just really enjoyed the experience of going to the movies. We played board games and were fairly competitive about it (at least I was. Sounds about right, huh?). ;-) I read all the time. ETC.

NOW, we go to a restaurant pretty much only when people are in town visiting. And I usually dread the experience because I picture Ella flying off the handle, screaming, throwing food, spilling drinks, etc. (The screaming and throwing food has certainly happened, and well we've had drink spillage a time or two too, but that's more in a shopping experience than restaurant). Usually my vision is much worse then the reality. ;-) We go to the movies about three times a year. We watch a movie together at home about once a month and that's usually in about 20 minute increments. We've cancelled our Netflix subscription for now because even the one-at-time plan was not being utilized. CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?! Oh, and thank god for DVR! I can still stay addicted to tv with that little invention.

I have to read about books in my Bookmarks magazine as opposed to actually reading...Oh, and there was a time when I received my People magazine on Friday and had it read cover to cover by Saturday morning. Now, I have three issues waiting to be read!

Oh, and how often does Andrew get to play golf, oh, about four times a year (not including the four times in three days he plays during the Carnival of Golf).

And you should check out the inch of dust collecting on our board games shelf.

It may sound like I'm complaining. But really I'm not at all! Because, all that time is spent with our two beautiful daughters who make us smile and laugh, and we're utterly amazed by them on a daily basis. It's just astounding to me how much two people's lives can be changed sooo drastically in just a few short years by two other little people. I'm just reflecting, not complaining. :-)

Quick sidenote: Lily is climbing stairs! Last night we put the gate up in the girls' room and Andrew set Lily down in the hallway for a minute and went to grab something, he came back and she was on the fifth stair! We didn't even know she knew how to do that! And she's really good at it, not scared at all, and it seems like she's been doing it all her life. Now, we just need to teach her to not back into a sitting position when she is going up. Well, and teaching her how to come back down would be a good thing too.

Okay, I guess I'll sign off for now. No more random thoughts to add, except, dang, I still haven't added those photos, have I? and...must...go..to...bed...now....

Where does the time go?

I almost came close to having new pictures posted. I just want to add some captions and then there will be plenty of new ones to see, I promise!

Things have been sort of crazy around here. Andrew has been preparing Hornet to move to a new office building so he has been wildly busy with that and will work much of this weekend getting everything in place in the new space. The new office is in Culver City, which is not quite so convenient for our airport needs, but we'll manage. ;-)

The girls are still doing well. Lily is an amazing 8 1/2 month old. She crawls, pulls herself up, walks along the furniture, almost waves "hi", says "ma" "ba" and "da". She tries to mimic anything her lovely sister does such as screaming, and yelling "Maaa!" at the top of her lungs. Nice what they teach 'em, huh? :-) She's still working on getting those top teeth. Ella is 2 3/4 now. She is saying more and more every day. The latest is "We go?" or "We gooo!" if she thinks I'm not paying attention to her. She says "wahoon" for balloon, "bubb" for bubble. She likes to tell me two stories over and over again. 1) about the time that her balloon came loose from its weight and floated up to the top of our balcony ceiling and then flew away--and she makes this very sympathetic face when she tells me about this; and 2) about when she accidentally threw a ball over the edge of the balcony and Daddy saved the day by going down and getting it for her. Everytime we are out on the balcony playing (which is at least twice a day) I hear these two stories. She also does a couple tricks (yes, I'm aware she's not a pet). :-) If you ask her, "What kind of face does a puffer fish make?" She puffs out her cheeks. And if you ask her to show you her teeth, she'll actually smile (We'll remember that one for our next trip to Penney's!).

I've been busy attempting to keep the house sort of clean, organizing playdates (you don't know how difficult it is to coordinate toddler schedules!), I sometimes find a little bit of time to knit and read. Oh, we tried out a new activity this week. We went to free day at the Natural History Museum. Ella had a good time looking at the taxidermied (spelling?) animals. But I do believe she was slightly confused. You could tell she paused at each case and watched it for a few seconds. I think she was waiting for the animals to move, like at the zoo. Now, that concept is definitely one I'm not going to try and explain to a toddler.

They also had a butterfly pavilion there. Now, that was pretty cool! It's this enclosed space with natural plants, and butterflies just fly around freely to land on whatever flower, plant or person they please. It was really neat. Ella LOVED it. She liked looking for them among the flowers and pointing out the different types she saw. They had a sign that showed all the different types in the pavilion. When I asked Ella which ones she had seen, she pointed to three or four of them! We may have to visit the butterflies again this summer.

Weekend Fun

Andrew's parents came for a quick visit last weekend. We had a fun time with them. We went swimming in the Hilton pool. Ella had a great time jumping around in the water and gave Grand Tom and Andrew a good arm workout insisting on being thrown up in the air. It was Lily's first time in the pool and she LOVED it! She wasn't scared or nervous or anything at all. Ella was a little leary her first time in the pool when she was 10 months old.

We all went down to Long Beach and met up with Andrew's cousin Ed, Yolanda and Patrick. We visited the Aquarium of the Pacific and said hello to Dory and Nemo (or "How are you" and "E-O" as Ella refers to them respectively). Then we had dinner and stopped in at Coldstone for dessert. YUM!

Sunday, Andrew and I left the girls with Grand Tom and Grand Pat and went to see Posiedon (typical all-action movie, but gave me a headache from all the moving camera shots and bright light flashes. Can it be that my brain can't take watching a movie on a big screen anymore?!) We also spent some time shopping before returning home. The girls had a great time hanging out with their grandparents.

The week was pretty low-key. I did take the girls to the Huntington Children's Garden again. This time it was great, there was no one there. However, they happened to be doing construction on most of the garden and so only one set of fountains was working. They didn't say anything about that at the ticket booth. I asked on my way out and received a free pass to return at some point when hopefully they are not doing construction. The whole trip was not at a loss. For those of you who like to keep track, I did have a star sighting. I saw Amy Yasbeck (actress and John Ritter's widow). She was there with her and Ritter's daughter, Stella. Just the two of them spending the afternoon together.

Andrew was able to get home a little early on Friday to start our Memorial Day weekend off. Saturday we took the girls to see Over the Hedge. We missed the last 20 minutes or so because Ella got antsy and decided she was ready to leave. There was an animated short at the beginning of the movie that we hadn't anticipated. But I think she enjoyed what she saw of the movie. She keeps pointing out every merchandise with Disney's Cars on it and she is very interested in the new Garfield movie coming out. So maybe we'll venture out to those.

On Sunday, we visited with our friends, the Harveys, at their house in Pacific Palisades. Their little daughter, Grayson is soooo cute. She's a couple months younger than Lily. We went swimming in their pool and enjoyed lunch poolside. It was Grayson's first time wading. She loved it, she just chilled and took everything in.

Today, we just hung out around home for most of the day. We ventured out to a park in Pasadena for a bit. But mostly just took it easy. (Well, I did. Andrew did a bunch of laundry and took stuff to our storage unit. So maybe I should just say, I mostly relaxed and took it easy). :-)

No new pictures for this post. Maybe I'll get things updated and uploaded tomorrow and post some new pictures! Hope you all had a GREAT three-day weekend! I wish every weekend was a three-day weekend.....

To the beach and back

A couple weeks ago, Andrew out of the blue asked me if I'd like to go on a little weekend getaway for Mother's Day. I, of course, couldn't say no to that. His idea was to take the girls to Pismo Beach, a little beach town about three hours north of LA. He and I stayed there about a year and half ago and really liked it so we were both excited to take the girls.

We stayed at the Pismo Lighthouse Suites. According to the website there were sort of two bedrooms and two bathrooms. We were amazed by this room. It was so perfect for families! It also had a microwave and a little refrigerator. A great balcony. We had a partial view of the ocean. It really was great. If you are ever in the mood to visit Pismo Beach, I recommend staying there. The hotel had a great family deck with a giant chess board and a putting green. Ella and Lily had fun playing on that. And Ella couldn't wait to get into the pool.

Saturday was kind of overcast and chilly so we didn't make it to the beach until the late afternoon. Then we ate at F. McLintock's Restaurant. Andrew and I ate there last time and it was great! For a very reasonable price, you get a meat choice along with potatoes, onion rings, garlic bread, beans, and dessert! All included in the price. It's a great place to stuff yourself. And we actually had a nice dinner with no meltdowns from either of the girls.

Lily sort of just went with the flow all weekend. But she really enjoyed crawling around the hotel room, exploring a new place. Sunday, we woke up and the sun was out! We had a late checkout so we went to the beach and enjoyed a couple hours of fun in the sun. Then made our way back to LA. The girls did pretty well in the car. Lily got a little annoyed about being in the carseat for the last hour. But it wasn't too bad.

All in all it was a really fun trip and the best Mother's Day I've had so far. It will be hard for Andrew to top this one in the coming years!

In other news, Andrew and I went to a screening of An Inconvenient Truth last night. I posted on this earlier, but wanted to mention it again, as it represents Andrew's first real movie credit! The documentary itself is incredibly interesting and eye-opening. I really encourage everyone to please go see the movie. Visit the website link and click on "Take Action". This link will tell you how you, yourself can reduce the number pounds of carbon dioxide your household produces in one year. There are very easy things that can contribute to less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. I know we are going to incorporate some of these things into our daily lives. But getting back to Andrew. The filmmakers tapes Al Gore giving his lecture in LA and Andrew attended one of the tapings, so you will be able to catch a glimpse of Andrew throughout the movie. His actual name is also in the credits for the visual effects he produced! Not just Hornet, Inc. but Andrew's name! It was very exciting to see that! If you see the movie, Hornet created the polar bear and frog animations. Oh, and we had one star sighting there. Amy Brenneman came to see the movie. She was there with her husband, Brad Silberling who is a director (although he didn't direct this film). She starred in the television show Judging Amy.

I think that's all for today! Hope everyone has a great week!

New Pictures!

There are new pictures in the May album and there are pictures up from our trip to Pismo Beach this weekend! I'll post in more detail about the weekend, hopefully later today!

Happy Mother's Day!

Hope all the mothers out there that I know have a great Mother's Day! We have a fun weekend planned, but I'll post on that next week.

For now I'll give the Ella & Lily Report.

Ella seems so grown up now. I think she's gone through a growth spurt the last month or so. All of sudden her pants and shirts are fitting her perfectly instead of being in the just a little too big/room to grow stage. She is saying a lot more and stringing more words together. Her current favorites are ball, dog, baby, "Oh, dear" (I have no idea where she learned that one), and "Bye, Guys". She also says "Daddy" very clearly instead of dada now. Of course, there is no use of the word Mama or any variations there of, except for her to go around saying, "mah, mah, mah, mah" mimmicking Lily.

She is currently loving playing dress up which we don't really have anything for except my dress shoes, which I never have an occasion to wear anymore. She usually plays this at the sitters house. She also loves doing puzzles and she's really good at it. Matching has become a new skill. We have these 24-piece puzzles (Disney ones of course) and she can do half-to 3/4 of the puzzle by herself. She usually starts with the same four pieces and goes from there. She'll put two Dory pieces together and then look for the other pieces with Dory blue on them. Or she'll put Chicken Little's body together and then realize she needs to find his head. It so amazing to watch her. She also matches other things. In her sticker books, she picks a sticker out and then looks through the whole book to find where the correct outline is to put the sticker down.

In the last few days, we have encouraged her to figure out the pedals on her trike. She is now trying to do it without our prodding. And seems to like to go backwards more because its easier. But she is definitely starting to get the hang of it. She is also "cleaning" up. But her version of cleaning up is more like piling everything that is strewn around the floor onto her bed, or her playmat, or the Farm (our exersaucer). So I'll take a shower and come into the living room and think to myself. It seems cleaner in here. And then I'll look over at the Farm and it will be piled four feet high with stuff!

One last thing about Ella, she eats pickles! This child will eat no fruit or veggies, or anything with color in it, yet she'll eat a pickle! I suppose she likes all the salt in it. I was making myself a sandwich the other day and she was curious and pointed to the jar of pickles. So I gave her one and she took it and ran. And actually ate it! Unless I'm going to find gross pickle leftovers hiding somewhere when I clean. :-)

Now, onto Wonder Child #2: Lily. She is crawling all over the place now. Which I thought I would be upset when she started crawling, because I would have to watch her every single second. But it's been so great! She just follows Ella all over the house or crawls over and picks out the toy she wants to play with instead of me guessing what she wants. If she wants to go in the Farm she crawls over, pulls herself up, and sort of waits for me to figure out she wants to play in there. The girls also play in the bedroom so nicely. I can put the gate up in the doorway in the evening and they just entertain each other in there.

Lily also dances a bit. She pulls herself up on the coffee table and then sort of bounces with whatever music she hears. Very cute! She also is in a current doll loving stage! I think she likes the baby face. She just smiles and giggles at the doll. I suppose we'll have to get another Little Mommy doll soon. Since Ella really likes the one that is hers. She does share it very nicely, but a couple times she grabbed it away from Lily and Lily got really upset. I'm seeing fights over this in my future! And the Cabbage Patch doll just isn't the same to Lily. Funny that she shows a preference for that already.

I'm not sure if I'm making things up, but I believe Lily is saying a couple words too. She says "Mah, mah, mah" but she also says a more definite, "Muh-ma" when she is upset or bumped her head or wants a bottle. So I am believing that her first word is Mama. But I thought the same thing with Ella and I haven't heard it since she was 8 months old! But even more impressive, I believe Lily is saying, "Ella". She makes a noise that sounds just like it. And she definitely has heard me say that enough in the womb and ever since. She also like to make the sound, "baa-baa-baa". She's especially chatty when she gets up in the morning.

I think the only other news about the girls and perhaps the most momentous, is that they are officially sharing a bedroom now! For at least two weeks now. They sleep in there together at night and for their afternoon naps. It's a little more difficult coordinating the afternoon nap to be at the exact same time so I can have some Holly time. Lily has been only getting up once a night on most nights (knock on wood) and sleeps until the exact minute of 6:15am. Seriously! I woke up and looked at the clock today and it was 6:14. When the clock turned 6:15, I heard her. And Ella sleeps through any noise that Lily makes pretty well. Every now and then she'll sort of wake up, but goes right back to sleep. It also helps to calm Ella down at night because Lily goes to bed a little earlier so Ella has to be quiet until she goes to bed.

Well I think that's more than enough for this post. The pictures I included are our recent pictures from JCPenney's.

The joys of SoCal living

I feel like rambling today. ;-) So it is the beginning of May, right? Then why do we have "June Gloom" already making an appearance! I suppose we can blame it on our old foe Global Warming. I feel like things are getting very out whack. First, the tsunami, then Hurricane Katrina, I've been informed that the Minnesota winters are not quite the frozen tundra of the past, and now June Gloom has made its appearance in May! For those of you living outside of Southern California and the coast, every June (and now May) you wake up to very gray foggy skies and by noon or 1pm the marine layer burns off and its sunny and nice. Don't get me wrong, June Gloom does have its benefits. It doesn't reach a sweltering temp around here until July or August. And its not cold enough to keep you inside. But this must be what its like to live in the Pacific Northwest with all the rain and wake up every morning to sad gray skies. Other than the temperature factor, I'm not a fan of June Gloom and certainly not a fan of it coming in May already.

The effects of Global Warming scare me, especially when we can see evidence of it in our lifetime. That's one of those things you think won't affect anyone until much into the future. But its happening now, and it is only going to get worse. Andrew and I are invited to a crew screening of a documentary entitled An Inconvenient Truth which follows Al Gore's campaign for Global Warming to become a recognized issue. Andrew/Hornet worked on this documentary providing a few visual effects for it. He went to the filming of it a while ago and actually got to shake hands and meet Al Gore. If you're interested in learning more about Global Warming at all, you should go see the movie once its released. It was at the Sundance Film Festival where it was picked up by Paramount.

I know we don't do what we should for our part in terms of Global Warming, jeez we drive a gas guzzling Honda Pilot. But maybe we'll buy a hybrid when we buy another car.

**stepping down off my soapbox now**

Ahhh.....a break

So this weekend was absolutely wonderful for me! I actually got to relax a little while Andrew watched the girls for most of the weekend. Lily and I did do WalkAmerica in Griffith Park on Saturday morning. The weather was perfect: overcast, but not cold and not rainy. The walk was only 5 miles and Lily did great in the stroller. She only got antsy toward the very end. Our group raised $1600 total for March of Dimes. Pretty good I think! We have two little boys in the group who arrived early, Henry came 9 weeks early and is a great healthy 22 month old now, and Riley came six weeks early and is a happy little 2 year old now. Henry is in the group picture here, on the far right. Riley was still sleeping so he didn't join his mom, Kirsten (in the green on the left). Lily and I relaxed a little after the walk.

Jenn's shower went very well on Sunday. I think everyone had a fun time. The shower was very laid back and everyone just sort of hung out. Jenn and Tony really liked the blanket and booties I knit for them. It's always fun to actually give the thing you've worked so hard on to the person and see their reaction. Ella and Lily enjoyed themselves too playing with all the kids.

In Lily news, she is officially crawling now! She started going forward on Friday. She only goes 5 or 6 movements before she decides to sit up. But she is definitely moving forward instead of spinning around in circles or going backward. And Ella seems to be saying a lot more things. Whenever she first sees Lily in the morning or when Lily gets up from a nap Ella says, "Hi Lily, Hi Lily". She also gives Lily toys and says, "Here you go, Lily." Very cute!

And Lily has slept in the crib in the bedroom with Ella for the past two nights. The first night she got up 4 times. But last night she got up once at 3:30 and that was it! And then got up at 6:15. We can definitely handle that. I don't want to jinx anything, but I definitely hope this is the start of her finally sleeping well!

I've added some new pictures to the April album and the Carnival of Golf pictures are up. Nothing is captioned yet, but hopefully will be soon! Happy May to everyone!

It's a Miracle!

The stars aligned, the sun broke through the clouds, and the Disney Princesses saved the day!

I suppose you all are wondering what I'm going on about. Well, we took the girls into JCPenny's this morning for pictures. Now, you've all seen how cute Lily can be for the pictures I take of her. She smiles so big. It doesn't take much for me to get her to do that. So you would think get her in a dress, tell her what a pretty girl she is and she would be all smiles for the Penny's lady. Well, of course not. She didn't want to smile for anything and she even started to sort of baby yell at us. And get Ella to sit in there with her. That was definitely going to take a miracle. We just pushed Ella into the front of the picture area and she started wailing. So I thought, Well this isn't going to happen.

So I had some Princess figures that I was saving for sometime when I needed them. I thought I might give Ella one each time she wanted to use the toilet as a potty training reward. But that's not happening anytime soon. So I whipped out Ariel, Belle, and Jasmine and all of sudden sitting on the little photo table didn't seem like such a bad thing. We got a picture of the girls together where no one is crying. No one is really smiling either, but you gotta take what you can get. And then Ella didn't want to get down after that, so we have a picture of just Ella too! So look out family! You're going to get tons of pictures very soon!

In other news, the girls and I survived last week without Andrew, just barely. I was very sick with either food poisoning or a terrible stomach bug on Tuesday night before he was supposed to leave and he had to push his flight back. But he was able to still go. The girls took it easy on me on Wednesday. On Thursday we had a quiet outing to the movie theater to see the new Disney movie, The Wild. It was cute, but quite similar to Madgascar. The rest of the weekend, we hung out at a couple different parks. Oh, and there was a parade in Burbank so we went to that. Ella was the cutest thing ever, sitting on the side of the curb, getting all excited about everything as it went by. I can't wait to take her to a parade again!

Andrew had a ton of fun hanging out with his college buddies. His golf score went down after the first day which he deemed was a "practice round". And he made it back in one piece after a 2 hour delay at the airport. We'll get some pictures posted soon.

We have a pretty big weekend planned ahead. Lily and I are doing WalkAmerica with some other families from our playgroup. All together our group has raised about $800 for the March of Dimes. I think that's pretty good. And thank you once again to those of you who contributed to the effort! On Sunday, my friend, Renee and I are throwing a family baby shower for our other friend Jenn (Ella's babysitter) who is due with her third child at the end of May. It's been fun to plan it, and it'll be fun to hang out with everyone on Sunday.

I do have to throw one more thing out there. A very big thank you to our friend Allison Campbell who was amazing and made a beautiful little sweater for Lily to wear in her pictures today. A week ago, I found the cutest dress at Old Navy, but it was really summery (just had little straps) and I couldn't find a little sweater to go with it. So I asked the Goddess of Knitting if she thought she could whip something up and get it mailed to me by the end of the week. And she did it! And it looks so cute in the pictures. SO thank you, thank you, thank you Allison!

Okay, I think that's all for this week's installment! Have a good one everyone!

Behind on the times...

So I have neglected the blog lately. It seems I can only focus on one hobby at a time with two kids. I do enough multi-tasking wtih them and the house, I can't seem to multi-task with my other interests. So instead of blogging or reading lately, I've been knitting.

Happy belated Easter and Passover to everyone or just Happy Spring if you don't celebrate either of those. The Easter Bunny visited our house on Saturday night and Ella woke up to find eggs hidden around the house and a basket of fun toys. She was so cute finding the eggs, she would shake each one to make sure there was something inside and then open it to see what it was. They were filled with fruit snacks, jelly beans, and pez. She also received the Chicken Little DVD and Disney figures. The Easter Bunny thought that was somewhat appropriate to Easter. ;-) So thankfully, we enjoyed watching that movie instead of Nemo 15 times yesterday. Lily also received some fun things in her basket. They both got fuzzy bunny ears to wear and in my dream world I would have loved to get a picture of both of them together with their ears in their Easter dresses. But alas, my dream did not come true. I did get the most adorable picture of Lily with her ears on though.

We had another baby milestone last week. I always sit Lily outside the tub on the floor to watch Ella take a bath. I went into the sink area of our bathroom to get Ella's soap and when I turned around Miss Lily was standing up holding onto the bathtub! I thought that couldn't have just happened! Ella must have pulled her up or something. So I sat her back down and watched her and lo and behold she did it again! At six months! That's like an 8 or 9 month trait! I looked it up and Ella was 9 months old when she first pulled herself up. I told Andrew that I think we have to watch out. Lily is going to be even more of a climber than Ella was. She already can turn around and get herself out of the bouncy seat and then she promptly tries to get back in. Lily had her 6 month check up last Tuesday. She is 17lbs, 12 oz. and 29 1/2 inches long! Ella was 17lbs, 6oz, and 27 3/4 inches at her 6 month checkup.

Ella is pretty much the same as she has been. We are really trying to encourage her to talk more by not responding to her grunting as much. We've had a few more tantrums but I think she is trying to use her words more now.

Two weekends ago, Tom and Pat came out for a visit. We went to Griffith Park together and they enjoyed seeing Ella run around. They were so nice and watched the girls for two nights while Andrew and I went down to the Four Seasons Aviara in Carlsbad (just north of San Diego). We received a gift certificate to this place and lived it up for a couple days. Andrew played golf, I visited the spa and had a massage and facial. It was so great! The girls weren't far from our minds though. We went shopping and bought Ella a fun new pair of shoes and a new carseat for her so Lily could move out of the infant carrier. She's been too big for it for quite a while now. I think the grandparents had a great time with the girls! Andrew also enjoyed being able to watch the last round of the Masters with his dad. We were all happy to see Phil Mickelson (my Philly boy--he's my favorite golfer) win!

Andrew is preparing for his annual Knox Alumni Carnival of Golf extravaganza which begins this Wednesday in Houston. He'll be gone until Sunday night so it'll be just me and the girls until then.

Update: Oh yeah, I meant to add this when I was first typing this post. My cousin, Michael called us on Easter also. He is in the army and serving in Iraq right now. So it was a great surprise when he called us to wish us a Happy Easter from there! He has been there five months already and seems to be doing pretty well. The earliest he will be home is August so please keep him in your thoughts and prayers for a safe return home and hopefully it will be as soon as August.

Bound for Nascar

Is this not the absolute cutest thing you've ever seen?!! If I am going to go grocery shopping with both girls, I have to go to the Burbank Ralphs so I can use the race car cart!

Picture 1: Riding in the race car cart




Picture 2: An action shot




Picture 3: Just looking adorable!

Photo Update

I have added new pictures to the March album from around the house and playdates. And I added a new album of pictures from this past weekend.

Enjoy!

Little Girls have fun too!

I just have to write and say how great Andrew is! I have friends whose husbands are not nearly as involved with their children as they should be. And I have absolutely no complaints about Andrew. He is so wonderful. He watched the girls all day Friday and Saturday and most of Sunday. While Ella was at the babysitter on Friday, he was able to get some work done and have a little bonding time with Lily. And then on Saturday, he and the girls made a day of it! They went to the Burbank mall and played at the new playarea there. Th Easter Bunny is on the same level and Ella has been sort of interested in the set up they have there. Finally on Saturday, the Easter Bunny was actually there when they were. So both Ella & Lily sat on the bunny's lap and had their picture taken. Both of them look slightly weirded out in the picture, but neither of them are screaming which is a big improvement over the last time Ella saw Santa. ;-) Ella didn't want to seat there long enough for a picture with Lily so they both got individual pictures.

Then as if that wasn't enough excitement for one day, Andrew took them to see Ice Age 2. Ella got her own seat and icee and watched a good portion of the movie. Lily slept for most of it. So overall it was a good moviegoing experience.

I knew they were having a ton of fun together because when I stopped home before dinner on Saturday, Ella just waved and said, "Bye. See you." when I was leaving. Like "I'm spending time with Dad, have fun Mom, see ya later." It was very cute.

Then they all joined us for our walk to Kenneth Village on Sunday. We all recuperated and took naps yesterday afternoon. We will have to rest up this week because we have another fun weekend planned in a few days. Andrew's parents are coming for a visit and are going to help us out by watching Ella & Lily for a couple days while Andrew and I have a little vacation down at the Four Seasons in San Diego. Can't wait!

Hope everyone has a great week!

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!: Part 2

Saturday was just as packed as Friday. We woke up and went to nail appointments at a fun place I found recently. Everyone enjoyed being pampered for a little bit. We went to Starbucks afterwards for a light breakfast. Let me paint a picture for you. The five of us are sitting around two little tables, chatting about nail polish colors, etc. Holly decides she needs one more splenda for her venti sized latte. (Okay, this part is in slow motion ala movie director John Woo) I get up, turn slightly and step to the side around Erin J. My arm of course follows my body and well the venti goes flying. And gets my jeans sopping wet, as well as Erin J.'s. I just missed getting an innocent bystander as well. Nice huh?

So we take an impromptu break at our condo while Erin J's jeans dry in the dryer. After all that, we get in the car and drive through Hollywood so they can see the Hollywood sign and Grauman's Chinese Theatre (all from the car). We then drive through the city to Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive. We of course valet the car, it is Beverly Hills after all. And then walk around. Claire tried on wedding rings at Cartier. We then have lunch at a great little place called The Farm recommended to us by the ring saleslady. The food was really good. I may have to eat there again. We walked around some more and then found ourselves back in the car. We drove through a few neighborhoods there to see how the other half lives and then made our way back to Glendale on Sunset Blvd, passing the Viper Room. (Please visit my picture link for a "nice" moving shot of it).

We rested up a little bit, we are after all not quite as young as we used to be. Then we went to dinner at Maurizio's here in Glendale. We almost got into a brawl with some rather large and ambiguous ladies sitting next to us because of Claire's big mouth. But we successfully held Claire back and moved on to other fun activities for the night. We again tried the cab companies in LA. But they again suck and wanted to charge us for two cabs for the five of us. I don't think so. So we decided to drive (me being the designated driver again). We went to the Westwood Brewing Company to see Allison's brother's band play. Westwood is near to UCLA who was playing in a final four game that night. We made it to the bar not long after the game had ended and there was a news crew set up. So we were UCLA fans for a brief time. We yelled our allegiance along with all the people in yellow and blue. UCLA-UCLA-UCLA! Then we promptly went upstairs where the band was. We all enjoyed listening to FIVE A.M.. and Zach even serenaded Claire with the song "Let's Get it On" in honor of Claire's ending bachelorettehood. (Allison had called after a few drinks the night before and requested Zach to do this.) We also listened to another bay area band called Eugene. Then went home and collapsed.

Sunday morning, we all had one last hurrah and walked up to Kenneth Village for breakfast. When we got back, the girls all started their travels back home. It was such a fun weekend that we have decided to do this once a year. We're not sure where next year will be or who is going to organize it. But I hope it happens because it was so great to get away and have some girl fun! I hope to post pictures later today...

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!: Part 1

So for a few years now, every time I see a select few of my high school friends, we always say "We should all get together sometime and hang out for a weekend." Well, last November, I got tired of just saying it and I set out to actually organize the event. So the First Annual Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Weekend just ended a few hours ago. (Okay, I just made up this name on the spot about one second ago. The Girls may chide me for this....I can just hear it now)

Claire Daly (soon to be Mrs. Rathburn), Allison Hammer, Erin (Ryan) Friedline, and Erin (Erb) Jensen traveled to Los Angeles to come visit me. I organized the trip so I made everyone come here. ;-) Everyone arrived Thursday evening. The fun commenced at Don Cuco's Mexican restaurant. I had professed my love for their margaritas and the Girls could not resist. Of course, in my haste to actually put stuff into a purse instead of the diaper bag, I grabbed my Barnes and Noble reader membership card instead of my ID. Can you believe the waiter and the manager would not serve me a drink?! I decided to take that as a compliment, and then proceeded to sip from Erin and Erin's margaritas. I was worried I was going to be the only camera happy person there. But when Claire and Erin F. pulled out their cameras before me, I knew I'd be fine.

On Friday morning, Andrew (who was super wonderful and took the day off from work to watch Ella & Lily so I could galavant around town) made all of us breakfast. Then we visited the Getty Museum. I have been looking forward to seeing this museum the entire time we have lived here. Don't ask me why I haven't been before. But I do believe I will go back! It has fantastic views of Los Angeles and the buidling itself is interesting to look at as well as its artwork and gardens.

From the Getty, we traveled to the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica. We were on the hunt for a good sushi restaurant. Yes, for those of you who know me well, I had my first sushi experience. Although, not really. I don't eat fish. So I had kappa maki (cucumber rolls) and some veggie tempura. But I was assured by the rest of the group that the sushi was tasty. We then walked around the Promenade and shopped a little bit. I was hoping there would be some fun/weird street performers. In the past, we've seen a guy dressed as Yoda dancing. But there were only a couple guitar playing singers. We had one actor sighting. I'm not even going to say "celebrity", because I have a feeling most of the blog's readers will not have a clue who is he is. But we saw Justin Long, probably most known for his appearances as Warren Cheswick on the tv show Ed and he was in the movie Dodgeball. Here is his entry in the Internet Movie Database

From the Promenade, we walked along Ocean Avenue to Santa Monica Pier. Then back to the car to drive to dinner. We ate at one of my favorite restaurants in LA, Taverna Tony's in Malibu. Love the food there! As you will read on, the majority of our activities centered around eating wonderful food!

After dinner, we traveled back to Glendale, where Claire promptly took a nap. Little did she know we had some fun Bachelorette activities planned for her. :-). She wasn't too happy about being awakened. She actually thought she was going to sleep the rest of the night. We played a few games and then headed out to Universal Citywalk. We had planned to go to several places there, but ended up getting there too late (the cabs suck here in Los Angeles! We waited forever and then ended up driving anyway). We ended up at B.B. King's and listened to a fun R & B band. Had a few drinks and called it a night. I will refrain from posting any Bachelorette pictures as this is a family friendly site.

More in a little bit....

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.