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. ;-)