Iowa 2012

Dear Ella,

We went for a drive...a     l  o  n  g   drive.... to IOWA! You did beautifully this trip. With the exception of not falling asleep 'til 9:00pm on the way there. I love that you recognized and felt comfortable around your grandparents immediately. I love that you had so much fun with your cousins Jacob and Isaac. I love that you  loved the splash park and pool. I love that you loved our trip to the Blank Park Zoo. I love that you love Iowa!

-Love Mommy

SMILE

http://ellajanevanwinkle.shutterfly.com/babyjournal

Hi Doll,
You are so much fun to be around lately....always; but really fun lately! Here's our day...

5:30 am- (This isn't the fun part). We usually wake up to you squealing or talking to your flower hanging from your crib. If, however, you haven't gotten enough sleep, you will wake up whimpering. Sometimes I wonder how long you are awake before we actually hear you. 


5:45- You join us in bed. You immediately ask for "milk". If I deny you (because you just ate an hour earlier, for example) , you commence a full on crawl fest; over me, over dad, back over me. Then you DIVE off of the bed. Most of the time I catch your legs and let you down gently. You ask me to "open" the drawer, because you know that's where my necklaces are. We sleep for approximately 5 more minutes as you play contently my pretties. We wake again to you either unrolling the entire roll of toilet paper, or scrambling quickly out of our room. One of us jumps out of bed to make sure the gate is closed as to prevent you from tumbling down the stairs. 

6:00am-You eat breakfast. It typically consists of eggs, smoothie, oatmeal, yogurt, water, and peanut butter and jelly sandwich. YES, you eat this much almost everyday for breakfast. 


6:15am-  Done with breakfast, start throwing leftover food off of your tray; then you SMILE at me like you didn't do anything you weren't supposed to. Oh, your smile. 

6:45am- Done playing with all of your toys, done looking through your books, done with doing anything independently for the rest of the day. So, we tickle, we run. I ask you to SMILE and you scrunch your face, squint your eyes, and show me all of your two teeth. I ask you for a kiss and you lean in and smack your lips. 
the rest of the day pretty much goes like this. Play, smile, pool, smile, fall down, get held, smile, read books, smile, nap, cry, smile. You are so fun. 
Love, Mommy

New spoken words:out, ouch, grandpa, grandma, please, yes, shoes, water, hello. Shake head "no". You also dance to Bob Marley and JackJohnson. You can scribble with a pen and crayon. You get REALLY mad when I take the phone away from you.

Gift for the Grams

Dear Ella,


You just celebrated Mother's Day with me for the second year! While I posted about all of the sweet things that you and daddy did for me here http://ellajanevanwinkle.shutterfly.com/babyjournal, I didn't take the chance to show you what you (and I:)) gave to your grandmothers. I took this picture of you sitting at the bottom of the slide at our community park. It was late March. One of the sweet things about this photo is that you are wearing my jacket from when I was a toddler...It's a little big on you yet, but it'll fit you well soon. 

How we made it! 

I found a tutorial on how to make prints on wood. So I modified this picture in Picnik...which is no longer available BTW. I went to Staples and had them print it onto card stock (size was too odd for our printer). Daddy then cut the piece of 1" thick wood to the size of the print. I painted it white and Mod Podged the print onto the wood, sanded the edges to rough it up a bit, and painted Mod Podge over the top to seal it. Daddy drilled a partial hole in the back to hang from a nail. DONE!

So easy and memorable! Thanks for being my subject:)

I love you so much!
-mommy

Chitter Chatter

Dear Ella,

You just woke up from a one hour and 20 min. nap. Good effort. I was able to read the Bible and...waste time on other things until just now. Hold on, let me go pick you up....

Okay, now that you are secure in my lap (according to you, the only right place to be), we can continue. Briefly.

I decided that this blog would be the easiest way for me to capture our moments as a family, that we may otherwise forget the details of. I'd been writing to you in another journal since you were born. But, out of fear of not being able to retrieve it later on, this was created.

Post number one

As you know from reading earlier journals, you are an avid signer. If we haven't taught you the sign for a word, you will make one up. Not kidding. You sign two word phrases a lot. But, just recently you are trying to SAY most of what we say. Our conversations go like this, "Ella, say dog "da", Ella say boat "bo", Ella say duck "du!", Ella say grandpa " papa". You get the idea. Confession: sometimes I actually wish you didn't say so much. But, I know how beautiful it is and I love it. I'm proud of you.

-Love mommy