Annie's 2 year and Ella's 7 year updates

Ella - 6/2012:

Height: 46 1/4" (50th percentile)

Weight: 48.2 pounds (50th percentile)

Annie - 10/2012:

Height: 36" (90-95th percentile)

Weight: 28.1 pounds (50-75th percentile)

Head: 19" (75th percentile)

Annie's 18 month update

Wow, this got here fast.  18 months.  And boy girl, were there some changes!  Thankfully, I can talk about talking in this update.  My little burst of craziness has finally decided to form words instead of reaching/pointing and "uh, uh"-ing at everything she wants.  I have not necessarily been worried these past months.  I know comparing her (or any child) to Ella for milestones is not wise as Ella was most likely talking IN the womb!  But, when the pediatrician asked at 15 months if she was saying any words and all I could say was "nothing other than 'ma',  'da' and what I thought was "ball", I was really hoping to be able to say a few more words at her 18 month check-up.  It was encouraging at that time that she was definitely understanding things that we said, so we chalked it up to the "second child" syndrome.

Well, I am happy to announce that Annie is talking!!!  Like most girls (except her mother), she loves talking on the phone.  She babbles away at anyone who will listen (or whoever she pretends is listening) and scarily, she knows how to dial her father's cell.  For now, he thinks it's cute (granted, at the beginning, he thought I was putting her up to it).  Although, every time someone calls my cell she automatically thinks it's Stephen and she proceeds to yell "dada, dada!" until I can finally make her understand it is not him I'm speaking to.  For actual words (and some phrases) she is saying, the list includes:

• ball
• dog
• good girl
• please
• lala (for Elmo)
• ickey (for Mickey)
• Sisssss (for sissy a.k.a Ella)
• Ice
• brush 
• bird
• night, night
• nose
• eye
• tickle
• ta-da

As for the rest of the 18 month check-up, Annie was all over Dr. Cooke.  She is a lover of anyone giving her attention.  She is very easy to examine and Annie even told the doctor to look in her ears (my continuously pointing at them and sticking her finger in them).  She had to get one shot (Hep A), but Annie actually cried for maybe 5 seconds, as she was instantly distracted by the Tweety Bird band-aid that was placed on her thigh.  

Finally, what we've all been waiting for....her 18 month stats!!!  Coming in at 24 pounds and 1 ounce, Annie is in the 46th percentile for weight.  Holding strong in the 92nd percentile, Annie is 33.5 inches tall (or long, however you like to say it)!  And she continues to have an above average head circumference at 18.75 inches, which puts her in the 80th percentile.  I'm convinced that her late-ish walking at 13-14 months has to do with her height/weight/head ratios compared to her tiny "Kelly feet" that she and Ella have been graced with.

As for other things going on in Annie's life, she is falling more and more in love with the water.  This makes me very happy as I was worried with her being born in MI and spending the first few years of her life here would stunt her ability to fall in the love with the water, but clearly it's just in our genes!  I'm looking forward to starting her in swim lessons late-Spring and I'm sure she'll be just like Ella and cry and get upset when the lessons are over.  I look forward to having two fish in the family who can enjoy the water together.  Annie does love her sister and wants to do everything she is doing.  I would say that is the biggest difference in having a second child who has an older sibling to watch and learn from.  Annie insists on being outside and hanging with Ella's friends (thank God most of them love Annie, too) and of course, she wants to play with all of Ella's things.  It is fun to see Annie's personality continue to bloom and to see how different from Ella she is, even though they look so much alike.

Until next time...

The Long Overdue Update

So, it's been five, okay six, months.  Sorry.  Life happened.  While life was happening, Annie and Ella have been growing.  Annie has now turned a year old, Ella has started 1st grade, and I've gained 10 pounds...but, we can just forget about that last part (until I try to fit into those jean).  


So, my big girl started first grade right after Labor Day.  She was super-excited and had no issues adjusting.  We were also blessed with THE BEST teacher!  Mrs. Leach rocks.  Ella says her favorite subject is math.  She is a great speller and her reading skills have just taken off!  It's so fun to hear her read to Annie and we also read together.  She also has art, music, P.E., sign language and world culture classes at school.  And I have to say, I started getting into that rut of asking, "So, what did you do at school today?" and getting the same old, "nothing".  Instead, I've started just asking, "Did you have a good day at school?" because that will give me a response and she either opens up more about what she did then, or later in the day...or week...she tends to tell me more things than when I ask questions. I love her stories, especially the BS ones.  She's a great BSer.  :)  

Ella participated in Fall soccer again!  She was great and her team went 5-1.  We've been taking a break this winter, but next month she starts a short cheerleading clinic that will culminate in her cheering at halftime at a Dexter Varsity basketball game.  She is very excited about that!  She is also going to start karate and dance again.  So, it seems like I'll be chauffering a lot more coming up!


Now Miss Annie...she turned 1 in October.  She is now  almost 15 months old and on the go!  She is into everything and in the middle of everything and climbs on top of everything!  She finally took her first steps at 13 months.  She's walking more and more every day and soon will be chasing after her sister and the dogs.  I don't think she's totally convinced yet that it's faster than crawling, but you can see week by week that she takes more steps before falling on her but and she has found out that if she walks with her arms extended up into the air, she has a lot more balanced...which makes it look like we have a little Frankenstein walking around.  


The one thing this girl can't get enough of it food!  She would eat all day non-stop if she could and she eats everything in site.  There is not one food she has seen and not tried.  I can't even really pinpoint her favorite food because she really will just eat anything you put in front of her.  She is definitely a growing girl.  Speaking of growing, here are her 12 month stats even though they've definitely changed by now:  Height 31 3/4" (95th percentile), weight 21.11 pounds (50th percentile) and head circumference was 18 cm.




I hopeful this spring she will be taking her first swim lessons.  Ella started at 14 months, but we were living in FL at the time.  I'm not about to get my pasty white self in a swimsuit in the middle of winter and lug by baby in and out of the cold weather to do mommy and me swim classes!  So, we'll wait a few more months which will put her around 18 months, I guess.  We are definitely looking forward to being outside again with her able to get around on her own and explore the outdoors which she loves, we just aren't in it too much.

Speaking of the outdoors, we have just booked a Disney vacation for the first week of March, so we are all excited to see green grass and feel the warmth on our faces.  This will be Annie's first trip to Disney and Ella hasn't been in a few years, so Stephen and I are excited to see their faces light up when we get there.  So for all your FL peeps, we'll be staying in Orlando March 2-8.  Please let us know if we can meet up!  We do not plan on driving all over the state of FL this trip, so if you're close by let us know.


To wrap this up, we all had a lovely holiday season.  We were in MI for Thanksgiving and Christmas and we were able to spend some time with close friends and also have some quiet time with just the four of us.  It was bittersweet as this was my first holiday without my G'ma, but we all took time out to remember her and reminisce about last Christmas when we were with her.  Annie was fun this year too as she was a little more into Christmas and all the decorations.  She she actually enjoyed her gifts...and not surprisingly, so did Ella!  


I hope 2012 will be a great year for all of our family and friends and I look forward to sharing more with you in the coming months.  Happy New Year!

Ella & Annie - My Pride and Joy

Since my last kid update, Ella turned 6 years old and Annie is now 9 months old!  I know I say this every time, but where is the time going?!  It definitely seems like it goes by even faster with the second child.  I can't believe in three months I won't have a baby anymore.  And Ella, she will be starting 1st grade in a couple months (and then Stephen and I will be turning 32 and 31 respectively)!  OMW!!


So, over the past few months, Ella has definitely moved from her Kindergarten days into a young girl who has shown her blossoming interests and talents.  Late spring she finished her final swim class.  She has aspirations of being on a dive team, but yet this summer she wanted to take a break.  But, I am very proud of her and her accomplishments and her abilities.  She is a great swimmer and has every stroke down (except for the butterfly). 

She also had another great soccer season and scored three or four goals over the course of 6 games.  She has turned into a great team player and finally doesn't think that she has to score a goal every game to be successful.  We aren't sure what's next for her.  She is interested in starting dance or maybe going back to gymnastics, but I'm not sure I (or she) can handle both.  Until then, her summer has been filled with lots of play dates and running around the 'hood with her friends.  She has a little more freedom this summer as she is allowed to ride her scooter or bike (she is officially off training wheels - which I feel took longer for her since we really only ride bikes about 5 months out of the year) to her friends house's as most of them live in the front of the neighborhood like we do.  She definitely thinks she's hot-stuff and it reminds me of when I was her age and I was riding my bike everywhere and into OTHER neighborhoods to visit friends.  But, not only is that not possible as neighborhoods aren't connected or really close to ours, but I seriously doubt I would even let her if that was an option.  It's sad to think about.  Our world is making us all crazy and limiting the fun and freedom kids used to have outside.  Anyway, she loves hanging out in neighbors' blow-up pools and using her slip-n-slide.  


She has also spent a lot of time reading which I love!  It's amazing how much her reading has progressed even over this short summer since school ended.  We take weekly trips to the library where she gets to pick out two books and a DVD.  And she also loves reading to Annie!  Ella has also become a techie...she loves her iPod Nano, which is Stephen's old one.  So no, we did NOT buy her an iPod.  But, she does take over my new iPod Touch that I was finally able to upgrade to.  I'm pretty sure she knows how to use it better than I do.  All of a sudden I saw her on Netflix the other day and I thought she had bought something accidentally, but no, she was just watching some cartoons that she put in the Watch Now queue....seriously.  AND she knows how to use Stephen's iPad.  Come on!!


Oh, as for Ella's (my petite one) 6 year stats...She is a mere 44" tall (23rd percentile) and 43.4 pounds (39th percentile).  For some reason she is very sensitive about being small.  Not sure what to do about that one.  She's kinda screwed since she has me and her daddy's genes.


Now onto Annie.  My chunky monkey is now 9 months old.  Her stats right now show she is 29" long (91st percentile) and 20.5 pounds (76th percentile).  She decided to start crawling the day she turned 7 months old.  She first started out doing a military crawl, but within a month weeks finally got onto her hands and knees.  She also loves music and head bangs to her favorites songs.  She also claps when she gets excited.  She continues to teeth...constantly.  She has at least 9 teeth, if not more.  It's crazy.  Since she has so many teeth we started her on table foods around 8 months.  She loves black beans, cheese, tomatoes, watermelon, french fries...she would eat more if we let her.  She finally started babbling around 8 1/2 months.  I was getting a little worried there as it seemed our pediatrician was going to send us to a speech therapist if she wasn't babbling by her 9 month check up.  Thankfully, she finally started vocalizing some b's and d's...but she is still not saying ''mama' or 'dada'.  Oh well.  I think we're just a loud and talkative family that she's just listening and taking it all in.  I fear to think of what her first words or phrase might be!!  :)

While in Florida Annie was able to experience the water for the first time.  She was able to go swimming at her aunt's house and she also went to Blizzard Beach at Disney.  She also went to Blue Springs and handled the 72 degree water like a champ, unlike her mommy who screamed like a little girl when she jumped in.  Just like her sister, she LOVES the water.  She could stay in it all day.

I'm happy also to brag that both my girls love church and their children's department.  Ella is about to graduate from Waumba Land (birth to Kindergarten) and jump to UpStreet (1st-5th grade).  She is very excited about that, but she is also sad that she will be leaving her teachers that she has been around since she was 2.  And Annie loves the nursery!  Ms. Val is the best and Annie has blossomed.  I'm also happy that the nursery seems to be the only place where Annie doesn't cling to me!

I can't imagine what my girls will be doing during the next update.  I suppose the next one will be in a couple months when Ella starts 1st grade and then again in three months when Annie turns 1.  OMW!!!

Still waiting for the rapture...from MI to FL!

OK...so we've passed the crazy May 21st prediction(s) of the Mayans and some crazy man in California.  I have yet to pass the craziness that our family has been enduring since April!  Since my last unplanned trip to FL in March, our family has been going non-stop and I'm ready to get off the speeding train.  Stephen has been working non-stop in the NICU making up time he had to take off for my G'ma's passing/memorial service and getting through extra calls so we can enjoy a two-week vacation mid-June (hence, our rapture from MI to FL).  


What's keeping me so busy you ask?  Well, I've started a new transcription job and it continues to pick up and I LOVE it!  But, since Annie is more mobile these days (more on that in a few), I can really only work during her naps which extends my work days sometimes late into the evening after the girls have gone to bed.  That's made even worse on the days that Stephen is on-call because if he isn't home to at least give him an hour break, I pretty much go to bed when the girls do and then I just finish work early the next morning before California wakes up (where my account is located).  Now, as mentioned above, Annie is now mobile.  She started crawling on her 7 month birthday!  UGH!!  I was not ready for this.  Ella didn't start crawling until she was 9 months old and even then, we lived in a 800 square foot box in Boston and she didn't have a lot of places to go.  So, this has definitely been an awakening for me and we need to get on the baby-proofing STAT!  Annie definitely loves her freedom and thankfully has not gotten into any 'trouble', but unfortunately, she eats a lot of dog hair (extra fiber, right?).  With two dogs, I definitely don't vacuum as much as I should.  Ella is enjoying the mor mobile Annie, too and is still in a rush for her to walk and talk so they can gang up on me.   Ella has also kept me busy with end-of-the-year activities, being sick every 3 to 4 weeks since March and preparing for her 6th birthday.  Yes, I just said 6!!!  No, I can't believe it myself.  I feel old.  


The feeling old part doesn't get any better as Stephen and I get ready to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary on June 23rd.  This is where our rapture to FL comes into play.  Stephen and I have not been on a real vacation, let alone a vacation for just the two of us, since 2004 when we went to the Keys for our 3rd anniversary.  Oh the days when we weren't tied down and didn't have a many responsibilities and we definitely had more money!  But, thanks to my awesome sister-in-law and my husband doing a crap-load of moonlighting to make some extra bucks, we are heading to FL on June 13th where we will promptly drop the girls off in Lakeland at my sister-in-law's and then proceed to check into the South Seas Resort in Captiva Island!!!  Can you say 'Hell Yeah'?!

Thought I would pass this along...

The 10 Most Irritating, Least Helpful Parenting Tips Ever

by Redbook, on Fri Feb 4, 2011 7:39am PST

I have nothing against friends and family offering advice when you come to them with a dilemma. It's the people who pipe up, unbidden, because they see you with a child and assume you have no idea what you're doing. Too often these people are elderly great-aunts. Fortunately those ladies are afraid of the Internet, so I can rail against them and they'll be none the wiser! Thanks, ladies.

1. "Sleep now, because once that baby comes you'll never sleep again." Technically this is a pregnancy tip, of course, but I'm shoving it in here anyway. Yes, Great-Aunt Hildy, I will sleep throughout my entire third trimester. Because I am part bear.

2. "Sleep when the baby sleeps." Everyone gives you this one — annoying relatives, pediatricians, the cashier at the drugstore where you were buying newborn diapers. Are these people all robots, capable of instantly dropping off to sleep whenever their child is unconscious? Do they not have other things to do, like bathe, or simply relish the rare moments of silence you get when you have an infant?

3. "I think your baby's hungry." Whether you're nursing or bottle-feeding, everyone assumes you don't know how to feed your child. And every time your child cries, whines, grimaces, or squirms, they are going to assume you are starving your poor baby and you need reminders to feed it. Lest you forget! This advice is especially maddening when they turn out to be correct.

4. "Relish every moment of your baby's first years, because they'll be grown before you know it."You mean, time only moves forward? I had no idea! I thought we'd be like this forever and ever! This sort of advice, obvious and innocuous as it seems, always put me on the defensive, as if I had just been carrying my baby under my arm like a football, muttering, "Grow up already, why don't you. Just GROW UP."

5. "I hope you're sleep training that child. Do you WANT him to be spoiled?" Oh, distant relative/person whose aisle I shared at the supermarket, I'm so glad you know exactly my child needs. And that you know, from your years of scientific research, that any child not allowed to cry it out will be a horrible waste of flesh! (See #6 for this parenting tip's counterpart.)

6. "I hope you're not doing that 'crying it out' thing. It's so barbaric. Enjoy your baby all through the night!" Again, kudos to you, whoever you are, for knowing what's best for our unique family situation! I will be calling you at 4 a.m., so you can enjoy our baby as well.

7. "Why are you bringing your child outside when it's so cold out?" It never ceased to amaze me that, no matter what my child's age, total strangers will express alarm and revulsion that I dared expose him to the elements. "And WHY ISN'T BE WEARING MITTENS? He's going to get consumption!"

8. "Your child isn't really sad/angry/injured. He's just manipulating you." There's no doubt that children can push our buttons as if they've had professional training in it, but the notion that my kid's authentic feelings are in fact manufactured to elicit a reaction really chaps my hide. If that were always true, he'd be a pint-sized sociopath.  I'm pretty sure that's not the case.

9. "Schools are just glorified prisons. If you loved your child, you'd homeschool." Oh, if only I loved my child enough to abandon my livelihood, tear him away from the community he so enjoys, separate him from the professionals who have dedicated their careers to childhood education, and forced him to stay home all day with me, where we'd be at each other's throats for hours! If only! Please note: I am not opposed to homeschooling, at all — in fact I wish it would work for us, but it would not.

10. "If I were you, I'd just—" OH NO YOU DON'T. I know where this is going. Listen, unnamed distant acquaintance who last parented in the 19th century (it's true — I often get my unwanted advice from ghosts) you don't know diddly about my kid, and our relationship, and what works for us.

The Mommy-Fight Site: Welcome to the D.C. Urban Moms message board. And by the way, your kid's stroller sucks.

So, I came across this article (The Mommy-Fight Site: Welcome to the D.C. Urban Moms message board. And by the way, your kid's stroller sucks.) during my slow work day that is called Monday. I found it via one of my favorite blogs: AdequateParenting.com. As I'm typing this I'm trying to decide whether I should full-out rant or just let you read the article for yourself and pick a side. But, that right there is what I think is the real problem - picking sides. Why as moms do we feel like we need to pick a side(s) on everything that has to do with motherhood and raising children?

When we are engaged, newly married and/or pregnant, there are numerous people giving us unwanted advice that drives us absolutely insane, right? I mean, we may find out at some point that their advice was good advice, but whether it ends up being good or not, most of us do not like unsolicited advice (i.e. "enjoy the first year of marriage, it's all downhill from there!" or "You need to go home and have lots of sex to get that baby out!") So, why on earth would we indirectly (or directly) do that to other mothers when we know from our own experience they are just as worried, confused and learning as they go as we are?! And why would we judge them for their decisions?

The article above talks about this, yet on a more extreme level. Briefly, it talks about a blog for mothers in D.C. to offer insight, advice, etc. on life as a mom in D.C. Unfortunately it has morphed into name-calling, judging and all out war between moms! This is sad, but I will admit I have done some judging of my own, not on whether you're ruining your kid's life by not breastfeeding or going back to work, not about what school you choose to send your kid(s) and not about what car you drive or what house you live in. The article talks about mothers judging each other by what stroller they use and I suddenly felt a twinge in my side. I do this, I admit, BUT only on one front and that would be those crazy $800-$1000 strollers I see being pushed around! Why on earth would you spend that much money on a stroller?!?! Unless they can soothe your child when they start fussing, feed them and wipe their butts, there is no reason to spend that much money on them whether you can afford them or not. Now, if you can afford them it is totally your prerogative to purchase one, but again I say, why? That could be a few car payments or better yet, put that aside for your kid's college tuition or even their current school's tuition if they're going to a private school! And I could be wrong in saying this, but I've never seen a toddler in these expensive strollers? Is that possible? Before I end this rant/confession, in the article it talks about these mothers judging your stroller this way: Buggaboo owners are rich and fad-oriented, Maclaren owners are upper middle-class and highly educated, while Graco owners are poor. So, I own a Maclaren AND a Graco...so what does that say about me?! So yes, I am judgmental when I feel like people are wasting their money on things that don't really improve their lives or have any worth for a long period of time. While that is my opinion, I would not call someone a name or insinuate they were rich, poor or otherwise from certain gear they own because we all know people who buy things they CAN'T afford and then there are those who will say that "it was a gift", so then I can say the gift-giver is wasting money! :)

All joking and sarcasm aside, I wanted to blog about this because I truly feel that we need to lift each other up as mother's and be there for each other when we do have the courage to ask for help/advice. I am one of those people who don't like to ask for help, so it takes a lot for me to ask and when I finally do, I don't want to be judged or made to feel stupid. And who are we to judge someone's choice(s) when it comes to raising our kids? Who cares if you send your child to public or private school? My husband went to a public school and got a w-a-y better education than I did at a private school, but if you can afford to send your kid to a private school, go for it (and if you can't, it's not a big deal. There are GREAT public schools out there!). Who cares what stroller you decide to push around? Everyone has their preferences. The only reason I own a Maclaren on top of a Graco travel system is because it's lighter and easier to use. Travel systems are not shopping-friendly! Who cares whether you live in the city or in the suburbs? Does that really means anything in grand scheme of things (or the not-so-grand scheme of things)?

Being a mommy is a wonderful, hard, time-consuming, tiring, intense, fun, magical, never-ending, awesome ride that most of us all have in common!  So, unless you see two toddlers running around the airport barefoot while drinking Coke from a bottle, there is no need to judge!

Midlife crisis at 30?!

Let me first warn the reader that this post might be a bit rambling...okay, it might be a lot rambling (and personal).  The last week or so has been very emotional, stressful, quizzical, introspective, worrisome, lonely and so much more - all because I'm turning 30!?  I know this sounds crazy and I'm sure I'm making it a bigger deal that it needs to be.  But, I truly feel this is the beginning of a new phase of my life and while it's making me want to set goals and really keep them and accomplish them, it's making me think of this past decade of my life and what I've accomplished so far.  My greatest accomplishments so far is that I've been married almost 10 years to my soulmate who is a wonderful, caring and supportive man that I know was put on this earth only for me.  And then my other accomplishment would be my two beautiful girls who have shown me that I can love more than I ever thought and to reaffirm my faith that God does truly exist.  So, this sounds all wonderful and fluffy as I write this, but thinking about all of this has made me also think about what I've not accomplished and to wonder what I'm really on this earth for, because even though I love being a wife and mother, I am one of those people who does not like to be defined by that.  I don't like the feeling that the best part of my life is ending.


It's clear to me and I'm sure to a lot of others (hee, hee) that I am not the wife, mother, friend, Christian, health nut, clean freak, go-getter, good example that I want/wish to be.  I'm assuming none of us are, so that's not my issue.  I'm not comparing myself to others in any of these areas, but I do have several friends and family members that I admire and respect who are very strong in certain areas and even though I try and hang out with them as much as possible, nothing rubs off on me!  :)  But as I move onto a new phase and a new decade in my life, I find myself reminiscing about my past and missing it more than I'm looking forward to the future.  I feel like I'm stuck in my HS and college days as that is the last time I felt most successful about my life and when I had the most fun.  When it comes to this part of my life, I feel like the only way I could feel like a success is to go back to school.  But, I can't right now with a newborn and we'll see if I'm still interested in going back when it is possible in a couple years.  As for now, I'm trying to feel successful in my job as a medical transcriptionist, but that feelings ebbs and flows month to month mainly for reasons that are out of my control.  But, I am thankful for my job and I love  the feeling of accomplishing a huge amount of work in a few hours.


As for my role as mother and wife, I have not felt very successful and I want with all my soul to be better in those roles.  I am not a patient person.  I never have been.  I know it is possible to become a more patient person and as I have prayed numerous times for God to help me become more patient, He clearly has/is putting me in situations to test me as that will be the only way I can learn, change and grow.  Oh how I have failed!  Which means I'll only be tested more...and I want to succeed, somehow.  Of course, associated with my lack of patience is a quick temper and bad language.  Now, I can make excuses and say that this is how I was raised and it's just in my genes, and although that is part of it, I do not want to pass this down to my girls.  I go through phases in my life where the last thing I could think of doing is saying a curse word, but then I have phases where I think, who cares?  I'm not saying it where anyone can hear it or I'm only saying it out of frustration, not towards anyone in a hurtful way.  But, obviously I know that if I'm saying or thinking these words my heart is not right.  I want to be a good example for my girls, my non-Christian friends and I don't want to disappoint my husband.  He hates it when I curse.  I can tell every time I do that it makes me a little ugly to him.  So, I will continue to pray for help and healing in this area(s).


As for the rest of my issues...I want/need to lose weight, I need to eat better, I need to work out regularly, I need to make reading my Bible a priority as well as my prayer life, I need to call and reach out to my friends more, especially those who live in FL as they are very important to me and I would hate time and distance to ruin those relationships, I need to vacuum more often (LOL)...


...You know, all of this sounds like a lot of New Year's resolutions, but I promise they are not.  I've never been the type to make New Year's resolutions and I'm not starting now.  But, after a week or so of such introspection and disappointment in myself it only seemed fitting that I make note of all the areas I need/want improvement in.  I am very grateful for my husband's support and for him not running away in fear when he noticed my weirdness this past week.  :)  And as you are reading this, I would hope that you would support me as well, whether you are a friend or a family member, in prayers and accountability.


As I usually post things updating you on my girls' accomplishments and growth stats, I will hopefully be able to update you on my growth and accomplishments: emotionally, spiritually and physically.  I appreciate you taking the time to read my ramblings and if you think I'm crazy or not, please pray for me!  

Happy 2nd Birthday Ella!

Today my little girl turned 2! Unfortunately, Ella had to spend her birthday in a new town where we didn't have anyone to invite for her party. So, it was the three of us opening presents that our family and friends sent a long with us and a few that we bought her and then we ate cake!! Ella's birthday theme was the Disney Princesses and she new every one! She got a lot of Play Dough stuff, a new kitchen, wooden beads that you string, and some puzzles. She's also going to get a playground in the backyard from Papa, but we haven't had time to get it just yet. Ella also got big girl furniture for her room and and new decorations that I'm sure she'll enjoy.

As for an update...she had her 2 year checkup this past Monday before we left FL and she weighed 24.14oz and is 33" tall. I have yet to look up the percentiles since our ghetto-pediatrician and her office doesn't tell us that! Anywho, we're enjoying talking to her more and more and as loves to have conversations and point out things al the time. She's also starting ask, "why" a little bit and I'm really dreading when she asks it constantly! One thing that's really adorable is when Stephen or I seem to be having a problem or is getting frustrated, she'll say, "What's the matter" (while putting her hand on our chin) and then says, Come here, I'll help you." It's the cutest thing in the world and her enunciation and emotion that she puts into it makes it even better!

As for a Michigan update, we're enjoying a lot so far. Besides the first two days when we were here and the weather was just like FL, it's been in the 70's for highs ever since. I'm loving that! All of our neighbors came by and introduced themselves the first day we were here and they're all very nice! And there are TONS and I mean TONS of kids around and Ella has already made a few friends. We are sure we are going to love this place more and more. I'm just sick of unpacking! When will it end?!?! No seriously, I've already got the kitchen done and our room will be done by tomorrow and hopefully we'll work on Ella's room soon after.

I hope everyone is well and we have a place for you in MI if you ever want to visit!