Ella Bella

Ella is 3 years old (almost 4).  She can be a handful, but for the most part she's pretty sweet.  She has always had a very strong personality and definitely knows what she wants.  Ella loves her friends.  Our next door neighbor Aimee is her best friend.  They would play together every day if schedules permitted.  Aimee is in our little neighborhood preschool so they see each other twice a week and usually play at least twice a week on top of that.  Ella is all girl.  She loves to play dress up, have tea parties, and paint her fingernails.  Five is her favorite number because that is when she gets to ride the bus to school.  The other day she was talking to me about school and then got really somber and said, "Never mind, I don't want to go to school.  I want to stay home with you."  I like that idea.  I love watching her grow up, but it kills me that she's getting so big.  Ella is still an incredibly picky eater.  We're working on it, but we've got lots of room to grow.  Over the past few months she's started helping me make dinner.  She loves to set the table, pour ingredients, stir, fill water cups, and any other tasks she can handle.  She regularly tells me that I'm the "best cooker in the whole world."  Of course she says this as she refuses to eat what I make.  Oh well.  Ella loves princesses and playing make believe.  When she and Sophie get a long they usually play hide and seek or some form of house.  Ella loves to be snuggled, read to, or to do anything where she gets individual attention.  We love our Ella Bella.

Sophia

Sophie is 17 months old.  Time goes by way too fast!  At 17 months Sophie is walking everywhere.  I assumed that the second child would do everything faster than the first because she had someone to mimic.  That isn't the case with my Sophie.  She takes her time and does things when she wants.  She took her first step October 1st and started really walking in November.  Sophie still doesn't talk much.  She is really good at screaming and pointing though.  She signs inconsistently.  I know that she knows certain signs because she'll use them when she wants, but it just isn't that interesting to her.  She signs milk, all done, water, eat, and bath.  The only words she says are "Mama" and "Dada."  Sophie loves to help me around the house.  She grabs diapers, throws trash away, puts away her shoes and toys, and helps in any other ways she can.  She loves to point to belly buttons.  That was the first body part she learned to identify and it's still her favorite.  She also points to her head and nose.  She LOVES animals, but only tells us what a doggy says "woof  woof." Sophie's favorite toys are definitely baby dolls.  She lights up when we ask her to get her baby.  She loves to take her baby for a walk around the house with the little baby stroller.  Sophie also loves to push Ella's buttons (which are very easy to push!)  They fight about 70% of the time they are interacting.  The 30% of the time that they get along is adorable though.  She loves to play on Ella's bed or our bed and be wild.  Ella jumps (when we're not watching) and Sophie is a wild child so she just free falls and then laughs hysterically.  She is such a crazy little girl.  Her nicknames are Sophie, Soph, and monkey.  We love you baby!

my girls

This Christmas season I keep thinking about how truly blessed I am.  These two beautiful girls mean everything to me.  My whole life I've dreamed of being a mom and am so grateful that my dreams have come true.  Being a parent is the hardest thing I've ever experienced. I have so much to improve on, but I am so honored to have the opportunity.  My greatest blessing is my family and I'm so unbelievably grateful that I get to stay home with my girls.  It is easy to get caught up in unnecessary things so I'm grateful for this time of year that helps me think about what truly matters.

15 months

 

Notice that Sophie has not one, but TWO lollipops.  Sophie loves having both hands full.  At 15 months she still isn't walking (she took her first steps on October 1st- at 14 months, but still isn't walking).  She also isn't really talking.  I wish that she liked signing because that made such a difference with Ella, but she only signs all done, water, milk, eat, and more.  Unfortunately she doesn't sign any of them consistently.  She goes in phases with each of these signs.  I guess she just doesn't care to use signs or words- she just squawks!  This little girl knows what she wants and she is a fighter!  If you look closely at this picture you might see her little rash.  At about 13 months I took Sophie in to get a rash looked at.  I was worried she may have food allergies, but we found out that she has Perioral Dermatitis.  It doesn't bother her, but it flares up quite a bit and is surrounding her mouth and is under both of her eyes.  It seems to be getting a little better so hopefully we'll be able to get rid of it.  I was excited to see that Sophie is gaining weight.  She's still tiny, but here are her stats:

weight: 20.6 lbs --- 12th percentile

length: 31 in. --- 64th percentile

head circ: 47.3 cm --- 83rd percentile

         

Meeting Daniel

Baby Daniel was born June 20th.  We were so excited to go meet him, but waited a few months because we didn't want to intrude as Allie and Laz adjusted to their beautiful new baby.

  We flew out to Virginia in the middle of October and spent a week with Laz, Allie, and Danny.  We had a great time hanging out with their sweet family.  We relaxed most of the time and just enjoyed spending time together.  We went to an orchard one afternoon and picked apples after having a picnic.  We came home and baked an apple crisp with our fresh apples. 

 DC is one of my favorite cities so we had to go spend an afternoon there. 

  

 

It was beautiful fall weather the afternoon we went so we enjoyed walking around a few of the monuments.

 

I love museums.  The summer after I graduated from high school I came out to DC for 2 weeks to stay with my sister and her husband.  We spent most of our time in art museums.  I knew the girls wouldn't do well at museums, especially not studying art, so we decided to only try going to the National American History Museum because I thought Ella might be interested in some of the exhibits.  It went okay, but I was glad we only planned to go there. 

 We had a great time playing with baby Daniel and spending time with Laz & Allie.  The girls did pretty well with all of the travel which was a huge relief.  Although Ella was crying and did not want to leave Allie and Laz's house, when we landed in Utah she told me that she never wants to go on an airplane again!  It was a great trip, but I think we'll stay home for awhile.

 Ella loved playing with Daniel.  She always tried to love on him and wanted to be a part of everything, especially feeding him.  Ella loves baby Daniel so much that she keeps telling me that she wants us to have a baby brother and name him Daniel.  We can't wait to see him (and his parents) again at Christmas time.

budding photographer

While I was uploading pictures from the past few months I laughed when I found these pictures that Ella took:

 She took a picture of us in front of the White House.  Can you see it?

 This is another one Ella took of me and Gustavo from our trip to Washington DC.

 She walked  into my room one afternoon and snapped this picture of me.  I was impressed that she actually got my face :)

On Halloween Ella was so fed up with me taking her picture that she asked if she could take mine.  This is what she captured.

first snowfall

One October morning we woke up and saw that our yard was covered in a thin layer of snow.  Ella was elated!  She insisted on going out to play in it.  We got her all bundled up and she went out and made as many snow angels as she could.

The snow melted within a few hours, but she loved the time she was able to spend playing in it that morning.

fall fun

 We always hear about how fun Cornbelly's is so this year we took advantage of a great deal (thanks to Yolanda) and went to check it out. 

 We had lots of fun playing around.

 Ella loved every individual area so much that she didn't want to ever leave.

 Ella has quite an imagination.  I was listening to her use her best cowgirl accent as she offered to save people with her "lasaro" (a mix between lasso and Lazaro).

 

Sophie is so used to sharing the spotlight that she eats up any individual attention she gets!

It was very fitting that Ella's favorite area was the Princess Playland.  She got to pick out a dress and then went up on stage and danced her little heart out.  It was adorable to watch!  I think the only reason we could talk her into leaving was because they give the girls a treat when they returned their dresses.

 

We will definitely go back to Cornbelly's next year!

Preschool 2012

 I can't believe how grown up my Ella Bella is.  We are doing a little neighborhood preschool again this year with 4 other little girls in the area.  Ella was sad that we weren't able to do it with her preschool friends from last year, but has quickly become good friends with our new group.  She is very excited that her best friend, our next door neighbor Aimee, is in her class again this year.

 Ella loves school.  In fact, her favorite number is 5 because that's how old she will be when she gets to ride the bus to kindergarten.

We love our big girl so much!

Halloween 2012

 Back in the summer Ella was obsessed with fairy tales.  She was always asking me to read them to her or tell her them.  One day as I was telling her the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears we decided it would be fun if our family dressed up as those characters for Halloween.  We kept it really simple and had one of my old young women crochet bear hats and then dressed Ella up and curled her hair.  I asked her if she wanted blonde hair, but she quickly refused and told me that she likes her brown hair.  The idea sounded cuter than it ended up being.  No one seemed to have any idea who we were at the Trunk or Treat the weekend before Halloween.  This made it easy for me to change plans the night before Halloween when Ella told me she wanted to be Belle.

Ella fortunately had this beautiful Belle dress up from her birthday so she wore that.

 We found Ella's old costume from two years ago and it fit Sophie perfectly so she dressed up as a fairy.

 Usually it is really cold on Halloween here in Utah, but this year it snowed the week before and then got really warm again.  It was 70 degrees on Halloween! It was a fun holiday filled with way too much candy and lots of opportunities to get together with friends and family.

soccer girl

 This fall we decided to put Ella in a city soccer league because Yolanda, her aunt, was the coach.  We thought it would be fun for Ella to have this experience with Yolanda and Gabe.  She LOVED it.

 She played as well as we could have hoped a three year old would play.  She was emotional at times and didn't really understand the game for the most part, but she was an incredible goalie!  She really impressed us as goalie because she wasn't afraid of the ball and saved most of the balls that came her way.

 By the end of the season she was loving playing soccer and kept asking Gustavo to go outside and play with her.  One of the last games she did really well and was on cloud nine.  On the way home she kept talking about how much she loves her team and how much everyone loves her.  I love the egocentricity of 3 year olds.

  

We loved watching Ella get better over the course of the season and seeing how excited she was about it.  She refers to herself as a "soccer girl" and even asked us to call her that!

 Ella and Gabe have always been really close.  They love playing together and are such good friends.  During soccer they didn't interact much on the field, but they had fun on the side lines together.

Thanks Nena and Gabe for inviting Ella to come play on your team!

12 months

 Sophie must know how sad I am seeing her grow up so she's staying my little baby for as long as possible.  She isn't really showing any signs of walking, she only has 4 little teeth, and she is TINY!  When we went to her 12 month appointment we found out that she:

weighs:

her head is:

and is

I can't get over how cute my little Sophie is!

troublemaker

Our little Sophie is into everything!  She leaves a mess wherever she goes.

 I found Sophie in her closet one afternoon ripping clothes off of hangers.

 Sophie is a climber.  This is new for me because Ella has always been so cautious (just like her mom!)

 This happens EVERY time she's in the kitchen and I'm not holding her. Notice how extremely happy she is about what she's done.

I try to keep this game cupboard locked because there is so much potential for huge messes, but Sophie seems to have some kind of radar and knows every time I forget.  Within seconds she has taken out at least two games and made a huge mess.  I need to keep my eyes on this little monkey at all times!

Sophie's first birthday

 

 My beautiful baby girl is ONE!

 

On Friday the 13th we celebrated Sophia's first birthday at a circus themed party with our family.

  

Eleanor designed these adorable cupcake toppers for Sophia.

 

 

Sophie loved her cupcake. This was new for us!  She wasn't very smiley during a majority of her party because I think she was just soaking everything in, but she was very content and definitely didn't want me to take her cupcake away!

  

When it was time to open presents Sophie was spoiled.

 She LOVED all of her presents!  This little rolling horse from Abuela and Abuelo was a huge hit!

 Sophie's face just lit up as she opened each of her gifts.

We love our sweet little Sophia.  It makes me sad to think that me darling baby is growing up so quickly.  Fortunately she still snuggles and wants to be held often.  I'll baby her for as long as she'll let me!