Vampire Ella

Okay...so truth be told, the next couple of Halloween posts are very labor intensive, so I'm just not going to get to them tonight. However, I have tons of blogging to do, so I need to get something up...

Ella has been a biter for a while now. I have mentioned it on the blog before, however in the last week and a half, she's taken it to a whole new level. She's bit Isabelle once and Emery twice, really bad. Isabelle was giving Ella a hug and she bit her arm. As soon as I heard the screaming, I knew what was happening. You wouldn't know it by these heart breaking pictures, but I lightly spanking Ella's mouth. She just gets horribly offended right now.

I don't have pictures of Emery's bite marks, mostly because the camera wasn't handy and Emery needed immediate rescuing and consoling. Both times, Ella bit Emery's fingers, so pictures probably wouldn't have shown much anyways. Emery doesn't offer to show me either... 

Ella is so bad at biting that really you can't put any part of you by her mouth because her instinct is to chomp. I have to constantly remind Isabelle to be careful when playing with her so that she doesn't get bit. Isn't that horrible? I really really can't wait until this phase is past!

Celebrating Halloween Day 5: Chocolate Covered Pretzels

Another Halloween project we did was cover pretzel sticks. Originally we were trying to make a big spider web, but we didn't really have the right tools. So we ended up making ghosts. Isabelle loved it. She thought it was more about using the pretzel as a spoon that it was about decorating it. Emery and Ella spent a lot of time begging for pretzels. They love them. 

 

Eleven Months

Ella:

• She is very busy. She is constantly on the go and into everything. She is a ton of work.
• She walks extremely well and has started to walk so fast that she's starting to try and run. When she does so though, her top half goes faster than her bottom so she ends up falling forward.
• Her first word was "mama" and she also says "uh oh."
• If she sees anything small and electronic, i.e. The remote, laptop, iPod, phones... She can't resist fighting for them.
• She loves toothbrushes.
• She throws tantrums.
• She is totally distraught every time someone goes out the front door without her. Every morning she follows Curt and stands there and cries and cries when he leaves for work or school. 
• She loves to scream. When she's happy, upset, requesting more food...regardless of the emotion, she LOVES to scream. Even as I write this she's walking up and down our long, echo-y hallway screaming for no reason at all...
• She is still a scavenger. She will be in the high chair eating, be full and refuse food so we'll take her out. She will then eat things off the floor just cause it's there. Drives me bonkers.
• She's still a biter. Maybe not quite as much, but she's bit both Isabelle and Emery really really hard. It is not good. Curt and I know how much it hurts too.
• She gets her feelings hurt really easily. When Curt and I both give her looks and shake our heads, she cries. When she gets playfully spanked, she cries. When she gets patted on the back cause she's choking, she cries. It's kind of funny actually. 
• She LOVES Baby Einstein. We definitely don't have enough...only one working one and it's annoying cause it's the Languages one that has barely any English on it. We hate it, so they only get to watch it when we get desperate. 
• Her favorite places to play are in the bathroom, in the laundry room and on the dish washer. Obviously, all the places we try not to let them. 
• She loves brooms. She knows just where we keep them and she'll go and get them when she wants.
• She cut another tooth this month. Here's her updated teething chart:

Emery:

• She's finally started standing on her own. She doesn't have much confidence in herself yet though. 
• She's taking steps. She's done it several times and has taken up to four steps at a time.
• She also loves toothbrushes.
• Her words consist of "mama," "dada," and "Ella." She also says, "Na, Na" a ton. All the time. 
• She loves to play on her own. She does so well with just sitting in one spot and playing with toys. She doesn't like to be bothered and when Ella and Isabelle leave her alone she is the perfect little player.
• She spins circles while sitting. She's very good at it and can do it really fast.
• She sits with her ankles crossed all the time.
• While sitting she also likes to put her right leg up in the air.
• She loves to be held, especially standing up.
• Her favorite people in the whole world are her two Grandpas.
• She loves...LOVES yogurt. Seriously, she has been known to eat 10-12 ounces in one sitting. As soon as she sees the container, her whole countenance brightens and she starts wigging out because she wants it immediately.
• She also loves Baby Einstein.
• She loves to rub her food-filled hands through her hair while she's eating. 
• She drinks out of a cup with ease. She doesn't hold it, but other than that, she's a pro.

Celebrating Halloween Day 4: Second Pumpkin Patch Trip

Since I wasn't happy with the way our first trip to the pumpkin patch went, I suggested going to the bigger Flower Mound pumpkin patch the Wednesday before Halloween as soon as Curt got home from work. Traffic was so bad that it took us an hour to get up there, so in the end we were only there for 25 minutes. However, it was totally worth it. There was next to no one there and the weather was perfectly cool. The girls loved it and behaved wonderfully. 

They have a lot of character cut outs that Isabelle just loves. She's on a total Backyardigans kick right now and was very excited to see each of them there. She was just starting to like them a month ago, now she would probably go crazy from excitement if she saw them... She also loves Strawberry Shortcake, although she doesn't watch that show. She's just stolen a couple action figures of her from her Grandma that she loves. Of course, she still loves Dora and Boots... Ariel is totally her favorite princess right now and was excited to see her too.

I'm so glad we went back just for these pictures of the girls and our family picture. Ella loved playing on the ground with the pumpkins!

We let Isabelle pick out a small pumpkin. We picked out another one for the babies to share. Man, she loved that pumpkin! She even paid for them herself...well with our money. She totally loved the pumpkin patch this time around so much more too. She ran around and played, visited all her cut out friends, willingly took pictures, played on the wooden trains, enjoyed picking up pumpkins and picked out her favorite pumpkin to take home. It was a great time overall and she still asks to go back, a month later. 

After we left the patch, we even splurged a little bit and got the girls some chicken nuggets from McDonalds. Isabelle loves them (I should do a post about them, now that I think about it...) and we needed to burn some time before bed time since Emery and Ella had fallen asleep on the way to the pumpkin patch. It worked and all three girls fell asleep in the car. My favorite way to handle bed time! I'm so glad we decided to go out there!!

Celebrating Halloween Day 3: Finger Puppets and Coloring

On day three I printed some cut-out paper finger puppets for Isabelle to play with. She loved them immediately, but really loved them after Curt showed her that her fingers go in the holes. Her favorite was the bat, but she liked putting the hat on her head too. She is so silly.

I also printed off a pumpkin for her to color. She has gotten so good at coloring and still enjoys it very much. 

These were pretty low-key projects, but Isabelle still loves them...

Celebrating Halloween Day 2: First Pumpkin Patch Trip

A month ago, I posted about our first day of celebrating Halloween. Now I'm finally back to write about some of the other things we did to celebrate Halloween...you know now that we are in full celebration of everything turkeys around here.

We went to the Pumpkin Patch on the 22nd of October, pretty late in the afternoon since Heather had to work that day. Before even starting this post, I'm already having a hard time writing it. I don't really know what to say. I wish I were more of an optimist or that I had lower expectations, but it just wasn't a great afternoon. Before going, I bought a Groupon to save money on tickets for rides. With the Groupon, I received 20 tickets. My mother-in-law also bought the Groupon and when she went, she only used seven of the 20 tickets, so we inherited the remaining 13. I think we used 9 total of the 33 I had. The workers were rude, the lines were either non-existent and unorganized or super long. Really, there wasn't even much to spend the tickets on. Either a barrel ride or pony rides...Groupon tickets didn't get you the same things as the cash tickets did. Well, Isabelle was only interested in the ponies. It's the only thing she wanted to do. Curt had to stand in line for 45 minutes so Isabelle and Levi could ride the two ponies they had going. The babies hated being there. I mean, they liked the pumpkins and all, but they're at the age where they want to crawl and walk every where, but that just isn't possible cause they don't listen and follow directions and they can't resist stopping and putting every little thing in their mouth. They hate being confined in their car seats and their strollers. Both the car seats and strollers don't allow them to really sit up either which only adds to their major frustration. Isabelle liked the pumpkins too, but it only held her attention for about two minutes. The rest of the time, she was concerned with the pigs eating the pumpkins in the "petting zoo" that you can't reach in to pet any of the animals or the ponies. She didn't understand why she couldn't ride them when ever she wanted and as much as she wanted. Ugh...it was a major struggle. Plus I am totally the person that measures whether or not she had a good time or whether it was worth it by the pictures she took. Well...yeah, there aren't much. Heather and I combined took over 800 pictures or something and I feel like none of them are perfect. I think that's part of the problem too...I expect perfection....and my family is nothing close to perfect at taking pictures.

1: Isabelle was pretty excited to see the pumpkins at first. 2: Curt and Isabelle showing the pumpkins to Ella and Emery. 3: We purposefully avoided the ponies at first, knowing Isabelle would not care to do anything else once she saw them. However, she didn't want to do anything else. She did get in one bounce house, but as soon as she was in, she wanted out. 4: Watching a pig eat a pumpkin.

5: Love at first sight...finally realizing there were ponies there. 6-8: Frame by frame action of her excitement and need to get closer.

9: Finally on the pony! 10-11: She loved every minutes of it. 12: The girls watching Isabelle and Levi on the ponies.

13: I'm always so surprised and happy that she doesn't put up a fight to get off of the horses/ponies we let her ride! Yay for that!! 14: After the ponies, we tried to take group pictures. Yeah...right. 15: The best of the three girls. 16: Emery by herself. She's definitely the easiest to get to smile of all my children.

17: Ella by herself. We had to distract her from all the grass on the ground by the pumpkins or else everything went straight to her mouth. Man, it's times like that, and only then, that I miss the pacifier! 18: Our family picture. There is actually one better, where Isabelle's smiling, but the rest of us look special...but it corrupted. Figures... 19: All the grand kids. Sorry, mom, there isn't a better one. 

20: My sweet Emery. 21: It totally seems this kid doesn't know how to take bad pictures. He likes to rub it in that I can't get perfect ones of my kid. 22: Well...except for when Isabelle smiles, then he doesn't. 23: Happy to be going home!! 

P.S. Please don't leave me comments telling me I should be grateful for what I have...because I am. I just look forward to the Pumpkin Patch all year long. Seriously. However, I'm sorry this turned out to be one big rant. Better, happier, posts are scheduled and coming. I promise.

Emery's First Pony Tail

On Sunday, Emery sported her first pony tail and little bow. I was actually surprised that she had so much short hair and not much long hair. She did really well with having it done and extremely well with not even touching it. She actually kept it in for two whole days. Yay for growing up!

Climbing the Stairs

While Curt and I were at choir practice on October 16th, Emery decided she knew how to climb the stairs and did it. Isabelle did the same thing... It is so scary to have her climb them since she still doesn't know how to come down or that in the middle of it, she can't just change her mind or decide to stop and sit there since she doesn't know how to sit on the steps either. Ella's started to climb them too, although I don't have any pictures of her doing so yet. One thing is for sure though, she it totally proud of herself once she gets to the top. Man, I'm glad we don't have stairs in our house this time around. I know how much I hated it with Isabelle at this age...I can't even imagine constantly fighting it with two babies!

Most Loved Time of the Day

Okay...maybe not day, because let's face it. We don't bathe our kids every day. It's too much work. While it is the most favorite part of all three of their day, it is one of the worst part of ours. Seriously...so much work. They love to splash and play/eat the bath toys. They love pushing the limits and trying to stand and walk in the tub. Ella loves playing with the faucet and trying to turn on the shower. We brush their teeth at the end and Ella throws all out tantrums when it's time to get out/stop brushing her teeth. Plus, getting all three of them out at the same time is impossible, so someone is always whining cause they're the last one in. Which is also a problem...since we have to leave one of them in by themselves at the end while we dry off and diaper the others. Really...it totally wears us out. By "us," I mostly mean Curt, cause I make him do it and I just assist. I sure am glad they all like baths. It really was so annoying and hard when Isabelle hated them...

Heather's Crown

Honestly, I'm not exactly sure how Isabelle was introduced to this crown...just sometime over at my mom's house it happened. This is the tiara that my sister Heather wore on her wedding day. Isabelle found it or was given it and she instantly fell in love. She wore it all the time when she first got it. Then she decided that it hurt, so she was always trying to get Levi to wear it instead...which his dad, Andrew, totally loved. :) She also would put it on Ella and Emery too. Now, she's gone back to loving it... I had been trying to get good pictures of her in it for weeks before I finally got these.

First Swing

Once again, I'm so far behind on blogging... Life is just crazy around here lately. I've been meaning to write this post in combination with another set of pictures, but Heather isn't very good about getting pictures to me (hint, hint Heather!!)

On the 10th of September, we went to a local park to spend some time as a family and to get outside. The weather had FINALLY turned bearable (although we were still sweating this day) so we wanted to take the girls to play. At the park, Isabelle's current favorite thing is definitely the slide. She doesn't go down the big ones or the enclosed ones, but she loves the little ones. On this day, we put the babies in the swings for the first time. They were okay with it...but didn't love it like Isabelle did her first time.

The following day we put them both in one swing at my parent's house and they seemed to like that better. Unfortunately, those are the pictures I don't have because they were taken with Heather's camera... I guess someday I'll blog about those. :)

Flashback Friday 6: Evolution of Dora

When it came to talking, Isabelle was a rock star. She spoke so well right from the beginning. However there were some random words that she struggled with. One of them was Dora. Simple enough, right?! At first she called Dora "Puta." Then after some coaching she called Dora "Dweeda." I didn't even know this video existed since Heidi took it a couple of days after I had the babies. I am so happy that we have a video of this. There is a random second part of the video that is about a drawing. I think it was Heather who drew a picture of a weird-looking boy and told Isabelle it was Curt. Every time she saw the picture after that, the pictures was of Curt.

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Another word that she did a similar thing to was snowman. We would ask her to say "snow" then she would say "snow." Then we would ask her to say "man" and she would repeat "snow." However, if told her to say "snowman" she would say "Mall Mall." Anyone catch on to why she would call the snowman "mall mall?" She did because of the song "Once There Was a Snowman." 

Conversations with Isabelle: Part 4

Isabelle: "Ella love me."
Me: "Yes, Ella and Emery love you very much!"
Isabelle: (To Ella) "I love Ella!"

Ella: whine, whine, cry, whine
Isabelle: "Come here. I hold ya!"

While at the park, we showed Isabelle a fire pole. We showed her how to use it by putting Ella on it and slid her down. When we asked her if she wanted to do it she said: "No...I don't want to do that. I could fall!!" She said it totally adult-voice matter-of-factly.

Isabelle loves Frosty the Snowman. While singing the song, she sang: "Frosty the Snowman, ollie ollie up the nose..."

While playing with her princess, Isabelle made Jasmine say this to Cinderella: "No, I not go to time out! I Jasmine!"

Isabelle definitely talks back. The other day I was trying to get her to cooperate with having her diaper changed.
Me: "Come her Isabelle!"
Isabelle: "I busy!!"

Flashback Friday5: Ring Around the Rosies

After Emery and Ella's blessing Isabelle and her two cousins played Ring Around the Rosies in the back of the cultural hall. I thought the grandparent's would enjoy this...

Happy Halloween

Until I get all the pictures from my sister and the blogging bug bites me again, this will have to do. :)