Almost 3 yrs old!

Today is show and tell and usually I see a parade of books or toys that Ella wants to show her calss. Today she is taking some basic supplies like a bowl and a wooden spoon, measuring cup etc. She is showing the children at daycare how she makes banana bread...she's really good at mixing and tasting.She talked it through this morning and I can't help but wonder:'Could I have an overachiever on my hands here?' Next week is Elli's 3rd birthday. It's November 1st and she reminds everyone. People she sees often and plays with, random waitress who got invited to her birthday party, people she chatted with in the carpark...appparently all are welcome to our house for the party. It will be princess themed as requested and essentials like party hats and streamers have been purchased. Sometimes I'll hear:'Oh no, we forgot to buy the napkins!' and then I have to tell her that it's okay because I bought those while she was napping . I really did but she likes to check that we have everything good to go. We have been anticipating this birthday since June when she started telling people that it's coming up!! I really could not love my little girl any more, everything she does even in her feisty little moments is just precious to me. I had no idea how entertaining she would be or how charming. She still has that special gift of getting free food, people just ask if they can give her stuff.Not complaining, it's great.

Stephen came home from his pastor's retreat while Ella was taking a nap, she woke up as soon as she heard his voice and was all smiles and hugs for her daddy. It was really sweet that he joined her for nap time,only one of them napped... I walked in a little while later and Ella popped up to say :' I can only have one piecey.' piece of what you may ask, and the answer would be the box of gum she found as she went hrough his pockets. Some went back in daddy's pockets, some got stashed under the pillow and then there were other discoveries to be made. Ellie is happy to have daddy home, her lips are nicely moisturised from the Chapstick that she found in another pocket and her breath smells winter fresh after her nap...thank you daddy. Stephen was not hurt during this event , just puzzled as to how he was robbed and didn't feel a thing.

We have the day off and we have just been relaxing with Ella at home. It's nice to not do anything sometimes. Ella has been asleep for an hour and a half on daddy's lap while he is watching a movie. He fed her bits of chicken and potatoes for lunch-so surreal that she can eat grown-up food now. She was 'helping' to take the dishes out of the dishwasher today. Ella responds to 'stand up' and 'sit down' and expects applause every time she does it-she cues us by saying 'Yayyy!' and clapping for herself. She also does high fives and gives kisses-so cute! I am noticing a little trend of little things being misplaced and they pop up while she is playing around-like chapstick in a random drawer in the closet and plastic lids in the living room, now if I could just find her toothbrush.

Ella is having a wonderful time chatting in her special and very foreign sounding baby babble and sorting through all our DVD's. She will stop occasionally to see what Stephen and i are doing and go right back to exploring. Now that she get's around really well,there is no corner of our home that she hasn't made herself familiar with. She is cutting 4 teeth on the top and I wonder if she will look very different once they come through completely. She s starting to eat more table foods and munched on some chicken for quite a while yesterday-a half hour later she looked like she was chewing and it was a little piece of chicken!! Bridgette, remind you of anyone?

It's tub time now and then we are going for a walk. Ella likes to wave and say hell to strangers and sometimes blow kisses or growl at them..depends on the mood I guess.
Just have to finish up dinner and my helper is so involved in teh process-I found a pair of her socks in the veggie drawer, believe me she is right next to me every step of the way.

Today Ella will attend Lexi and Kenny's wedding with mummy and daddy. She is ready for this celebration and has benn clapping and saying yay!!!!!! all morning. She dances, even when no music is playing and is able to pull herself up to stand really quickly now. She seems to be into everything now thst she can get around and my bookshelves have never looked crazier. Patrick commented this week that he is an organised person as well and then you become a parent.How do organised people manage with little children? I consider myself a rules person and I also love just letting Ella be Ella and figuring out her personality, likes and dislikes. I guess eventually a middle ground will emerge, right now she is flying free!Don't misunderstand me, we set boundaries and keep her safe, but she sets her sleep times and although that is frowned upon by her pediatrician, Ella has established her own pattern and has great sleeps.

I am officially opposed to sleep training. I wasn't sleep trained and I turned out just fine.

Her two little teeth came out just fine as well-so cute!!

Ella crawls everywhere!! The living room has been rearranged to accommodate her or more appropriately to keep her contained..nothing is safe.we are trying to connect with my mum on skype-this shouldn't be difficult.Ella waves and sticks out her tongue when excited..back in a bit

It's Sunday morning and today will be the day that all of our summer staff arrive and we kick of another great season. We have already had two intense weeks of training and Ella has been making new friends and being her usual social self. She has been waking up at 7am and I think that may change soon since she woke up at 5:20am this morning looking for Dada. They played and then she went right back to sleep...I think she needed the rest..meeting new people can be exhausting.

Stephen watched Ella yesterday for most of the morning while I came in to work. She did fine at first and then realised I wasn't around and as he says, 'she becomes completely inconsolable.' She still takes the best naps when she is with him;her afternoon nap yesterday was almost 2 hours long.

Ella is eating oatmeal cereal and green beans and sweet peas and yesterday she got her first taste of peaches.I know- veggies first, but I think she will still eat her veggies if she gets a taste of fruit, after all breast milk is sweet and that is the first thing that babies get.

She is now able to crawl backwards and a little bit forwards and is able to walk her hands around to the direction she wants to move. She gets on all fours, stretches out one leg and gets herself into a sitting position-looks really happy when she finds herself sitting. She spent a good bit of time standing in her crib this morning; just holding onto the side and grinning.

Cousin Corbin graduated kindergarten this Friday and Ella was of-course, the noisiest member of the audience. I remember when Corbin was as little as Ella and now he is such a wonderful,big boy and so handsome too. I couldn't help but think that with the way that time flies, I will soon be watching Ella graduate as well. Right now I am enjoying this time which, I am told, is the best thing to do.

7 Months old today!!

This is all happening so fast;I commented this morning that we will soon have a 1 year old! Ella is becoming more of a charmer everyday and is quite the social baby, even with the arrival of 24 new staff this Monday when I know I take some time to adjust to all the new faces.

A few more sounds but the most important would be her saying 'Mama' last week for the first time and it's about time too..she has been saying 'Dada' for months now.
On Saturday after she had been napping in her crib for 45 minutes, I checked in on her and was surprised to see her on all fours and rocking back and forth.She was so quiet that I had no idea that she was awake. She does get really quiet when she is working on something or breaking something..she took apart the toy ring that goes over her jumpy seat and seemed to be using very little effort to do it too.

I think that she throws her placemat off her high chair just to see where it will land. Ella is now on a four hour feeding schedule which helps stop the spitting up that she used to do when I fed her everytime she wanted to eat..clearly hasn't learn't how to self-regulate.

She still loves all mirrors and the colour yellow and flowers and her Dada-she lights up when she sees him.She also likes going for walks outside...she tries to stand while holding onto us or the side of her crib or the ottoman...maybe she will be walking soon..evrything seems to be happening so quickly but I guess that is how everyone who has a baby must feel. I can't remember what it felt like when she was tiny..she weighs so much more now;soon it will be time to pack away her Baby Bjorn as they only go up to 30 inches and she was 25,5 at her last appointment.

As we have now officially started our busy season at camp, things will look different for the next 12 weeks. This week we start at 8am and end around 5pm. Ella wakes up around 7am. In three weeks we will start at 7am so her day will have to start earlier. She definately likes all the people and doesn't mind noise and it is such a blessing to be able to have her with me at work. You can pray for an easy transition for us as we head into the summer.

Tonight is Stephen's last late night on a Tuesday-his busy season ends as mine picks up!!

Time to get some things done while Ella is still asleep and snoring...cute snore!

Ella is 29 weeks old today. At her 6 month check-up she weighed 16 pounds and 10 ounces and measured 25,5 inches.She is in the 54th percentile for weight and the 33rd percentile for height.She is creeping and rolling and seems to keep bumping her head as she practices all her new moves..like just now..so she is on my lap while she recovers, this will take seconds and she's off again.

Back again to mess with the laptop...so many things to explore.I love our wriggly, busy, animated, sweet baby.

I can sit up now!!

On Friday last week, Ella sat up for a bit without immediately toppling over..since then we have given her opportunities to practice sitting up for longer and longer periods of time and today was the longest stretch ever..she can officially sit up by herself. It's amazing how quickly all these developments take place; I remember wondering why she wasn't rolling over yet and hearing Jenny's good advice to try not to compare her milestones with other babies...so hard to do but I know that every baby does things in their own time and she rolled when she was ready.

She is chuckling much more and is quite a ham on her high chair-she does these fake laughs to get my attention.Still doesn't call me anything -just says 'Hey' and calls Stephen 'Da-da'. Although Ella is not crawling, she manages to roll to things she wants pretty quickly when you leave her line of sight..the TV stand is her most recent target.

Most people comment that she looks just like Stephen but when she sleeps with her neck bent at an angle(don't know how that is comfortable)..she looks just like my sister to me.

She is having a good long and much needed nap right now and as much as I wait for her to sleep so I can work, I sometimes just can't wait for her to wake up so I can hold her close.

Baby's dedication is on Sunday and we chose a bible verse for her:

Numbers 6:24-26

"The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace."

I really like the Message Version:

God bless you and keep you,
God smile on you and gift you,
God look you full in the face
and make you prosper.

If you are a mummy, Happy Mother's Day for Sunday...you have the most challenging job I have had so far!!!..still it's so wonderful.
Love,Pearl

Ella has started eating cereal, oatmeal to be precise. The first time she seemed more into the plastic bib than anything else, the second timeshe started really opening her mouth and seemed upset when all the cereal was done, the third time she was all about the bowl and spoons. So it is going well and we look forward to introducing fruit and veggies too. Stephen had camp out overnighter on Friday and Ella woke up on Saturday morning saying Da-da..I had to call him and have him listen to her calling him over and over again...so cute.She is doubling up all the sounds now;na-na,ya-ya,ba-ba and the babbling goes on for quite a while. She is going for a drive with her Da-da now.

Happy Easter!!!

We hope that you had a wonderful day celebrating Christ's resurrection. Ella went to church in her new clothes,hung out with her daddy at Kidz Church, played some soccer in her pack and play, did a little photo shoot for mummy and then got tired of the new dress.Less clothing helped put her in a better mood and she played happily for most of the afternoon.

We have made some progress in getting Ella to bed earlier..it used to be around 10pm when she would finally fall asleep and now it's around 8:30pm. She is a good little sleeper. The first of this month marked baby's 5 month birthday and she wore a 9 month dress that fit her just right...guess they make them smaller these days!!

She is definately picking up more consonants and says 'Da' quite clearly. She surprised us last Sunday when she copied Stephen and said 'Yes'. She hasn't said it since but she does say 'this'. On Friday while I was changing her diaper, Ella reached out for my water bottle and rolled over for the first time. Looking forward to more firsts with our sweet baby girl...we will probably be introducing cereal to her diet next week; she is very interested in whatever I am eating and leans forward to take bites when I do.

Good night from the Daniel household.

P.S. Mummy , Ella is wearing a little hair band just for you.