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.

No teeth yet!!

So Ella's doctor explained that what looked like the tip of a tooth wasn't really a tooth but a harmless epithelial cyst.She said they see it with some regularity and it goes away on it's own-it did.She did say that Ella is displaying pre-teething behaviour.You can see teeth getting ready to pop up just beneath her gums.

On Tuesday, Ella weighed 14.8 pounds and measured 25 inches.She is just above average for both height and weight even though people usually comment that she looks bigger than she is.

This week I noticed that she is passing her little rattle from hand to hand and she likes turning the pages on her fabric taggies book...she can now also turn the thick plastic pages of her look book.Baby really enjoys having her hair blow dried and a good massage after her bath.Stephen says it's obvious she is our only child.

We are trying to get Ella used to an arlier bedtime...will let you know how that goes.

4 months and here come my teeth!!

I always thought that I would know when Ella started teething because she would would become incredibly fussy,maybe a little bit of a fever ad of-course all that drool....well, she definately drrola a lot but since she wasn't unusally fussy except for the usual before naps or bedtime.

Long story short-yesterday a cute little toooth started to poke through Ella's gums.Not the fron teeth you normally see as a babies first teeth..oh no, she went straight to the pre-molars!!

I can only imagine that we will see a few more teeth coming through soon. We have our 4 month check-up on Tuesday and will find out how much weight she has gained and how much taller she is.My guess is quite a lot-my arms actually hurt toting my chubster around. She is currently being entertained by her daddy-lots of movement and singing and she is a happy camper.

Ella has also recently developed a tolerance for her cradle swing;which means just a little over 10 minutes at a time. I really feel like she understands everything I say-well almost everything.

She is quite fascinated by watching us eating and I think we will be starting solids soon.Oh-she discovered her toes one night and she looked adorably stunned as she made the connections. So cute...we included some pics for you.

Ella at a quarter of a year!!

Clearly we are not doing a fantastic job of keeping you up to date...we hope to make it up to you by posting some new pictures of Ella taking in some afternoon sun and admiring herself in the bathroom mirror, oh and chilling on the couch.

New things include sucking on her bottom lip, a few more cooing sounds and most recently being able to pull herself up to a sitting position while holding on to our hands. She does also like to do these little stomach crunches;quite funny to watch. She focuses so hard, it's like she is willing herself to get up. Still no interest in tummy time but we're not worried that she isn't strengthening her back muscles. After seeing all her other antics;it looks like she is pretty strong.

We are graduating Ella to size 2 diapres this weekend as she turns 13 weeks tomorrow and an estimated thirteen and a half pounds. She looks quite a bit longer as well as you will see in her new pics.Enjoy.

It's been awhile

Hello everyone,
Today is January 8th and Stevie (Ella Grace) is now almost 10 weeks old. Yesterday was her two month check-up and she weighted 11 lbs 6 oz and measured over 22 inches long. She also got her two month shots and she took it like a thug;to quote Tupac, "busta's shot me 3 times, I took it and smiled". But no on the real, Ella got 3 shots and only cried for a quick second until daddy picked her up and then she just laughed. That's definetly a "detroit style" baby. I think Pearl cried more about the shots than Ella did. No seriously, after Ella's doctors appointment, Pearl had to take the day off becuase she wasn't feeling too well. I thought it was becuase she wanted to be at home with the baby to give her time to adjust, but it turns out that she needed time to adjust. Poor baby (Pearl that is)!!! Well, this has been a Stephen Cornelius Peter Detroit Diesel Daniel update on Stevie, Ella Grace, stay tuned for more on the most beautiful baby in the world.

i'll holla tickle tickle tickle

bathtime with ella

Make a Smilebox photobook

Make a Smilebox slideshow

5 week update

Ella has found her voice. At this point Sarah and Uncle Michael A. are the only ones who have had a somewhat substantial 'conversation' with her. Even her little baby cooing sounds like the cutest thing ever.
At her one month check-up last week, Ella weighed 8 pounds and 12 ounces which is a daily gain of an ounce and a bit. She also gained an inch and a half in length. Stephen thinks she is looking chubbier. I wouldn't call her chubby just yet but will agree that her cheeks seem fuller and some angles give her a double chin.
She has started enjoying her swing(which means more than 5 minutes at a time)-I am not sure if it is the movement, the music or the colorful mobile overhead; whatever it is, it gives me a quick break now and again when I need it.
She spends more time awake these days, playtime is longer and this morning it was playtime for Ella and Daddy at 4:45am, giving me a chance to sleep.

Ella went out in the snow on Saturday-we picked a nice snowy day for her first outing. She had a lot of layers on her for the short trips from the apartment to the car and the car to the house. It was great to be around people again. I love my husband and my baby and I really enjoyed having more people around me who I love so much.

Ella's First Thanksgiving

We have so much to be thankful for this year; without question God's biggest blessing is our baby Ella. They say every parent thinks their child is brilliant and advanced for their age and we are no exception. I am not sure when all the different milestones are to be expected but, Ella is getting really good at holding her head up while on her tummy, she rolls over onto her side on her own and has started pushing off with her feet and moved all the way up Stephen's pillow this morning. We are just hoping that Ella will start sleeping in longer stretches at night...we have had a few 5 hour sleeps and are hoping for more!! Never quite understood why new parents always talk about sleep deprivation but we found out pretty quickly.

Stephen and I enjoyed our first Thanksgiving as a family of three today.....it feels really nice.We hope that you enjoyed your day.