Kid updates!

February 27th, 2010

This is one of those posts for the grandmas and the scrapbook…lots of details that are likely only amazing to us!

Zeke is changing so much right now! My baby is disappearing already!  I love this little boy!  He is 11 months already!

The biggest update is that he walks!  He has been taking a step or two when prompted since around ten months.  But he never initiated steps on his own and never took more than a couple.  Well, all of sudden, he is off!  The same week he turned 11 months, he went for it!  He still crawls when we wants to get somewhere in a hurry (like the stairs, a snack on sister’s table, toward an open door to the bathroom - oy!).  But he toddles all across the house now.  One of our favorite moments was when he was taking some of his first steps and Ella yelled, “That’s what I’m talking about Zeke!“  Joel thought that was hilarious!

Zeke is really interacting too!  When you ask, “How big is Zekey?,” he raises his hands to say “SO big!”  He can wave hello and bye-bye and also blow a kiss.  He baby signs “more” and “all done.”  He also plays peek-a-boo.  When I ask, “Wheeeere is Zeke?,” he covers his eye (though sometimes it is ear, head, anywhere).  When you start singing “pat-a-cake” or “If you’re happy and you know it,” he immediately starts clapping.  He even rolls the dough!  The cutest though is when you say, “Will you give mama a kiss?”  He leans in to peck on the mouth!  Oh, and when I tell him “no-no” he raises his little hand and waves it back and forth just like I do!

On the less favorable list, he just started throwing food on to the ground from his high chair.  He loves toilets (ick!) and climbing stairs. He does not have the same interest in books as Ella always has but I keep pushing it.  He likes turning the pages.

He has recently stopped putting his head down on my shoulder when I rock him before bed.  He has always been really cuddly once we turn off the light and put on his sound machine.  Now, he wiggles in my arms and won’t cuddle in so I have to just kiss him and lay him down right away.  Boo.

As a boy, he seems much more persistent than Ella.  When she was getting into something, I could distract her, move her, give her something else.  He immediately makes a bee-line back to what he wants…very focused!  Those boys and their one track minds!

He loves to dance, bopping to any music.  His favorite foods are bananas and pear chunks.  He refuses any kind of chicken, no matter how I disguise it.  In fact, until recently he never really refused food period.  But, he spit out oatmeal this morning which he used to love. He just learned to drink from a straw! Oh, those little lips!  So cute!

His words are still just mama and dada.  But he tries to repeat lots of sounds, copying me.  He also has a game with Ellie where she makes a sound at him, he laughs and then makes it back.  “Tst!” “Dat!” “Ah!”

Zeke never refuses a smile to others.  He has four front teeth on the top now so his grin is SO CUTE!

Eloise is growing and learning too!  She is so independent.  She can take care of most of her basic needs by herself - getting a snack (with permission of course), going to the bathroom and washing her hands, getting herself dressed.  She can pick out a video and get it all set and playing in her DVD player. She also gets us the paper from the porch each morning.

She takes EXCELLENT care of her brother.  The other day, I was at the gym and I can watch the kids on the monitor in the childcare area.  EVERY time I checked in on them, she was giving him a toy, a snack, his pacifier.  She yells to me anytime he is going near the stairs or the fireplace.  When he gets hurt, she has the most wonderful little sweet comforting voice for him.

Ellie helps set the table each night and she is in charge of putting away the silverware when we empty the dishwasher.  I have her pick up her own clothes and put them in the dirty clothes basket and also put away books in her room every couple of days.  She never really fights me - we talk about how we all contribute to take care of our family and she seems to get it.  She is also Joel’s right hand, helping him with all little house projects.

We are still working on night-time potty training even though she has been potty trained since before she was two.  We tackled the pacifier first - dropping that at Thanksgiving.  She is a loving, but passionate little girl.  Most of the time she gets discipline it is for talking disrespectfully to mama or pushing Zeke away from her toy or food.  As a first-born, she is definitely bossy with friends and brother.

Ella can draw happy faces and is getting close to writing her name!  I write out the letters and she copies me!  She sings ALL the time (Joel LOVES this and just soaks it in!).

She continues to love Snow White, Grover, and Yo-Gabba-Gabba.  Her favorite color, she will tell you, is blue.  She announces to many that she lives in Washington DC on Fourth Street.  Her favorite food is macaroni and cheese and juice box, no question.  Oh, and Grape Nuts cereal.  She also loves edamame in the pod - calls them pop-pops.

Ella loves her cousins and best buds, Giovanni and Violet.  Mom and Dad are okay too - she sticks pretty close to us.  Whenever I move around the house doing chores, I find her right behind me.

I am so thankful for the chance to raise these kids!  Now if time would just slow down!

Snoverload

February 27th, 2010

I can hardly even keep the blizzards straight this winter! They started getting names from locals like “Snowmaggedon” and “Snowpocalypse“.  Then, as we were hit again and again and AGAIN, people started referring to the storms as “Snoverload“, “Snoverkill” and “Snow-away!

This was the front of our house after the double-dump, a few days apart.  Joel had already shoveled after the first big snow so this doesn’t even do it justice.

Still coming down…

Joel’s car is somewhere under there!

Our street, facing south toward the Capitol.

I decided to attempt to walk down the alley behind our house.

It was deep!

My footprint…

The back of our house…

Ellie waving to me!

Trash wasn’t picked up for weeks it seemed!

The reflection of our back porch.

Serious ice!

She was smiling for the first few minutes outside only!

Joel built an igloo for Ella and her best bud, Giovanni!

There were many inconveniences…like ZERO milk on the shelves in the stores, cancellations of everything, kids going cuckoo from being stuck indoors.  I even had TWO falls - one down our front steps (luckily no baby in my arms) and one on the sidewalk in front of a friend’s house (had Zeke that time but no damage to him atleast)!

But, we made lots of memories too!  We did urban sledding behind the minivan with cousins, we braved the streets for Ethiopian food with family, Joel played tackle football in the piles of snow, we strapped our kids to our backs so we could walk to the church for the Superbowl, and we built our first snowman and first igloo with the kids.  Joel kept reminding me that we will probably never experience this in DC again!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

February 16th, 2010

Mimmy sent the kids matching Valentine’s Day outfits.  So cute!

3 years and growing!

February 3rd, 2010

Welp, she is three years old but still hates to have her hair washed…and still panics at the doctor! She barely let the doctor touch her.

Height - 39.5 inches (92%)

Weight - 32 pounds, 6 ounces (68%)

One, two, SSREE!

January 29th, 2010

My baby girl is THREE years old today!! She has been thrilled about her birthday, of course.  Though, the funny thing is she can’t actually say her “th” sound.  She says she is turning “ssree!”

Honestly, I have been a bit sad as we got closer to this birthday.  For some reason, “three” just feels like my baby is now a young lady.  She is really such a big girl.  She sets the table for dinner.  She can work any electronic device.  She plays games on Daddy’s iPod and can choose a video, put it in her DVD player and get it going all on her own!  She takes such good care of her brother.  I mean, sure, she shoves him away from her toys here and there.  But I will often catch her taking him toys or snacks.  I even found her wiping his mouth after a spit-up the other day.  She always calls for me if he is heading into danger (near the stairs, fireplace, eating something off the floor).  In the morning, she goes into his room and gives him toys in his crib, sometimes even crawling in to play with him.  She calls him “Zekey-boy” and makes him laugh!

Ella is such a generous child.  She will share even her favorite food.  She is affectionate and gives hugs and kisses easily.  She is silly and a bit of a ham.  She has passion and independence.  God knew exactly the little girl for me!

Whenever I would ask Ella what she wanted to do for her birthday party, she was clear - “I wanna go to Aunt Lora’s house!”  When I would ask her what she wanted for her birthday, “I want candles!” (like on her cake).  Well, she isn’t lost on the spirit of festivity.  For Christmas all she wanted was “a Christmas tree with lights!”

Ella is pretty loyal - she decides her favorite things and stays true to them.  She has adored Snow White as long as I can remember.  She is also fiercely dedicated to Grover monster, certainly not the most popular Sesame Street character.  She wanted a Grover birthday party this year! We decided to do dinner for just family at Aunt Lora’s and celebrate a bit early since we have a church retreat this weekend.

It was a special day so we had to do a special hairstyle!  Mama put Ellie’s hair in hot curlers for the first time!

No joke, once I showed her hair in the mirror, she started posing all over the place, looking back at me over her shoulder all sassy.  Have I mentioned how much I love this child?

This fancy little outfit arrived in the mail from Mimmy just hours before the party.  The gloves were her own little addition.  I said she was independent!

“Booter, are you excited about your birthday?”

“How old will you be again?”

Aunt Lora and Grandma decorated the house for the birthday girl.  She loved it!  She made a special request for one of her favorite foods - Broccoli Cheese Soup, made by Aunt Lora.  I made her a Grover cake, chocolate on request.

Loved by her mama…

“Wait, we forgot…how old again?”

She got shy when we all sang to her!

Blow ‘em out baby!

Spoiled with love…Uncle Matt and Aunt Amanda stopped by early before Matt had to run off to sit in the chamber for the State of the Union address by President Obama.  Just another day working for the United States Congress!  The Tinkerbell purse was a hit!

Little brother helper!

Look, she even reads the card.  Okay, she looked at it, couldn’t get the card out so tossed it aside!

Wow Grandma!

All grown up! 1, 2, 3!

Fun little Ella story to end…

Since she gave up her pacifier, Ella has had a harder time going to sleep at night.  She doesn’t understand why she has to be in her bed alone but Mommy and Daddy get to share.  A while back we started telling her that Mommy and Daddy are married and that is why we sleep in the same bed.  She seemed to accept that.  Well, last week, she woke up a few times in the night - out of the ordinary.  I was so tired, I finally went and got in bed with her to soothe her.  We both fell back asleep and in the morning, she woke to find me there and clearly didn’t remember me coming in.  Her eyes got wide and she said, “Mommy, we’re married?!”  I busted out laughing!  Clever girl!

Thank you Lord for three years with such a special little person!  It is such a gift to be her parents.

First haircut!

January 29th, 2010

I tried to wait until he was a year, I really did!  But, he was starting to have scraggle hair…and I can’t let anything distract from his gorgeous deep blue eyes!

I gave Zeke his first haircut tonight!  I did a quick Internet tutorial, gave him his milk for distraction, and snip-snip!

Before

After

Not too bad, huh?

And this is proof…that is doesn’t ALWAYS smile.  Just usually!

Loot

January 23rd, 2010

What do you get when both grandmas have the love language of “gifts”?

Our family members overwhelmingly bless our children.  I always try to get a picture with their gifts because I think they will love looking back when they are older.  I would love to see pics with my cabbage patch kids, Betsy Wetsy doll, Light Bright, Little Miss Makeup, Cricket doll, etc.

It does make me happy that Ellie has a very thankful heart.  She is truly blessed by her gifts and when she plays with a toy or puts on a new outfit, she says, “This is from Grandma?” or “Mimmy gave me this?”

And we have such wonderful families that I know my kids’ memories will be full of traditions and warmth and not just gifts.  Yay for Christmas!

Christmas fun!

January 3rd, 2010

We had an awesome Christmas season!  I LOVED celebrating with the kids!  We were very festive - baking, shopping, going to parties, enjoying every moment.

We had an amazing Thanksgiving with family.  After being in New York City last year for the Macy’s Day parade, we loved being back to our traditions.  The feast was heavenly!  The company was even better.  My sister joined us from Philly again and, as usual, helped us get our tree up and the house decorated.

To kick-off December, Ella made her stage debut as a baby angel in our church play, “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.“  And it was!  Ella stole the show when she got a little nervous and had to be shuffled on stage, cute as ever!  (Note the tiny little shy angel front right.)

Cousin Summer had a lead role as the snooty, snotty Alice.

Cousin Siah and his buddies were shepherds.

We took our traditional stroll back in time to visit the holy family at our church’s Live Nativity.  It is so cool for the kids to see the animals and visit baby Jesus.

Ella and best-bud Giovanni pose with Mary and Joseph.

Giovanni paused to give some kisses to baby Jesus!

My friend Shelley surprised me as a shepherd!  Shelley and I grew up in youth group together and she just moved to DC!

Cookie Decorating Party! - Ella hosted her buddies from our church playgroup for cookie decorating at our house!  The kids ate as the decorated and many sprinkles were consumed!

The hostesses with the most-esses!

Snow Storm! - We had a history making snow fall the weekend before Christmas!  It was incredible!  We went to play with cousins and get crazy in the snow!  Our church had record low attendance since people and their cars were stuck!  The Schmidgalls were there both Saturday AND Sunday, of course!

She insisted on the goggles!

The next day was a little more tiny-kid friendly since the snow stopped blowing.  We took the kids sledding and then built their first-ever snow man!

Since we were going to be gone for Christmas, we went to stay one night with Grandma Schmidgall and celebrate early.  It is always snuggly and cozy to relax at her house and the snow made it even cozier!

Zeke opened his first-ever Christmas gifts!  Stockings first…

…and then the Grandma jackpot!

Joel and I are very intentional about encouraging our kids in service and looking for opportunities to care for others as a family.  On Christmas Eve-Eve (Dec. 23rd), Joel and I took the kids and Giovanni to a convalescent home down the street to give flowers to the residents and wish them a Merry Christmas.  I can’t even tell you how sweet it was to hear their little voices.  They even sang some carols!

Urban snow skiing/tubing

December 19th, 2009

We got nailed with 15 inches of snow in DC - people were calling it snowageddan! So we made the best of it and did some urban snow skiing in DC! All you need is 15 inches of snow, a mini van, an extension cord, a sled, some boots, and a bad sense of balance.

The first video is Mommy & Ella doing some tubing. Ella learned what snow tastes like :) The second video is Dad doing some street snow skiing.

The money smile!

December 7th, 2009

I love how Ella can smile on cue! Check out her and Zeke with Santa at the mall…