The Schmidgalls

Our little girl is six months old today! We are so thankful for her!

We spent some time praying over Ella tonight. We appreciate her little personality so much! Here are some of our favorite things about our daughter.

• Ella has the most gorgeous smile! She offers it easily to anyone. She makes friends everywhere we go!
• One of the best parts of the day is going to get Ella when she wakes up in the morning or after a nap. As soon as she sees us, she wriggles with joy and grins from ear to ear.
• We prayed for an expressive baby and we sure got it! Ella is vocal, always singing or talking or making noises.
• She laughs often. Joel calls it a hearty laugh - from the gut and contagious!
• Ellia is affectionate. When she is eating, she likes to pet my hair or rub my shirt. She hugs, cuddles and, just recently, gives kisses! She opens her huge mouth and gives a big, wet smooch - heaven!
• When we put her to bed, she puts her head down on my shoulder and snuggles in.
• She is quite the little active baby. As she gains control of her body she kicks and wiggles and reaches and waves. She can’t sit still. She has so much joy, it can’t be contained.

She is such a joy. Our angel… Happy Six Month baby girl!!

Here’s this year’s variety show act we put together. The theme was The Wild, Wild West…

Sunday night was our annual NCC Variety Show. And, yee-haw, it was boot-scootin! Ha! It was a western theme this year and we had a blast watching all the performers strut their stuff.

The hilarious host! How-deeeeeee!

Of course, Joel and I couldn’t resist the stage. I am sure people that love me have prayed since I was a kid that I would marry a fella who would do all this goofy stuff with me. They must have prayed overtime because it is usually Joel that is dragging me out there!

“I shot the sheriff!” Joel breaks it down after winning the duel.

FLASHBACK - Just for fun, here we were last year, doing the Evolution of Dance. Not many people knew I was three months pregnant. Ella will have some good dance moves she learned in the womb!

One of the best performances of the night was Summer’s ballet. She won my heart, the little dancer.

Little Ella watched Mommy and Daddy practice. Poor thing doesn’t know how much of this is in her future. She will be embarrassed by us for sure!

Ella wanted to play too! Oh yeah, ride em cowgirl! Yee-haw!

Ella, do you love playing cowgirl? Smile if you do!

Look what Ella can do! It started a couple of weeks ago but she was pretty unstable. Last week, it was official - she sits up on her own! We are so proud of her - though it reminds us how quickly time is passing and how much she has grown already. She entertains herself so much more now that she can sit and reach for her toys.

Making faces back at daddy!

This is hilarious! Check out one of the videos Joel put together for the Variety Show. I crack up every time I watch it.

http://theaterchurch.tv/media/video/evotional/flash/

On a more serious note, you can also watch the Baptism video from last week.

We continue to experiment with this whole eating thing. Today, I was so so excited to try giving Ella mashed avocados. It is one of my very favorite foods and I also read in our “Super Foods” book that: “Mashed ripe avocado is an excellent first food for baby. They are so nutritious that some claim humans can live on them exclusively. Avocados are an excellent source of the unsaturated fatty acids that your baby needs for brain development.”

Awesome! This will be perfect! I was so excited! Though, reality set in at the grocery store when they were $1.50 EACH for one organic avocado. Being from California, that was outrageous to me! But, nothing but the best for our darling, right?

So, tonight I happily mashed the avocado and headed towards Ella’s mouth - with a huge grin on my face, as instructed by the doc. Apparently our smiling faces are supposed to encourage affinity for foods. Ha! Well, the grin wasn’t necessary because Ella promptly scowled, gagged, and shook her head as if she were hoping to fling the avocado out of her mouth.

Sighhhhh…so another food on the “no thanks” list. On the yummy list - rice cereal (ick), oatmeal cereal (ick, ick), sweet potato, and squash. Bananas will do too. On the yucky side - pears (can you believe that?), avocado (a tragedy), and peas (I agree with ya there, babe).

So apparently Joel and I will be eating $1.50 organic avocado this weekend. Hmph!

Here is Ella’s response to the peas. The little trooper doesn’t refuse the food, amazingly. She just continues to gag and shudder as we keep spooning. I finally felt so bad for the little one, I showed her mercy and gave her another serving of rice cereal - blehhhh.

Sunday was our annual Baptism in the Bay. It is so exciting to watch friends take the step to be public about their faith. It is always emotional for me. This year, I had to wade in the water a ways down the beach to entertain Ella. But Joel always gets a front row seat!

Last week we started Ella on solid foods! She ate her first rice cereal like a champ. She had the spoon thing down in no time at all. Yum!

This was Ella’s first Fourth of July!

On July 2, the Continental Congress unanimously approved a resolution John Adams sent to the floor declaring “that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states.” (Congress took some time finishing up matters, thus July 4th is the official date.) John Adams was so moved he wrote to his wife Abigail on the night of July 3, 1776, that the event should be marked annually by “pomp and parade, with shews (shows), games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other from this time forward for ever more.”

Well, we sure did just that! We celebrating our nation’s Independence with pomp and parade and illuminations!

We went down to the Capitol Hill Parade in the morning - so cute! There were homemade floats and kids dressed up.

There were some celebrities in the parade! (Ella’s buddies Taylor and Avery and their mommies, Laura and Jessica!)

We spent the afternoon resting but, as our tradition, we went to Mark and Lora’s to grill out. We had strawberry pretzel salad and, for tradition, homemade ice cream! Yum!

Ella is proud to be an American!

Cousin Summer and Ella

Ella’s first fireworks in her home, the nation’s capital!

Aunt Lora, Uncle Mark, and the cousins at the fireworks. They are a ways off - we didn’t venture all the way down to the thick of the crowds this year.

We ended the night with our nephew Parker’s annual fireworks show, on the sidewalk in front of their house. It is like a war zone in our neighborhood the night of the fourth. Smoke is everywhere and big blasts from all directions. Parker wowed us and then we took our sleepy baby home to bed.

Happy Birthday USA!

We had another chance to see our Cubs this week, this time here at home against the Washington Nationals. We went with our friends Joel and Shauna and their gorgeous baby girl, Kylee. It is actually amazing how many Chicago fans live in DC.

Mommies with their sports fans!

Ella and Kylee were rooting for opposing teams. They are too interested in the game to look at the camera. (Okay, okay, the Joels were frantically waving a rattle.)

Ella at RFK stadium - in our backyard!