The Schmidgalls

We are biased, I am sure but…Ella is so SMART! She is learning so many things and we are so proud of her! She is changing all the time. If we weren’t so impressed by her, we would stop the clock on all these changes.

We told you about her teeth but we haven’t SHOWN you. It took her eight months but she has her bottom buttons. It wasn’t easy to get a picture, but here are the pearls.

And, big news, Ella SIGNS!!!! We weren’t sure at first but it is clear that she GETS IT! We are just in awe of her. It is so amazing that this little person can communicate now! She says, “more” and “hi” and “bye-bye” and “up.” She has known the word “milk” for a long time but she can’t mimic the sign. Whenever I ask her if she wants milk, she looks up and says “deh?”

“more”

“hi” or “bye-bye”

Another exciting discovery is that Ella LOVES enjera! (That is the spongy bread that you eat with Ethiopian food.) She also loved the lentils and collard greens but I wasn’t as surprised by that. Enjera has a distict vinegar taste and is an acquired taste for most people. She loved it! Yay!

She loves to feed herself so baby food is already on the way out.  I have to get creative to think of all the things I can put on her highchair tray.  She attacks it all, grabbing fistfuls.  One of her favorite foods is turkey deli meat.  I cut it into small pieces and let her go at it.

Crawling is old news by now and she is on to practicing up-right movement. She has a little table from Grandma Schmidgall and she walks around and around it. Baby, stay a baby!

I hope this isn’t a sign of things to come (surrounded by four boys ) Thanks to Robb for the video…

Lil’ Manda is married! It was a crazy family endeavor but so much fun! The wedding was fun and romantic and all the things weddings should be. Ellie officially has an Uncle Matt now! We couldn’t be happier for Matt and Amanda. It was a blast!

Aren’t rehearsals funny? You practice walking in and standing..and walking…and standing. Ellie had fun wrestling with Uncle Robb.

Matt’s mom had Indiana-themed rehearsal dinner to share Matt’s roots. I was so impressed! I love this picture mostly because of the yummy ribs in the background!

The wedding was a family affair. This is Joel’s entire family. By some miracle, we all live here in the DC area together. We don’t underestimate how lucky we are to be together so often.

Meet the family. This is Robb (Joel’s oldest brother), Carrie, and their boys - Noah and Sammy.

Mark, Lora (Joel’s older sister) and their kids - Parker, Summer, and Josiah.

You know these crazies - Joel, Nina, and Eloise.

Rounding us out - Joel’s little sister Amanda and her NEW HUSBAND, Matt.

And the queen bee, Joel’s mama.

My own mama did the flowers (with her assistant, dad) - weren’t they gorgeous?! My sister was the event coordinator. Even cousin Dave was the photographer! Are we handy or what? Check out Dave trying to get through security with his equipment. Due to the rain, we took photos in one of the Capitol office buildings. You can see that the other officer was just about to yell at me for taking photos of security. Oops

Tell me these aren’t the cutest kids you have ever seen? (My mom made Summer and Ella’s dresses too!)

Such a Daddy’s girl!

Ellie adores her cousins…and apparently they find her entertaining too!

Amanda planned an awesome party and we had a blast! Ella got into the groovy party mood.

She was all set for some dance floor rockin!

Just like her Daddy, she just couldn’t leave the dance floor. She was slow dancing with Aunt Amy…and then gone.

So in love…

Love you guys! Enjoy the honeymoon!

We took Ella to a pumpkin farm today! After a few days of heat, it was a gorgeous fall day. Mimmy and Poppy (my parents) just came into town so we took them to pick out pumpkins! We drank apple cider, ate kettle corn, rode slides, visited the animals (baby piglets!) and went on a hayride.

The cow says mooooooo!

On the hayride with Mimmy and Poppy!

Mommy is mean and tried to take my bottle away for a picture. (Oops)

Big girl pumkins! (As Ella was standing and playing with the pumpkins, she decided she had to go poop. She stood there grunting and frowning! haha)

(Note: No babies were harmed in the taking of the slide photo. We didn’t actually send her down it, geesh! )

Oh yeah, and friends, I brushed my teeth with diaper ointment a few days ago.  I am so horrified, I might just write the company and tell them that they should make their tubes a different SIZE!

For those moms wondering how, HOW this could have happened…I was packing my bag for the conference and realized the diaper rash tube was more than the 3oz allowed for my carry-on.  So, I left it sitting on the counter in my bathroom….next to my SINK!  Fast forward to when I get home, exhausted…you get the picture.  I only realized there was a problem when I wondered why it didn’t taste minty.  Mercy!

We went with the church team to the Catalyst Conference in Atlanta this last weekend. And, because we are clearly nuts, we took Ellie! My only comfort was that baby Go-Go was came along too.

Check out the cuties on the plane! It was Giovanny’s first time! Ellie clearly knew that something exciting was going on.

As usual, the conference was great! Rick Warren was my favorite speaker. Since Ella loves to talk, and sing, and scream with excitement, I had to leave numerous sessions. Luckily, I found a spot in the hallway where I could still hear. Giovanny doesn’t quite have Ella’s…lets call it enthusiasm…yet. The babies got plenty of hallway play time!

On the ride home, Ella had clearly hit the limit. We are very resourceful parents and stumbled across a solution!

Sorry about the delay between posts. Lately, I feel like I live on the computer. Sometimes posting is just that last computer task that is keeping me from playing with Ellie! (note that I am posting now while my hubby and baby sleep soundly upstairs)

So, to catch up…

First of all, Ella is EIGHT MONTHS OLD! Her little baby journal has a place to list her weight and length each month but we have found it difficult since she doesn’t go the doctor all that often now. We still have the infant scale we borrowed but I tried putting her on it last month and it was hilarious. She thought it was so cool to kick, kick her feet and hear the metal banging and clanging. One moment she weighed 15 pounds, the next moment 25 pounds. However, last week Aunt Amanda and Uncle Matt put her on the Weigh-o-Meter after church (we meet in a movie theater remember) and she weighed 19.6 pounds. Sounds about right to me.

She is officially crawling as of this week but it is still cautious. She has to REALLY want something to take the few crawl steps to get it. She has never gone more than a few feet. We get the best results right after nap time. I am torn about whether to cheer her on. We are so proud but also not super excited to have to start chasing her down.

Last night we lowered her crib - official almost-big girl status. I had gone in to get her after a couple of naps and found her sitting up, her little head poking up from the top of her crib. I am not anxious for any trips to the emergency room so we decided to face the truth that we don’t have a newborn anymore. Joel thought it would be a good idea to lower the crib to the lowest level so we wouldn’t have to do it again later. (Ah, guys, always trying to cut corners…uh, I mean, take the most efficient route.) I gently reminded him that the whole world isn’t as giant as he is…okay, I whined that I didn’t really want to have to hang over the side to pull her out and unless he wanted to start getting up to get her a bit more, it would need to be in the medium range. He sweetly changed it again. (I think he was actually persuaded by the reminder that my mom is 5′2″ and will help with Ella a lot when she comes into town IF she can REACH HER.)

Ella’s nanny told us that she had been drooling so much lately (Ella, not Jenn) that she was having to take off her shirt and let it dry for a while before putting it back on. This prompted me to feel for a tooth and, to my surprise, she has one! I super duper sharp little weapon on the bottom left. She won’t let you see it when you try to look but, whenever she grins, it is right there. So cute!

Oh yes, and Ella has a big girl carseat now! If the Weigh-o-Meter is right, then it was time to consider an upgrade. I can’t really carry her in the infant carrier anymore anyway, the lug. Joel and I compromised on a seat from the doesn’t-really-match-our-car-interior-but-is-the-most-affordable-with-our-desired-features category. Joel can’t really put his seat back all the way anymore but at least Ella is safe, right?

Okay, I think that is all for recent milestones. Oh, except our OTHER baby (actually, my inherited step-child), the Chicago Cubbies, are going to the playoffs! Hooray! (It is all thanks to Ella wearing her lucky Cubs jammies, of course. Now, if only she had some Chicago Bears jammies.)

As for our recent events, we held our annual Screen on the Green outreach last weekend. The church put up a huge screen in the park and hosted an outdoor movie two nights in a row, in two different communities. We always wear our CREW shirts to outreach events. Ella is an official CREW member, of course. (We had to take the pic because I don’t think she will fit into the shirt every again.)

Another one of the pastors had a baby, another little boy for Ella to play with. Andrew Everett is the only other baby with as many expressions as Ella had as a newborn. So cute! Congrats David and Missy!

We had dinner with our friends, Trevor and Laura, and let the girls play together. Somehow Ella manages to scare Taylor, even though she is half her size.

Aww, a hug. Too bad Ellie was freaking Taylor out.

She finally got the nerve to give her a kiss though.

Ella can barely crawl but she managed to find the good stuff.

Laura is pregs again. It looks like she would do just fine with two girls, huh?

Taylor has the cutest mini-rocker. Isn’t she a doll?

Tutus go on the other end sweetie.

Since our lives aren’t exciting enough, our neighbors keep things fresh by bringing cops and ambulance around frequently. (Mom, stop reading here.) A few nights ago, the ambulance paid a visit to our neighbor two houses down. Then, just a few minutes later, a car ran off the road and into another neighbors house. Of course, Joel sent me out to take pictures. We knew all our suburban friends wouldn’t believe it. Just like they don’t believe that we had a lady pee in our front yard right in front of us, a fire in the house that touches ours (yes, we were in the house and yes, I was pregnant), a drug bust of a 15 year old two doors down, and the eviction of our drug dealing neighbors next door. Hmm, is that all? I am sure I leaving something out.

All kidding aside, we really do love I neighborhood and our neighbors. They all adore Joel and seem to run to him when trouble comes along. We go on a walk each night and Joel says hello to every person we pass. Actually, he says “Evenin’” - I think he likes to pretend he is back on the family farm in Illinois. That is what they all say when they pass each other in the coffee shop or on the road. If Joel were wearing a hat, he would probably tip it…and stick a piece of straw in his mouth.