Ella 7 month movie

Okay, I am going to try to take a short little video clip and post it of Ella every month or so. For posterity. And just because she is so darn cute.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyqzPHsdtfA

I can't seem to get the new and improved blogger to upload my videos anymore, so you will have to follow the youtube link.

10 things I love about Ella

I think there are 100 or more things I love about Ella, but I will try to narrow it down to just a few.

1. The way she smiles with her wide grin and her scrunched up nose. I NEVER get tired of seeing it and it warms my heart every time.

2. She only has reverse speed right now and backs her self up into all sorts of places, gets stuck and just stays there grinning and rocking on her hands.

3. The way she high pitch yells and screeches just because she can.

4. The fact that she LOVES the animals and just cracks up every time they get in her face or try to lick her hands.

5. The way she flips her hands around and rotates her wrists that makes her look like she is trying to ride a motorcycle. (And she will never ride one while she is under this roof!)

6. The way she gags on peas and other foods she doesn't like. 7 months old and already with strong tastes and emotions!

7. The way she loves avocados.  Maybe she is CA girl at heart!

8. When I sit her on the potty and she gets real quiet and tries to go. Gets a little red in the face and pushes. Ah, and success most of the time!

9. The way she does not miss a THING!

10. The way she sneezes and then makes a little aaaahhhh noise, feels so good.

And there are many, many more........

Indiana part two

Well, Ella did wake up just a few minutes after I finished the last post. I think it was like 7:30. She decided that she wasn't happy sleeping in a pack n play by herself in a strange house. I am glad we decided not to go out for Valentine's Day for dinner and leave Ella sleeping with Grandma and Uncle Keegan. I am sure they could have handled it, but I would have been stressing, worrying about if she was going to wake up and be confused about where she was and where I was. I guess maybe it was a little bit of Mother's intuition, because she did wake up and needed her mommy to help her get back to sleep.

The rest of the trip was just fine. Ella did quite well with all the comings and goings and although she did not sleep very well, she tolerated everything just fine.

Sitting with 

                                                                Great Grandma Day!

A kiss from

                                                                                     Uncle Keegan.

Grandma reading to Ella 

                                                                              about Irish cooking!

Grandma feeding Ella

Ella and Grandpa

Here is Ella with her cousin that is 5 1/2 weeks older than her, Kallie (not sure if I spelled it right?)
And Yogi of course.







When we woke up to leave on Monday morning, there was about 5 inches of fresh snow on top of the already covered ground and it was still coming down hard. We decided to hurry up and get on the road before Ella's morning nap. There was quite a bit of white knuckle driving. The roads were pretty slick and it just kept snowing! We drove in it for quite a few hours. Luckily Ella had no idea what a treacherous situation we were driving in and slept peacefully for the first 2 1/2 hours. She was spent from such a busy trip!

But we made it home. It took about 8 1/2 hours. We did stop to have lunch at McDonalds (heehee, Ella's first McDonalds stop, and no, she didn't eat anything).

We let Ella do a little driving.










And stopped at a big book outlet where we bought Ella a few more books for night time reading. We might have to make that a normal stop on our way to and from Indiana in the future!

The end.

Multimedia message

Test post to see if my mobile device works,

Indiana part one

Well, we made it. Barely. We have been getting snow storms in our southern temperate rain forest just about every weekend this last month or so. This weekend was no exception. Our plan was to head to Indiana and take Ella for her first trip to the Crossroads of America to meet much of her extended family. She had not met her only living great grandma, Grandma Day. We were to leave Friday evening after Eli got home from work around Ella's bedtime. It started snowing at about 3 pm. It didn't stop. But we have a Subaru, so of course we can make the trip anyway. Why put it off? So we loaded up the car and headed out of town on a snowy Friday evening, at rush hour, on a route already crowded from the detour from the I-40 closure. Great idea. As soon as we got to Haywood Rd, the traffic was awful. Tail light to head light traffic and cars slipping off the road. Hm, should we proceed? I think not, but in the typical Sellers' way, I don't say much. Eli of course is game for it. Weather has never stopped him before! But we have precious cargo and I do remind him of this.

Okay, long story not quite so long, it takes us an hour and 45 minutes to make it to Mars Hill. (That should take about 20 minutes on a typical day). The traffic starts to thin out, but we still have to make it over the gaps to Johnson City. We did make it. It could have been much worse. But we did spend a significant portion of it behind the snow plow. And I did feel the trusty Subaru wheels slip more than once. I did gently tell Eli when we stopped in Mars Hill for gas, "next time this happens, we stay home." He gently agreed.

The whole trip took 8 hours. We arrived in Greenville, IN at 1:45 AM with a sleeping baby. She of course immediately woke up, quite suprised at her surroundings. All in all, she did great. Slept most of the trip and went back to sleep fairly well in her Grandma's pack n play, but did wake a few times the rest of the night. Needless to say, mommy and daddy are quite tired today.

So, we are here. Everyone is so happy to see Ella and of course she is the star of the party. She got to sit on her Great Grandma Day's lap for the first time and that was worth all the hastle to get here. She is a little out of sorts out of her environment and naps are a little hairy, but as I write this at 7:15 PM, she is sleeping quietly in the pack n play, and all is well. Here is hoping she sleeps well the whole night so we can get rested up.

Pictures and more updates will come soon. It is not worth fighting the "dial-up" connection to upload pictures.

Sometimes I just feel so lucky

Sometimes I just feel so lucky. This life that I am living right now just couldn't be any better. I feel I have the best husband in the world, I feel I have the best, most adorable, most precious baby girl in the world. We have a great house, live in a great town, have great pets, most of my siblings live here, my parents are close (but not too close). We have enough to eat, enough to heat, enough to sleep, we just have enough.

Sometimes I am afraid. I am afraid of losing something that is so dear to me. With great love comes the fear of losing that. I don't know how anyone can come away from losing a child. I can't even comprehend what it would be like. I try not to think about such things, but sometimes it is hard to keep away those thoughts. Sometimes I look at my baby girl, so perfect, so smart, so beautiful, and I think, "what if we lose this? what if something happens to her?" and then I start to feel a well of panic and fear start to rise up inside of me. Left alone, it might overtake, it might take control and cause all sorts of weird, controlling, and unhealthy behavior patterns. So, how does one keep such thoughts in check? At this point, I just try to redirect my thoughts, no use dwelling on them.

I guess that fear is there for a reason. You need to keep your children safe. You need to be careful and cautious because your baby will not be. But one must keep balance. Too much caution, too much fear, will just drive a person (and child) crazy.

I treasure every moment I have with my beautiful baby. Every moment. I do not forget because that would be the real tragedy. When she is sad, I treasure it. When she is happy, I treasure it. When she is hurting, I treasure it. When she laughs, I treasure it. When she is pooping on her little green potty, I treasure it. Every moment. Not because I am afraid of losing her, but because I know that these moments are always changing, nothing remains the same. And if I ever did lose her, or lose some of what she is, I will have every moment that I spent with her because I do not take it for granted. Maybe that is the beauty that can be found in a small dose of fear. I do not forget what beauty I have, I do not forget to cherish each moment.

Growing

Can my baby girl really be growing up so fast? Look at the difference in just under 7 months!

Look, she is sitting up! And she just cut her first tooth. Bottom incisor left if anyone cares to know. And she was quite brave about it, much to all our dismay. We thought she would be awful!

Where does the time go? It sounds cliche, but it is oh so true!

Snow and sledding

We have been having a great snow year this year in Asheville. We haven't had a good snowfall in quite a few years. And so far this year we have had 2 good snows. This last one was about 8 inches. And although it was covered in a crunchy layer of ice before it was all done with, we still had a blast. We went out to the Sellers' household and went sledding down their big front hill. It is a great place to sled because not only do we have a doting Nana to take care of Ella, but a huge sledding hill in front of the house. There is only one teeny, weeny problem, there is no good place to end your sledding run. You either have to bail, dig your heels in, or run into bushes and trees.

Is that a happy dog?

Short video to show the sledding run. As you can see, we just sort of slid over the top of the snow. Very fast. And the last person that does the somersault is Joel's fiance Allie. Hehehe.

House for Sale

Most of you probably know that our house is for sale. We have grand plans on moving to the Bent Creek neighborhood. If you don't know what Bent Creek is, I will inform you. It is a mountain biker's paradise. Well, almost anyway. It is a local research forest which is part of the very large Pisgah National Forest. It is covered in miles of bike friendly trails. Eli and I go there at least twice a week to ride our bikes or walk the dogs. There is a neighborhood that borders the park. It is riddled with many fellow mountain bikers and families with young children. You can literally ride your bike out your back door and get to the trails, sometimes without even getting on pavement. And it is about a 15 minute drive to downtown Asheville, but there are plenty of essentials like grocery stores and mexican restaurants much closer. So, you can probably see why we might like to live there.

Our house is up for sale, but the problem is, we love our little house. It is our first home and the first home of Ella. It is cute. Unlike most of the 60s and 70s style ranchers in the Bent Creek neighborhood. We have done quite a bit of work with sweat and a little blood (thank you Eli) to make it our own.

Our house is up for sale, but I don't think either of us really wants to sell it. You see, we struggle with timing. It is a good time to buy. It is a good time to sell a house in our price range and with the $8,000 tax credit being offered to new home buyers. The interest rates are low and right now we are in a variable interest rate which we do not want to stay with. Our house only has one bathroom. Let me digress for a quick moment. Eli once said to me, "I don't understand why some people don't like to share a bathroom with their partner, that is just crazy to me." I looked at him and said, "They are women and they don't pee on the floor." In general, men don't mind sharing a bathroom.

Our house is up for sale, but who knows if it will sell. It is pain in the pants to show a house when you have a 6 month old, 4 dogs, and one man, one of which is on strict activity restrictions from a recent orthopedic knee surgery (dog that is). Keeping a house show ready is a joke with the before mentioned crew. Eli is usually at work, Yogi must go into the neighbors yard next door, Chihuahuas in the crate, Lola in the big crate with a heavy dose of sedative, Ella packed up and taken out in the car, stroller, or to the neighbors house, all the laundry baskets taken out of the chairs (they are there to keep Lola from climbing up into them), kitchen spotless, sweep the floors, put all baby paraphernalia in organized way in Ella's room, etc, etc, etc. It is a whole day process. A pain in the pants.

Maybe we should just stay.