New Look

I'm trying out a new look here. I have been looking tirelessly for a new template that allows me to post larger images, yet still retain my history AND be able to still write. Blogger sucks at that....I thought about moving to Wordpress because they have better templates available, but I just didnt really want to move. I also looked at Pixelpost, but it is more just for photos and not blogging. You can blog, but at this time, the format wasnt what I was looking for.

So, this is what I got. I am not sure how I feel about the information about the blog all at the bottom of the page because I, myself enjoy seeing the About Me portion right when I open at someone's blog. But I am working on the linkbar to get it to direct correctly. In the meantime, I wanted to roll over to the new template because it would make it easier to update in the future. I just have a couple little tweeks to make yet.

The header image was from the other day, along with the pictures on this post. I took Ella down to the city to go on the riverwalk parkway. It was a beautiful morning and I thought getting some fresh air where Mommy could take pictures would be fun. I didnt get as many pictures as I would have liked because if you want to get off the walk way and take a trail by the river, you have to go down some steep stairs and Ella would not go by herself. So, it was either headshots or pictures of her walking away from me. And though I like them, I was looking for more than that and just did not get it that day.




Whenever Keith comes home, he asks Ella to walk on his back (he's had back problems since we were teenagers). So she plays on him and tells him that he is her jungle gym. She walks up his back and jumps over his head. She also does the "Atomic Butt Drop" (think of a wrestler jumping on his opponent). This is how she ended the day with her Daddy yesterday. :0)

"Orange You Glad I Didnt Say Banana?"

Yup, there I am in the reflection with Lulu....Snapping away as Ella cracks herself up at one of her favorite Knock Knock jokes. Oh ya - She is soooo into knock knock jokes. You've probably heard them all. (In the (......) sections pretend it's saying "Knock, Knock" and "Who's there"). Then picture her laughing hysterically after each joke.

(......) Owl ; Owl who? ; Hoo Else!
(......) Lettuce ; Lettuce who? ; Let us in its cold (hot) outside!
(......) Gaa Gaa ; Gaa Gaa who? ; Gaa Gaa Goo Goo!

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All Ella wants to drink these days is Orange Juice. So I went out and bought some little Clementine Oranges. Tried them out today and she loved them! I was so glad because I am constantly, but cautiously, trying to introduce new and healthier foods to her. She loves grapes now too. Tiny steps, but hey one item at a time!

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She was so enamored with her reflection. She kept dancing and wiggling in the door way. I love this picture and her move, all except for the butt end of my parents Miniature Pincer under her elbow! Doh!





That last bite was juicier than she expected! :0)



And then to end this post, I wanted to share my rainbow. This shined in the sprinkler mist as Keith was watering the yard last night.



You may have noticed my images are bigger. Yes, I am slow. I just realized how to post them from Flickr. I see a difference, but some are getting cut off. Working on it.....

Just Another Day

I have been really lazy, I know. Its been a couple of days since I posted. Last week, Keith worked until 7-8pm each night. It was the longest week of my life! Not to mention that Ella and I were at each others throats. When he came home early yesterday, we all went outside to spend some quality time together (he with Ella, and me with my camera) :0)

She loves to water the flowers. She would ask us over and over again to fill up the bucket with more water so she could take care of her garden. We even have a stone Doberman statue that sits in our back yard. We call him "Ornament" (my Dad named him). My parents owned him and didn't want him anymore, but I could not fathom letting Ornament out of the family! Anyways, she even watered Ornament so that he would grow big like her puppy, Lulu.




Ella is totally into wearing our flip flops these days. When she is outside, she loves to squish ants. I, shed a tear each time she squishes a little life, but Daddy told her it was okay to do! (whenever I kill a spider in the house, I say over and over, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!") Anyways, when she doesn't have any shoes on, she asks for ours so that she can squish ants. I posted a few days ago her in my shoes and now these are Daddy's.



You can see Ornament on the left in the background in the next two pictures. I'll have to get a picture of him someday to post.





I love to watch Keith and Ella play together. She is so crazy about him. Tonight for instance, she wanted to kiss him over and over again before she went to bed. She kept freaking out and saying, "One more kiss!" She wasn't trying to be difficult or disobedient either. She just truly wanted to have her Daddy hold her.


On an ending note, she did something pretty funny the other day. We were sitting in the kitchen having breakfast. She picked up a piece of pancake, looked at me and in a drone computer voice said, "I am a robot. Take me to your leader." I almost pissed my pants laughing. I asked her where she got that from and she said Max and Ruby. Its amazing the little sporadic pieces of what they see and hear they pick up on. I know, too much TV. But it was so damn funny.

A Day at the Zoo

My sister in law and I took the kids to the zoo the yesterday. I love to get Ella together with her cousins. They are so cute together. Ella and her cousin Jack were born 10 weeks apart (he is older) and Everett just turned 1 in April and is walking up a storm. I hope to have a sibling for Ella someday, but in the meantime, Jack is the closest thing she has to one. The day started out really stormy and Crystal (SIL) thought it would be a good day to go to the zoo, since everyone would probably be inside somewhere. I looked at the weather channel for the radar and it seemed there was no more rain behind what was happening at the time. When we got to the zoo, it was packed! I guess everyone had the same idea! It was also Friday, and there were bus loads of kids. We assume it was a good day for field trips....


In front of the conservatory at the zoo, they had beautiful flowers, giant lilly pads and a wonderful waterfall. We saw someone getting their wedding pictures taken there. It was a hot day to be dressed all up with makeup and all....


Ella and Jack were looking at the giraffes and Crystal asked them if they could stretch their necks as long as the giraffes (great opportunity for a Kodak (ahem, Nikon) moment).


We did not bring a stroller with us for Jack and Ella. Crystal had one for Everett, but it was a good opportunity to burn all of their energy for the afternoon. This is after taking an ice cream break.


"I'll beat you up the stairs", Ella said to Jack. Seems to be her new game now. She will beat Keith and I to the bathroom, to the bedroom, to the kitchen....anywhere she has to go. Oh, and she always wins (whether she does or not), or there is hell to pay.


They had a big tent at the zoo full of butterflies. It was the coolest thing. They were flying all around us. Unfortunately, this is the only shot that seem to come out decent. Too bad, I didn't get the back of him to show off his beautiful wings. Don't miss him on the flower there to the left....


Everett sat right down at the little pond in the conservatory. Stuck his feet in and all. He was not afraid to get his feet wet. HA! Sorry, couldn't resist.


There was huge goldfish in the little pond there. Jack and Ella were splashing the water and pretending to catch the fish.

And he's off!

The Trials of Motherhood

Since I had this post just screaming to get out of me and didnt realize it was "Theme Thursday" until after the fact, I am contributing the photos as my theme for Summer Fun. Rolling around in the yard with our pooch is always a favorite pastime when the weather is warm. The trials of motherhood is just an added bonus!

Ella and I are going through a rough patch at the moment. My sweet, polite little girl has turned into a sassy, disobedient toddler....ONLY TO ME.

Ella has always surprised me at how she uses manners and is considerate of other people, but all of a sudden, I am the person she does not use any of those characteristics with. Everything I say to her, she turns around on me. For instance, when I say things like, 'don't talk back to me', 'stop being sassy', 'your'e not being very nice'. Imagine a 3 year old telling her mother all of those things. It's like fighting with a child and saying, "I know you are but what am I?"

I put her in the naughty chair and tell her to be quiet, but she doesn't. She says over and over that she wants to get down, that she wants to talk, its not quiet time. She slams her hands on the chair, she stomps her feet around, she puts her hands on her hips as she gives a great big sigh of frustration. Her and I are banging our heads together all day long lately it seems (not literally).

Maybe its because we just got back from vacation and she is still out of sorts from being off schedule. She has taken a nap 2 out of the 4 days this week, which is unheard of. It's just a phase, I know. But I am afraid it will get out of hand, and my sweet little girl will turn into a monster of a toddler.

The best times are after she wakes up. She crawls in bed with me and is still a sleepy head and she just wants to cuddle. Jekyll and Hyde. I know. I'm sure every toddler is like that. "This too shall pass" is a term I use alot once its quiet and the trauma has passed. Like now, after I have put her to bed and there is silence. My mom used to say that to me alot when I was a teenager, going through a broken heart or dealing with kids being mean.

Or how about...."You always hurt the ones you love". Why are these cliches so true? No one wants to hear them or have to say them to themselves.


But you know what? I am crazy in love with her.


The uniqueness just oozes out of her little pores. Her intelligence amazes me every day.


The cuteness when she shakes her bum and dances around gives me a warm fuzzy feeling.


So what do you do? Enjoy the wonderful times and take a deep breath during the tough times I guess. Squish them all together and you get parenthood. Something I tried very hard to get in life and something I am very grateful for.

A Few More Pics From Vacation

On one of the over cast days, we took Ella to the Kabetogama Visitors Center. It was basically a nature center with little things that teach you about the environment and all the animals in the state park. It was just nice to get away from the cabin and explore at that point since we couldn't go sit on the beach.

In front of the visitors center there was a "island" of trees and flowers just as you pull into the parking lot. I was told by one of the ladies at our resort to look for the Ladyslippers. She wasn't sure if they were in bloom still, but she said to keep an eye out for them. So as Keith and Ella were browsing around inside, I went on the prowl for the Ladyslippers. I can remember them as a kid back in Massachusetts and remembering they were a protected flower. They were always so mysterious to me then because I knew I couldn't pick them. Although there wasn't a ton of them at the visitors center, there were still a few dozen left in bloom.


Ella loves to pick "Dandelion Fluffs". If your child has ever watched Little Bear, that is where she gets the name. I don't remember calling them that when I was a kid....but what we used to call them slips my mind at the moment. Anyways, on Little Bear, before he blows on it, he says, "I wish for 2 pieces of chocolate cake". So every time she finds one, that is what she wishes for.


There was a beautiful inlet where the boats could dock with this peninsula on it that seem to stretch out so far. Ella started walking with Keith and it was so sweet....


....And then she took off like a bat out of hell. She started running and would turn around and say, "Come on slow pokes!"


One last thing. As I mentioned in my previous post about all the bugs and flies up there, Ella seemed to have picked up a few words from Mommy from last week. We were sitting in the kitchen last night, she looked out on the deck and saw a swarm of gnats flying around.

She said to me, "Mommy, look at all those damn flies!"

I said, "Where did you get that word?"

She said, "I got it from you Mommy."

I said, "Sweetie, those are just flies. You shouldn't use that word because its not very nice."

She said, "No, those aren't flies, those are damn flies!"

As I was telling my Mom about it today, she told Ella, "Damn flies are only up at the cabin. We don't have damn flies down here, so you shouldn't call them that."

Ella say, "Okay."

Easy as that for my Mom. Always a struggle for me! But at least she only picked up the word "damn" and not some other four letter word that may have slipped out around her. :0) Oopsie!

What's Going On In There?

I always wonder what goes on inside that little head of hers. These pictures are from the Air Show that we went to the day before we went on vacation. Although I love all of the shots I took that day, especially the one's with Ella and my Dad, this one was one of my favorites. My Mom always says that you can see Ella's wheels turning in her brain. I did not egg on this shot. She just stopped what she was doing and stared at me for a minute. So beside, "Mom, not another picture", I wonder what she was thinking at this moment.....


...And this moment......


...And this moment......

Home Sweet Home

We arrived home today. So nice to be home. Keith and I are exhausted, so we shipped Ella, who has a ton of energy still, off to my parents. Thank god for them. I was so sick of fighting with the internet access up there, that I just finally gave up too. We had a really good week though. Ella had a ton of fun with everyone as well. I actually have some work to do now that I am home, so I am just going to post some pictures and catch up with everyones blogs later tonight.

Thankfully, there was another family up there with a little girl Ella's age. It was so nice that she had someone to play with.

They were catching the minnows in the lake and wanted to have their picture taken together.


Ella was so excited that she had some fish in her bucket. She get excited trying to catch its slimy little body. And then when it died (because she kept pulling it out of the water), she giggled and said, "Mommy, its upside down! That's so silly!"

If you look closely at her hand, you can see the minnow in her hand. I was really surprised that she was even holding it.

One of the days that it rained, there was a beautiful rainbow over the lake that I got to catch. What I loved about it was that it looked so deep into the land across the lake, as if the pot of gold was sitting just in our sight!

We had to inch Ella into the water sometimes. She would walk in and play for a while, but once we wanted her to go swimming, we put her life jacket on and she said she wasnt old enough. So we told her that when she thought she was ready, she could just let us know. Within a half hour, she was in the lake walking around and splashing everyone.