2009 in pictures:

January

February:

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

I know that I’ve already posted most of these pictures, but it’s amazing to look at them in order like this to see how much Ella has grown!

Happy New Year friends!

A couple of pictures from a recent trip to the Zoo with Uncle Chris & Kelley as well as a few Christmas pictures.

We wish you the happiest of holiday seasons & a bright, cheery beginning to 2010!

For about the past week, Ella has been having some sleep “issues”.  One day, she refused to nap at all.  This always leads to an unpleasant, crabby evening because obviously, she is tired.  She needs her nap.

Most of her other naps have been fine, though we do have battles occasionally.  I almost always win.  I threaten to take away things she loves, like Little Gym or music class or chocolate milk.  Or I entice her with the possibility of princess stickers, movies or playing with Grandpa.  Most days, something in there works.  Those are the days that have happy endings.

Nights have been a different story.  With only a couple of exceptions, she will go to sleep without much of a fight.  But she has been waking up EVERY NIGHT sometime around 3:30 (sometimes earlier).  Just screams, like she’s had a nightmare, fallen out of bed, something.  We can’t figure out what’s actually wrong or if it’s just become a habit…who knows.  Usually, we just go get her (before she starts wandering the house) and hold her, pat her for a minute & she goes back to sleep.  The thing that stinks about this is that then I usually have trouble falling back asleep for a long time, sometimes hours.

Then there was last Wednesday.  Ella woke up around 1:30.  We tried everything, but she just kept asking for things.  Water, blanket, “spray the ghosts”, songs, Elmo….everything.  Like she was just wide awake.  She finally went back to sleep.  Or so we thought.  She continued to wake up with the screaming every 1/2 hour…2, 2:30, 3, 3:30.  We tried giving her some motrin in case she was in pain from teeth, we tried rocking her, sitting with her, etc etc etc.  Finally, Dave just slept on the floor in her room next to her so she would stop getting up & wandering the house & crying.  Needless to say, no one had much energy the next day.

Thus far, that was the only night with multiple crazy wake ups.  Hopefully, it stays the only one.  Even more hopefully, she stops waking up at all  in the middle of the night.

Because, seriously, a mom needs some sleep!

How has the end of the year flown by so quickly???  It feels like Halloween was just a couple of weeks ago, but truthfully, so much has happened since then!

Dave & I enjoyed a fantastically fun night with our pWnhACKzORz in early November.  Just to emphasize our level of nerdy-ness, there were 9 of us there, 4 tvs, all playing video games at once.  We had a whole lot of fun and stayed up much later than normal, so Ella spent the night with my parents.  This also happened to be the night Ella decided she could no longer be contained in any bed with sides.  She kept climbing out of the pack & play, so she slept with Grandma.  The next night at home, Ella kept climbing out of her crib.  So we have taken the drop side off of her crib and voila! Instant big girl bed.  Ella has done really well sleeping in her “new” bed, with just a few exceptions.  We’re very proud of her & hope that this growing up continues to potty training soon (no pressure).

Thanksgiving was spent in St. Louis this year.  We had a very tasty lunch/dinner (supper?) at my grandparents’ house.  We all enjoyed seeing lots of my family, especially Uncle Chris!  Although, we were all relegated to the “kids” table.  Doesn’t having a mortgage let you move up to the adult table?  I made a cranberry/apple/orange chutney sauce that turned out really yummy as well as pumpkin chocolate chip cheesecake (also tasty).  We didn’t get to see Uncle Kerry at Thanksgiving because he was in Germany visiting Amber!  More about his trip in the future.

Last weekend, we put up our minimal Christmas decorations.  We got a tree (a real one!), put lights & ornaments on.  We still don’t have a tree topper…I can’t find one that I like!  We have stockings & a holiday wreath, but that’s about it.  And actually, our pumpkins are still on the porch from Halloween.  Lame, I know.  They’re not rotting yet.  At least I don’t think so.  Dave also took some family photos of the Hardens, a great first step into expanding his photography repertoire!  Check out his & Sara’s photography site here.

Christmas is only a handful of days away!  I really need to start shopping.  It’s very hard to shop with a 2 year old.  She is just too busy!  Ella is continuing to amaze me every day.  She learns new things very quickly, and though she tries my patience quite often, she is so cute it is hard to stay angry for long.  Dave & I have an ongoing dialogue about what to get her for Christmas, though one for-sure item will be a doctor kit.  I want to get her things that she will like for a long time, not just a few days.  Any suggestions??

Finally…yesterday morning my friend Katie & her husband Mark welcomed their baby boy, Owen Max!  We are all SO EXCITED for them & can’t wait to meet their newest addition.

Happy Holiday Season!

Since it has been busy, sickly & rainy around here, I haven’t had a lot of time to blog. I have several pictures from October to post, to show you what we’ve been doing.
Here is a brief update (while I wait for the pics to upload):
- I was hoping I would never have to post about my baby becoming a crazy nightmare, but we’ve reached that point. She is still an amazing, fun girl most of the time. But we’ve had a couple of days lately where hugs are replaced by slaps, “I love you” is replaced by “NO!!” and 3 hour naps are replaced by 2 hours of Ella screaming & playing in her bed, followed by 5 more hours of cranky afternoon toddler. So, needless to say, I am hoping that this is just a (very quickly passing) phase. Weather, teeth, skill building…any excuse will do as long as I can sometime soon get my little girl back.
- We’ve decided to take our house off of the market for the winter. We’ll most likely put it back on in the early spring, but things have slowed to a standstill & it’s not worth our time right now.
- Dave’s crazy project is almost over! So we might get to see him again soon.
- I can’t believe next week is Thanksgiving & Christmas is only a few weeks away! I have a lot to do. And Ella is keenly aware of Santa’s “Naughty & Nice” list this year. See above.

And now, for your viewing pleasure, pictures from October!

Ella in the Teacups from David Morley on Vimeo.

Disney World was AWESOME!  Everything about our trip was spectacular, except the length.  Hopefully we can stay longer next time!

Ella was fantastic on the flights!  *Thank the lords of the electronics who created portable DVD players*  She was pleasant & happy to watch movies or read.  The only tiny problem we encountered was on our last flight, from Atlanta to St. Louis.  Ella fell asleep before we took off & as soon as we were at cruising altitude, I picked her up & just held her so she’d have a more comfortable place to rest.  She slept until we were descending for landing & at that point, her ears started bothering her.  She cried for a few minutes, but then she was fine.  I hope we didn’t bother anyone too tremendously, but at the same time, I don’t care that much.  She did much better than I could have expected a 2 year old to do!

We ended up renting a car for our stay because it was easier than taking a cab from the airport.  Well, kudos to Enterprise for being awesome!  They saw that we had some big bags plus a stroller, so they asked if we’d like an SUV instead of a full size car.  FOR FREE!  Yes please!  So we had a Nissan Pathfinder, with Ella’s car seat, & still plenty of room!  It actually worked out better for us to have a car because the shuttle from our hotel (WorldQuest Resort) to Disney World did not have any pickups during the day.

Our hotel was fabulous!  It is really close to the Nickelodeon resort/hotel if you’ve ever been around there.  It was relatively easy to find (thanks in part to GPS!) & close to a grocery store, a few restaurants & DISNEY WORLD!  Though the resort was big, there was almost no one there!  We saw people at the continental breakfasts in the morning and occasionally in cars, but for the most part, it felt like we had the place to ourselves!  Our condo was 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms with a full kitchen, nice living space w/ dining area & a screened in porch w/ a view of a pond & the pool & nothing else!  We weren’t looking at highways or other resorts or anything…very peaceful!  The pool was HUGE & pretty much empty…SCORE!

The weather was perfect!  It was low humidity, but still warm (low 80s), not too hot.  We went to Disney World (Magic Kingdom) on Wednesday.  Because we drove, we did have to pay for parking, but it wasn’t any more expensive than paying for parking at the Zoo, Grant’s Farm or a nice long walk to Busch Stadium ($12).  After parking, we took a tram to the ticket center where we bought my ticket, picked up Dave’s free ticket, got a Happy Birthday button for Dave & a First Visit button for Ella.  The ticket lady was super nice; she asked what we were looking forward to most, then gave us advice on how to get to do that the easiest, along with maps & schedules of parades, character encounters & shows.  From there, we took the monorail (you can also take a ferry or a bus…we ended up using all of them) to the Magic Kingdom!  HOORAY!  Everything was decorated in fall & Halloween stuff…so cute!  From my perspective, it did not seem to be all that crowded.  Yes, there were lots of people there, but we did not wait in line to get on the monorail (we essentially got a car to ourselves), the line for bag searching was maybe 1 minute, and the longest ride line was Dumbo at maybe 10 minutes.  We used a fastpass to ride Peter Pan (probably not worth it for a 30 minute wait) but other than that, the lines were very short!  On many of the rides & shows, we just walked right up & got on!  Ella was really overwhelmed at first, but quickly grew to love it.  She rode Dumbo, Cinderella’s carousel, the Teacups, Peter Pan, Small World, Buzz Lightyear’s Ranger Spin something ride, Pirates of the Caribbean & Aladdin’s Magic Carpets.  We also saw Mickey’s Philharmagic & the Monster’s Inc comedy show.  The Philharmagic was in 3D & Ella was NOT EXPECTING THIS.  As soon as the first 3D object (a flute!) flew toward our faces (watch everyone flinch!), Ella FREAKED OUT!  Poor baby.  She crawled up Dave & squeezed onto him!  We promptly removed her 3D glasses & she was a bit more comfortable, but still not a huge fan of the squirting water, etc.  I, on the other hand, thought this was one of the best things we got to do!  Ella loved pretty much all of the rides, but I think the Teacups were her favorite.  We have a video of her riding them, which I will post as soon as I can get it zipped up & ready for viewing.  It’s pretty cute!

We did several things in the morning, then drove back to have lunch & take a nap.  This was a great plan because it gave us all some down time with quiet, no crowds & out of the sun for a bit.  Ella was excited to go back in the evening (though she HAD to take her Mickey balloon back to the park with her) where we ventured into Tomorrowland & Frontierland/Adventureland.  The lines in the evening were shorter than in the morning!  We had dinner at a sandwich/burger-ish place.  I had pulled pork, which was fine, but apparently the burgers weren’t as good.  If there is one downside to Disney World, it was probably that we paid more for food than it was worth.  We watched the parade full of lights & characters.  Ella got to see Mickey, Goofy, princesses & fairies, so she was happy!  We also watched the fireworks, which were great!  It was Ella’s first time seeing fireworks since she’s always been in bed on Fourth of July!  Though they were a bit loud for her at first, she grew to enjoy them.

It was an exhausting but wonderful day.  I can’t say enough how nice & helpful everyone at Disney was!  Everyone, even the janitors, would stop to help you find something, always with a huge smile.  Dave was wished Happy Birthday countless times.  Ella was called “princess” all day long.  Pretty perfect.

We spend Thursday swimming in the enormous & open pool and at Downtown Disney.  Ella got a Mickey shirt (pink ringer w/ a retro Mickey…so cool), played with legos at the Lego store & fell asleep at dinner at the dinosaur restaurant.  The dinosaur restaurant was cool & informative, but VERY LOUD.  We could barely hear each other across the table & Ella got scared of the moving dinos (they’re “real size”).  Other than that, we probably wouldn’t dedicate a whole day (or afternoon) to Downtown Disney again.  It was mostly stores & restaurants with a huge arcade-type thing (admission fee!) that wasn’t really suited for Ella’s age.

It was truly a great time with lots of fun family memories made.  We are already tentatively planning to go back again, maybe at the same time next year!  It was the perfect time to go since the crowds were really low, the prices were great & the weather was amazing!  (And hopefully we’ll stay longer & can meet up with our friends who live in Tampa!)  Oh Disney, how I love you…

(Do you think they’d let me move into Cinderella’s castle?)

Ella w/ Nana & Papa on Aladdin’s Carpets:

Cute Mickey pumpkin decoration:

Ella tuckered out after a long day:

More pics can be seen on Dave’s flickr, Teacups video to come soon!

All my shows are coming back!!  SWEET!

I used to hate fall, when I was in school.  It meant that I had to go BACK to school, which I wasn’t interested in doing.  It also meant winter was on the way, and I hate the cold.  But now I LOVE the fall because it means that my TV shows are coming back!  With a vengeance!

So far, Biggest Loser, Project Runway, Top Chef, Greek, House & The Office have started.  Looking forward to SVU tonight, CSI soon & Amazing Race on Sunday!  I know, I probably watch too much tv.  Oh well!

I did want to note that I’ve probably been watching too much Special Ops Mission when in Target, maneuvering through crazy racks, I told Ella to “watch my six”.  Don’t think she picked up on it.

Also, HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDMA/GREAT GRANDMA!  My lovely grandma is 75 today!  Love her & hope she has a great day!

Only 1 more week til we are in Disney World riding Dumbo, hugging Mickey & obsessing about princesses & fairies!  Can’t wait!

I’m putting up a few more of our family pictures from our photo shoot with Sara over Labor Day weekend.  It’s really exciting to finally have pictures of my little family!

In other news:

• Ella’s best buddy Drew is going to have a baby SISTER in February!  We are all very excited for the Harden’s, especially Ella, who keeps saying “So excited for Drew’s baby sister!”
• Ella passed her Parents as Teachers evaluation with flying colors!  Her PAT lady (is that what I should call her?) even said she probably would have passed everything on the 27 month evaluation.  She’s such a chatterbox…her vocabulary is huge.
• Ella is using the potty a couple of times a day!  Nothing really consistent yet, but it’s a start!  I love stickers…such a great reward/bribe!

Cute things Ella has said recently:

• “Thank you for the ball very much!”
• “Mommy, thank you for getting me chocolate milk.”
• “I love you so much!”
• “Uncle Chrissy loves Saturday night”  (She actually sang this, but I thought it was cute that she thought of her uncle)
• “I did it!  I pee pee on the potty!  Yay!”
• “Fairies?  Fairies please?  Fairies fruit snacks?  Please?  Fairies?”
• “Take a poo!”  (Actually, she is saying “Tigger and Pooh”, but it really sounds like “Take a poo”)
• “Ella, what does a car say?”  response:  “Beep beep!  Dangit!”

We have a busy few weekends ahead of us, but we are looking forward to everything.  Also, only 12 more days until Disney World!  Hooray!

Oh, and here’s a cute picture from Ella’s birthday party that I have to share:

I stole this from a friend’s facebook notes, but she also stole it from someone, so I don’t know the original source.  But the list is hilarious so I have to share.  It is titled “Random Thoughts from 25-35 year olds”

-I wish Google Maps had an “Avoid Ghetto” routing option.

-More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I can think about is that I can’t wait for them to finish so that I can tell my own story that’s not only better, but also more directly involves me.

-Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you’re wrong.

-I don’t understand the purpose of the line, “I don’t need to drink to have fun.” Great, no one does. But why start a fire with flint and sticks when they’ve invented the lighter?

-Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you’re going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you’re crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.

-That’s enough, Nickelback.

-I totally take back all those times I didn’t want to nap when I was younger.

-Is it just me, or are 80% of the people in the “people you may know” feature on Facebook people that I do know, but I deliberately choose not to be friends with?

-Do you remember when you were a kid, playing Nintendo (or Atari) and it wouldn’t work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid in America did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There was no internet or message boards or FAQ’s. We just figured it out. Today’s kids are soft.

-There is a great need for sarcasm font.

-Sometimes, I’ll watch a movie that I watched when I was younger and suddenly realize I had no idea what the f was going on when I first saw it.

-I think everyone has a movie that they love so much, it actually becomes stressful to watch it with other people. I’ll end up wasting 90 minutes shiftily glancing around to confirm that everyone’s laughing at the right parts, then making sure I laugh just a little bit harder (and a millisecond earlier) to prove that I’m still the only one who really, really gets it.

-How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

-I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.

- I think part of a best friend’s job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.

-The only time I look forward to a red light is when I’m trying to finish a text.

- A recent study has shown that playing beer pong contributes to the spread of mono and the flu. Yeah, if you suck at it.

- LOL has gone from meaning, “laugh out loud” to “I have nothing else to say”.

- I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

- Answering the same letter three times or more in a row on a Scantron test is absolutely petrifying.

- Whenever someone says “I’m not book smart, but I’m street smart”, all I hear is “I’m not real smart, but I’m imaginary smart”.

- How many times is it appropriate to say “What?” before you just nod and smile because you still didn’t hear what they said?

- I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars teams up to prevent a —- from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers!

- Every time I have to spell a word over the phone using ‘as in’ examples, I will undoubtedly draw a blank and sound like a complete idiot. Today I had to spell my boss’s last name to an attorney and said “Yes that’s G as in…(10 second lapse)..ummm…Goonies”

-What would happen if I hired two private investigators to follow each other?

- While driving yesterday I saw a banana peel in the road and instinctively swerved to avoid it…thanks Mario Kart.

- MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

- Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

- I find it hard to believe there are actually people who get in the shower first and THEN turn on the water.

-Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.

- I would like to officially coin the phrase ‘catching the swine flu’ to be used as a way to make fun of a friend for hooking up with an overweight woman. Example: “Dave caught the swine flu last night.”

-I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t at least kind of tired.

- Bad decisions make good stories

-Whenever I’m Facebook stalking someone and I find out that their profile is public I feel like a kid on Christmas morning who just got the Red Ryder BB gun that I always wanted. 546 pictures? Don’t mind if I do!

- Is it just me or do high school girls get sluttier & sluttier every year?

-If Carmen San Diego and Waldo ever got together, their offspring would probably just be completely invisible.

-Why is it that during an ice-breaker, when the whole room has to go around and say their name and where they are from, I get so incredibly nervous? Like I know my name, I know where I’m from, this shouldn’t be a problem….

-You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you’ve made up your mind that you just aren’t doing anything productive for the rest of the day.

-Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don’t want to have to restart my collection.

-There’s no worse feeling than that millisecond you’re sure you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far.

-I’m always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.

- “Do not machine wash or tumble dry” means I will never wash this ever.

-I hate being the one with the remote in a room full of people watching TV. There’s so much pressure. ‘I love this show, but will they judge me if I keep it on? I bet everyone is wishing we weren’t watching this. It’s only a matter of time before they all get up and leave the room. Will we still be friends after this?’

-I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Dammit!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What’d you do after I didn’t answer? Drop the phone and run away?

- I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.

-When I meet a new girl, I’m terrified of mentioning something she hasn’t already told me but that I have learned from some light internet stalking.

-I like all of the music in my iTunes, except when it’s on shuffle, then I like about one in every fifteen songs in my iTunes.

-Why is a school zone 20 mph? That seems like the optimal cruising speed for pedophiles…

- As a driver I hate pedestrians, and as a pedestrian I hate drivers, but no matter what the mode of transportation, I always hate cyclists.

-Sometimes I’ll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.

-It should probably be called Unplanned Parenthood.

-I keep some people’s phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

-Even if I knew your social security number, I wouldn’t know what do to with it.

-Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, hitting the G-spot, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey – but I’d bet my — everyone can find and push the Snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time every time…

-My 4-year old son asked me in the car the other day “Dad what would happen if you ran over a ninja?” How the hell do I respond to that?

-It really pisses me off when I want to read a story on CNN.com and the link takes me to a video instead of text.

-I wonder if cops ever get pissed off at the fact that everyone they drive behind obeys the speed limit.

-I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

-I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lites than Kay.

-The other night I ordered takeout, and when I looked in the bag, saw they had included four sets of plastic silverware. In other words, someone at the restaurant packed my order, took a second to think about it, and then estimated that there must be at least four people eating to require such a large amount of food. Too bad I was eating by myself. There’s nothing like being made to feel like a fat bastard before dinner.

Of course, not all of them are as funny as others.  But I especially appreciate the ones about Mapquest (Yes, I know how to get out of my neighborhood!), Nickelback (UGH!) & iTunes.  I totally do that.