Ella Loves to Read

Ella has really turned into a book worm! She loves looking through her books, both on her own and with us. Periodically through the day she'll bring one of her favorites over to us to read with her. It's sooo cute! Love it!

Is anyone else as excited as I am?

I know there are varying political views out there that may tune in to our blog periodically.... but I have to say.....I am getting more than a little excited for Tuesday - INAUGURATION DAY!

still fighting it

While Ella's fever did break toward the end of last week, she still has a nasty cold. Yesterday and today especially, she's got this awful cough and constantly runny nose (which turns into mom and dad constantly wiping her nose - oh how she hates that!). Luckily, she does seem to be sleeping ok - and seems to need more of it right now. It will be nice to have her back to 100%. Tomorrow is MLK Jr. Day, so Seth has a holiday from work! Yea! No big plans...just tending to Ella. We had made plans to try to get to Silver Mtn (local ski resort) for a night, but that was before Ella got sick. Maybe next weekend?

A definite improvement

Ella is a new girl today - hooray! Aside from a stuffy nose and a little cough, she is feeling back to her normal self...as far as I can tell. She's definitely got her energy back. We weren't sure what to expect after last night. Bedtime was a challenge - something we haven't had to deal with in a while, which made us realize how spoiled we've been in the sleep department. Ella was asleep by about 10:15 and then slept through the night so we all got a great night's sleep. And we have our girl back - yea!! (Is my excitement a little premature? Let's hope not.)

A long night

Little Ella isn't feeling well. She woke us up last night at 3 am and couldn't get herself back to sleep. She was running a little bit of a temperature and it was evident she wasn't herself. Poor thing...it's so hard to see them sick isn't it!? The only way I could get her to sleep again was if I was holding her, she was not going back in the crib. So it was a long few hours early this morning.

Before all the snow melts....

I had to show you this picture. Last weekend, Seth and I spent alot of time outside, shoveling and "raking our roof". For those of you who are not familiar with such a term, yes, there is a tool created to help pull the snow from one's roof in order to alleviate at least some of the weight it brings (there have been roofs all over town -mostly commercial buildings - caving in because of all the snow). Our neighbors have a roof rake that they let us borrow so Seth and I got to work with it. Funny thing is, I didn't really mind it. Maybe a good little side business for me?

standing on one of the huge piles of snow in the backyard

see my rake? pretty cool huh?

this is better

This one you can see! Check out her face.... she makes this little "oh" face pretty regularly when she's excited about something. Cracks me up.

New Gig

So tomorrow was supposed to be the official start day for my new job. Intrigued? Well, remember the little boy that I watched last month? Well that arrangement worked out pretty well for everyone and we've decided to keep it going until this summer. Jason and Chrissy are teachers, so won't need anyone to watch JJ during the summer months, so my watching him will only last from now until early June. They are planning on moving closer to the schools where they teach, which would mean that having me watch JJ in the next school year wouldn't make much since - we'd just be too far away. I'm pretty happy with the situation though. I've never seen myself with a career in childcare, but JJ is such a great little guy and it'll bring in a little extra money.

Anyway, I started out saying that tomorrow was supposed to be my first day. Well because of forecasted snow overnight they've already cancelled school for pretty much every district for tomorrow. This winter is gonna stretch on forever.....

Still snowing.....

So we got more snow overnight.....but that's become a common phrase around here. I think about 4 or 5 inches, but it's still snowing a bit now. I went out this morning and took a couple pictures so you can see what it looks like, but really, the pictures don't do it justice. (I don't know why this is underlined.... :)

our street

our house (need to shovel the front walk - again)

the driveway (it's quite a workout shoveling up and over the sides)

we do have a 2 car garage....just not right now

this is a pic right off our back step, and the path we've made for Serena. Poor dog!

Stepping Out

Ella is a little camera shy when it comes to showing off the walking thing, so it's been tough getting any footage. This is the best I've got so far. I'll keep working on it and report back..... Oh, and it's really dark, so not so easy to see. I promise, it really is Ella.

Before I forget....

Ella's been taking a step or 2 on her own since Christmas Day. She's ramped things up in the last couple of days and today we were getting 5 or 6 steps out of her before she goes down. Everyone tells us we're in trouble, but it's so fun to watch! I'll try to get some video of it posted soon.