Video of giggling Ella

Finished Cloth Taggie Book

Well, I finally finished my cloth taggie book for Ella and am delighted that she seems to love it! We've placed it in her crib and it seems to be doing the trick - she will look at it until she falls asleep for her nap and sometimes after her nap, we will go in to find her looking at it (and talking in her own language - which is mostly just her pretending to read the book to herself).

Here are some photos of the finished product:

Book Project for Ella

Here is my book project I'm working on for Ella. I have about 1/2 of the pages complete. Then I plan to sew them together and bind them all. What you can't see from the photos is all the different things I am using for different textures. I thought of adding these cute fish buttons to the river page, but this is supposed to be a SOFT, blanket like book for Ella so nothing hard.

This is the inside of the cover and back. I made it to resemble the Taggie books.
This is the front of the cover.
Here are the pages.

I must be in Cicely, Alaska

Lately I feel like Chris (from Northern Exposure) when that creative/artistic bug hits. I just can't get enough!!! Completing Ella's pajamas and my first ever sewing machine project inspired something inside me. The last week I've been working like crazy to improve my sewing techniques and this bug just hit me!
I was rocking Ella to sleep for her afternoon nap thinking to myself that I would love to have a nice, soft book for Ella to use to help put herself to sleep for her nap. She does great at night to put herself to sleep, but nap time she still insists that I rock her to sleep. We go through this routine of reading 2-3 books, then we rock with her soft bunny blanket until she's asleep and I carefully lay her in her crib and go about with my chores around the house. I was thinking if she could just put herself to sleep with a book and her blanket, I would have another 30 minutes to my day to get some things done (in theory).
Thus came the BIG IDEA... there are these nice, soft, blanket like books called Taggies Books. Well, they are $13-15 each and I was not thrilled with the so-called stories in them. They consisted of a few words on each page and I just thought Ella would like something more to play with. So I decided to MAKE MY OWN!!!
Well, this idea just got bigger and bigger... I decided I didn't want to make a sleepy time book (we have a ton of those) or a numbers, colors, animal sounds, etc. books - plenty of all of these! What don't we have? A camping book! We keep telling Ella that we will take her camping once the temperature doesn't drop below 50 at night (se we have a while to wait), but she probably doesn't even know what camping is!
I plan to take photos of my book as it progresses so check back here for updates of my own Tagged blanket book. I've already made the cover and back and the first 3 pages. I'm so excited about how it's turning out that I can't put it down!!! Tonight was the first night in a couple of nights that Steve made me put down the material, pins, and thread...

Nature Paper!

Steve just got the word today around noon that his paper he submitted to Nature over a year ago has finally been accepted for publication!!! This is after a TON of revisions and work! YOU ROCK, DR. ROBERTS!!!

Ella's pajamas!

I finally finished Ella's pajamas! This was the first thing I have sewn on my mother-in-law's old sewing machine (which is now my sewing machine) and I am very excited to have them done! They did turn out pretty cute (except the top seems to fit just right and the bottoms are way too big)... but it took me a long time because I had to re-do the neckline 5 times, then they wouldn't fit over Ella's head so I had to rip it out, cut a bigger neckline and I had to re-do that neckline twice. Maybe I should look for a simpler pattern next time. :)

Snow in North Carolina!

Steve used a lid from an old plastic storage container to make a sled for Ella (since we didn't have one). He drilled two holes in it and tied rope to pull her and a little bit for her to hold on to. She really enjoyed the sledding, but wasn't too excited to try to walk in the snow - it was just too deep for her.

Walking Mania!

Well, the day is here that I was waiting for (and kind of dreading)... Ella is officially WALKING everywhere! This past week she has gone from 4-6 steps to the other night walking about 12 steps on her own at a time, but today was the day. We went to the store to get some items we might need for our impending ice/snow storm this weekend. Ella usually walks next to me as I hold her hand, but today she pulled her little hand right out of mine and went walking up and down almost every aisle in the store, laughing and talking the entire time. She is obviously very excited about her new found independence.

Learning to Walk

Why I Love Being a Mother

Well, I've mostly used my blog to post photos lately and I've gotten away from the updates I used to post, and now I'm trying to get back to it.

When I woke up this morning, I was dreading today's events because they included Ella's final swine flu shot. Now, if you didn't hear, Ella started to realize at 12 months that doctors and nurses were not to be trusted and would scream and cry the entire time we would go - even if it was just a routine check up without shots. She is going to be 16 months in a week now and every day she shows me that she really understands everything we say. Man, we are going to have to watch ourselves.

This morning as we sat eating breakfast, I reminded Steve that I had to take Ella to get her shot - and right away I saw Ella's little eyes light up as she said "no" to me. She knew what I said. Dang it.

The fit began when I put on her coat. No, no, no, no, no... as I put her shoes on, grabbed our bags, and headed to the van. Once in the van, she became happier and seemed to forget about where we were going as she listened to Laurie Berkner songs on CD.

The amazing thing that happened was that once we were in the doctors' waiting room, Ella had forgotten what we were doing and so when we were called back, I grabbed her little hand and she walked next to me all the way to the examining room without a problem. But that was as far as we got. As soon as I tried to turn her into the room, "NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!!!" echoed down the hall and she tried to get out of my grasp to run away from the room. I grabbed her and got her into the room. The nurse and I just tried to get it over with fast because she was so upset, but as soon as the fit started, it stopped when we walked out of the room.

Now, you are probably wondering where this story turns from the title of my post. I decided to go over to BabiesRUs before heading home since I had a coupon and wanted to buy a training toilet (yes, I know she's only 16 months, but I want her to have it there when she's ready and I have two 3 year olds at my house enough to warrant the need). While there, I told Ella she could pick out a book. We looked over the really cool touch and feel, flip the flap, and push and pull books before deciding that she wanted the Curious George Learns to Count book (of course the math teacher in me was beaming!). The thing I love about this book is it has an abacus in the book - and that seems to be Ella's favorite part, too.

Then we went over to Southpoint Mall (since it's cold and rainy) where they have a toddler play zone, which was totally overrun with kids today. Ella had a blast! She crawled through tunnels, climbed the boat, steered the helicopter, and crawled through more tunnels! It was great seeing her play with other kids her age and older.

Both our moods were improved as we headed home for lunch. A gloomy, rainy day with promises of shots became a fun filled day with new friends and new books to read and explore.

Hanging Rock Hike

We decided to take advantage of some mild weather we were having in January and we drove 1.5 hours up to Hanging Rock State Park. We wanted to hike a 4 mile route, but when we began, Ella was completely against riding in the backpack that she's always loved to ride in on hikes! Apparently, she wanted to hike up Hanging Rock herself... so we went on a 2 mile hike instead with Ella hiking a little over a mile of it herself! She is not walking independently yet, but walking very well holding on to one of our hands.

Visiting with Aunt Linda and Uncle Hal

Aunt Linda and Ella

Libby Hanna reading Ella her book

Uncle Hal must have said something really funny!

Having fun with the Aults at Christmas

Ella is having fun putting her bracelets on her feet and playing with Aunt Diane and Allison

Alice the Great with Ella (who's concentrating very hard on those fuzzy socks)

Christmas Morning

Check out Ella's big pile of gifts! Wavey the cat thinks the wrapping paper is the best gift ever!


Zoe the cat likes Ella's new wagon she got for Christmas!

Christmas Eve at the Lohrbachs

Coloring Time! I think Ella's favorite thing right now is crayons and markers!


Check out who's sleeping... it's Grandpa Lohrbach!

Snow Photos

December Photos

Ella "helping" Mom make cookies!

Museum of Life & Science photos

Ella and I had a play date with Molly & Beth Owen last week! The girls had a lot of fun!!!