Kalahari - for little and big kids

Some time during the summer my mom mentioned that we would all should get away one weekend before winter sets in. We were all game. So she booked us a suite here:

http://kalahariresort.com/oh/

It was our family of three, my mom and dad, my brother's family of three, my sister's family of 4, and a friend of my niece's. I have to say that I think we were all a little hesitant to how it would go. We had two little ones who are always unpredictable and noone knew much about the place. It finally dawned on me last week that I wouldn't be able to do as much since I was expecting so I was a little worried I would be bored.

No reason at all to be concerned! We all had such a great time. This place was huge with so much to do. Ella never stopped smiling. She loves the water and became a pro on the water slides. They had the cutest little kid section, and her and I were able to do the Lazy River together. I felt bad though cuz she got nailed a couple of times by waterfalls. She did great though and most of them made her laugh. There were a couple of times I caught the "what are you doing to me, Mom?" after she got a face full of water. I pretty much was with Ella the whole time so Dad could go catch some grownup slides. The big "kids" all seemed to really enjoy those. They also had a pretty good arcade and a huge playspace for kids. It was a huge structure that you could climb around end with lots of obstacles and then in the middle they had a ball area where people could shoot balls at each other or just play. They had this chute type thing that would shoot a bunch of balls at one time in the air. Ella loved that! She kept piling them in there and then hitting the button. She'd laugh so hard everytime they went up and came down. Here is a picture of the ball area.

So because it was wet and crowded, we didn't get any pictures. I could have gone back to get the camera but we were all having so much fun and it was hard to track everyone down that I didn't bother. I did get one I will have to add later of Ella and her cheesy picture smile. She has started making this really strange face whenever a camera is pointed at her. It's hilarious. If you ever get a chance to check this place out, it is so much fun!

Dirty Little Secrets

My dear friend, Barb, tagged me for a little game :). She said her sister found a book called Dirty Little Secrets from Otherwise Perfect Moms by Trisha Ashworth and Amy Nobile. This one is kind of hard for me because I really share too much about myself to friends and family so I am not sure anything is really secret, but I am going to try.

1) I am probably one of the laziest people you will ever meet. Seriously. The only thing that has ever kept me from being called this at work is my desire to stay out of trouble and an inherited work ethic. Sad, but true. Ask my husband how much I actually move. My poor mother thought I was seriously ill as a child because I would always say something hurt to get out of housework. I am trying really REALLY hard not to use my pregnancy as an excuse to lay around so much.

2) Probably directly related to the laziness- I am a HUGE slob. I really don't see when things are dirty. I would much rather play and create than clean the house. My poor husband was the exact opposite of me when we moved in together. Now he kinda of bends. He lets me do as I please until it starts affecting our daily routine. Like not having any clothes at all to wear to work. Then he does usually do a lot of it himself. To be fair- when I finally really see how bad it is, I obsessively clean. That happens more now with Ella.

3)I listen to the kids XM station after I have dropped Ella off at daycare. And I have been know to listen to her CDs too when she has not even been in the car. There is just something so sweet and innocent about children's music. And Raffi is catching.

4)My daughter eats PBJs for dinner a lot. I don't enjoy cooking. I enjoy eating what I cook but not actually making it. When I want to, I can do a decent job of it too. So sad.

5)I can't get rid of anything. Especially books. Not sure why. Even if I never plan on reading it again. I just can't let it go. I feel some sort of weird attachment to them.

Ok so that's the best I can do right now. :) That was kind of fun. It's good to be honest with yourself. I hope I can provide some hope to other lazy slobs out there that it really doesn't matter if you can't cook and clean. You can still find a great man.

Our weekend

So I forgot to post about our weekend yesterday. I really just needed to catch up on the big things first :). I feel great today. Could be the extra half cup of coffee that I let myself have this morning.

This weekend was my niece's 4th birthday! She's such a big girl now. We went down for the party my brother and Jenny were having. It went really great! The kids all had fun especially the birthday girl. I wish I had pics but sadly I didn't remember. Seems to be a theme lately. This is the second weekend in a few months that Ella and I have headed down to just spend the weekend with them. We usually all gather at my sister's and it's fun but always crazy and we always leave feeling like it just wasn't enough time together. I need to do this kind of weekend with my sister's family too because it was so relaxing. And my brother is the sweetest guy. He is so great with kids and without his energy I think the party would have fizzled. Ella just adores him. She would actually walk up and tell him things randomly. Not always really clear but enough came through that you could get the gist. Part of me was so excited that she wanted to communicate and another part was jealous because it wasn't with me. But she's trying! And he made sure I ate well :). After the girls finally crashed, we played a game. Ever played Risk? We played the Godstorm version. It was fun but complicated and very long! We only made it through 4 rounds but I am happy to say that at the end of that round I was winning! Not a common thing for me. To be fair, my brother and Jenny were drinking wine and very tired.

Wow I am on a role this week with posts :). We'll see how it goes. One more note- poor Dave has a bum knee. It has been bothering him for a couple of weeks now. Last night he finally admitted he had to go to urgent care. I thought 1) we'd be out in an hour. 2) they'd give him some muscle relaxers and send him on his way because he just pulled a muscle. 2 hours with a very energetic 2 year old in a urgent care full of germs was just too much. We stayed in there for maybe 30 or 40 minutes and then headed to the car for some entertainment. Thank goodness for portable DVD players. When he came out, I was so tired. So so tired. And the smell of our leftovers from dinner was killing me. After getting settled back in the car, I looked at him very annoyed and said "Well what did they say?" Now looking back I guess that wasn't very sensitive of me. They think it is something with his ligaments or his cartilage, and they referred him to an orthopedic surgeon. Ugh. So we will see what happens. Wow I had a lot to say this morning. :)

No more Starbucks for me

Two posts in one day! Someone mark this day in the calendar.

I am not drinking Starbucks anymore! I know I just announced that I am pregnant and have cut down on my caffeine intake, but that is not why. I still drink it as a treat once in awhile. I can't believe what I read and I will not be drinking Starbucks until they come up with a better solution.

Check this out

6 million gallons! WTF!!! I feel bad when I indulge in a long shower or forget to turn the water off when I am brushing. This is just ridiculous. I understand having to maintain cleanliness, but all restaurants have to battle the same problems and I don't hear of them wasting so much water. Seriously. Ugh.

Exciting news!

I am sure many of you can guess what's coming next! We are expecting! I am 11 weeks pregnant this week. Due date right now is around April 27. It was a HUGE shock to us! We weren't going to try until next year once we figured out what was going on job wise. We are very excited though. It has been a little stressful thinking about the future. My job here ends soon. There was a possibility of moving to Texas, but I found out last week that it isn't going to happen and honestly that relieved so much stress for me! With the iffy economy, finding a job may be tough. I have never had a problem before though, and this time we may try to get something part time with less hours. IF we can make the money work. Big IF for anyone. We are trying to prepare for it while my job still lasts though.

Physically, I have been feeling so yuck. Last week I finally started to get some of my energy back, and I haven't been as nauseous. For about 2 weeks though I felt so horrible and so tired. I feel like poor Ella is the one really suffering though. After work I would just lay on the couch. I would play and talk to her while resting though. I tried anyway. My girl is making some progress. She is saying about 5 more words clearly, and really trying to talk a lot more. Daycare even said she has started trying to communicate with them which makes me SO happy. We have our first actual session at the end of the month. We met to set goals. We set two major ones for her by age 3. The first is just to get her try start communicating her needs and wants with us. Second, to speak 150 words clearly. Hopefully she will have so many more but we want at least 150 articulate words. Right now we haven't started speech therapy, but I suspect it will happen. We agreed that we should give her a chance to get started on her own for a couple of months to see if it's mostly her personality holding her back. She is so bright though. She amazes us everyday of what she does comprehend. And her nonverbal communication is expanding too. She is picking up some signs. Also when you tell her "I love you", she blows you a kiss. She also blows a kiss to say thank you.

Such a long post- maybe if I did this more often it wouldn't be so long. Oh well, I will leave you with a couple of pics. Ella with her sporty braids and one of her playing in her play house before it got cold.

Fall is on its way!

I love fall but I have to admit to being really annoyed this past week with the weather. We start out so chilly and then by the afternoon its 80! I have the dressing of Ella for the day down. Long cotton pants, tshirt and jacket. Poor Dave though. I went to pick her up last week from daycare and she was wearing a turtleneck and corduroys and when I got out of the car, the temp said 81!! She seemed ok and the bldg has AC. Still funny though.

So I haven't posted in awhile. There has been so much going on around here but I am not sure what to say about it. First off, there are hints my job may be wanting to send me to San Antonio. We are so torn about it. Right now I don't have to decide anything because really there hasn't been an offer but if there is one, I don't know what to say. I really love being so close to family. Noone is more than 5 hrs away. Plus our house- not sure what we would do with it. I just don't know.

We also had Ella's evaluation with Early On on 9/10. It went really well. We found out she is at least 11 months behind in communication and language. She falls in the 11-15 month range according to their evaluation. I knew she was delayed, but I was very shocked to find out how far behind she has fallen. I am really glad we called and had them come out. I haven't been concerned just by the fact that she doesn't speak, but more by her lack of trying to communicate with us at all. The lady who came out and I did discuss the possibility that it could all be due to Ella's very laid back personality. She has never been in a hurry to do anything and maybe we just need to find her motivation. We aren't concerned about hearing, but it would be nice to do a hearing test on her just to make sure. Unfortunately Ella was so terrified of the machine that Dave and I declined for right now.

Ever since we had Ella's evaluation, she has been surprising us with some things. This weekend, her cousin Saoirse was visiting, and Ella really tried to talk a lot. I caught her saying "apple" and later on when I asked what she wanted to drink milk or apple juice- she clearly said "apple juice". And lots of times I caught portions of sentences that made sense. So it's there. I am going to try to write things down as I hear her say them. One thing I have noticed is that Ella speaks very softly. I wonder if she has tried to speak more and maybe it went unnoticed. She would never say "hi" or "bye" to people before. She would wave but always after they couldn't see her. When she did start saying it, I noticed it was very quiet and often people figured she didn't say it because she doesn't say much. So now when I hear her say it, and the person she is speaking to does not hear her, I stop them and let them know she said "hi" or "bye" so that she begins to understand that people will respond to you and that communicating can be useful. She is SO shy, and anyone who knows Dave and I well knows that it's genetic. I can remember feeling ignored a lot as a little girl and I am sure it was because I was so quiet and so reluctant to share my thoughts. I don't want to push Ella too hard, but I don't want her to feel the same.

So we meet again this Wednesday to discuss our plan for Ella. I am excited that we may finally get to hear what Ella really sounds like :). If you have read this far, thanks :). I know it was a lot to take in.

My baby is growing up so fast!

So our Miss Ella has decided to start taking leaps and bounds in becoming a true toddler. She talks a lot more but unfortunately we are still not understanding her much but she is talking. We went ahead and scheduled an appointment with Early On thanks to our friend Barb's experiences and recommendation. Her evaluation is on Sept 10. I am sure they will just be telling us she is a late talker but if not at least we know we are getting her some help so she can communicate with us better.

Two down sides to this sudden growing up- her attitude and the end of the crib. First the attitude- oh my lord. She is so sassy and stubborn without saying a word! She has started defying me while looking me straight in the eye. Like when I say- "Ella please don't put your toy in the dog's water"- she will look right at me and do it anyway!!! So we are going to have to implement time outs. ugh. I have nothing against time outs. I am just lazy. So there is that hurdle.

The crib. We have never had any problems with Ella and her crib. She has never tried to climb out. Until today. I was just about ready to give up on nap and get her out to play for a few when we heard Ella start screaming and it sounded really close to the baby monitor. Dave went to get her and found her on the floor. So out came the toddler bed today. We were planning on doing it after the holiday weekend since we are travelling to Illinois, but it looks like Ella wants to start earlier. So as I type this, Ella is sound asleep. She didn't even try to get up and play. We will see what happens at 2 or 3 when she always wakes up for a few.

Wish us luck!!