Rocky

Although Ella didn't get to know him very well before we had to give him to a new home, Rocky was a cool cat. I had him for a year before I got married and for the first 3 years of our marriage. He played fetch, loved to cuddle, liked to be held like a baby and was always there for me when I needed him. When we moved we had to give him and his adopted brother, Telli, away. It was really hard but I have been able to keep in touch with their new owner which has been nice.

I just learned some terrible news...

Unfortunately, Rocky decided to eat something that wasn't edible and it got stuck in his digestive tract. They couldn't do anything to fix the problem and had to put him to sleep. Rocky left this world on February 25th. I loved him, as if he was a part of my family and am very sad to hear that he isn't with us anymore.

Here's some pictures of the little guy:

The above pictures are of Rocky with Danielle's cat, Cleo

The boys testing out the new littermaid

Rocky loved to snuggle with Telli

And Telli loved to snuggle with Rocky

Evidently he thought he was a human

Skinny Rocky

He'll be missed...

All the little things she does

Ella is amazing! She is so incredibly F-U-N!!! We just love to watch her and play with her and love her! it's true! I thought I would do a little post to let everyone in on a few of the fun little things she does.

Ella is trying SOOOO hard to walk. She actually, on her own free will, walked to her daddy while he was trying to take a picture of her on Easter evening, April 12. He said that he was looking at her through the view screen on the camera and she all a sudden got bigger and bigger! It was quite impressive! She now loves to walk from daddy to mommy and occasionally from mommy to daddy (a lot of times when I try to get her to walk to daddy she flips around and comes back to me. Does that mean she is a mommy's girl or is it just that she thinks daddy is trying to get her? Either way, soooo cute!). She also walks from us to her walker and takes off. We'll have to get video sometime. Ella also doesn't care for grass. So she will walk really fast to daddy and do everything to avoid falling down. Daddy has too much fun with that. Ella feels like such a big girl when daddy holds one hand and mommy holds the other and she walks in between us. It is too fun!

Ella is also learning to climb. She climbs in and out of her car very well and has also been found on top of my craft tub!

Little miss Ella has also learned how to do the rock-a-stack. We don't have video of it yet but we will. This is a rock-a-stack, if you didn't know:

Be looking for a future post about our fun at the park the other day. Some cute photos to follow!

Ella's new RIDE!

As an early Easter present from Grandma and Grandpa Smith, Ella got a CAR! A REAL CAR! So supposedly my kiddo is supposed to learn to drive before she even learns to walk! lol. Ella loves to open and close the door, play with the gas tank cover, climb in and out of the car, stand up, and then do it all over again. She also likes to put things into her car. She also pushes her car and walks behind it. She is so cute!

This car is pretty neat. It has three stages: stage one: floor board so that she can't put her feet down and fall, handle on the back for mom and dad to push, and lock so that the door doesn't open. stage two: remove floor board, unlock the door, but keep the handle so that mom and dad can help propel the car. stage three: remove the handle and off she goes! Ella is between stages one and two. We have unlocked the door but the floor board is still there, as is the handle. It is pretty fun for all!

Here's the process of putting the car together. It was so cute to have daddy come home and get all excited dumping the pieces out. And Jared said he isn't into working on cars! Ella helped of course!

Ella checking out her new car parts!

Ella sitting in her car without wheels :)

A little smile for the camera

Ella helping with the steering wheel

Test driving the partially finished car

First ride in the new (finished) car!

ALL FINISHED! YAY!

Ella's first Easter!

This last Sunday was Ella's first Easter. The Easter bunny set everything up for her next to her big frog but she didn't get to open it until mommy got up Easter morning (daddy took care of Ella and let mommy sleep a little bit longer. It was so sweet and considerate). When I got up, Ella finally got to see what she got. She got some big plastic eggs from mommy and daddy, an Easter dress that I actually got for my baby shower for Ella, and some books, sunglasses, some pinwheels (Ella loves) and other fun things from Grandma and Grandpa Smith.

We then made the traditional Easter nest for breakfast (actually for Ella's lunch because she eats breakfast between 7 and 8 am and the nest wasn't ready until noonish). It was fun! Ella helped to decorate the nest too! It was so cute when she shook the sprinkles on the "eggs".

For our Easter we went to church and then went to Pat's house for dinner. We had yummy roast with veggies and bread. We then played Upwords Scrabble which was really fun. Finally, WAY past Ella's bedtime, we had a quick brownie and then headed home. We made sure to get a quick Easter picture before bed. It was a great, relaxed day. Happy Be-lated Easter!

Ella is 10 months old!

Well everyone, Ella is now officially 10 months old. Where did the time go? She is so rambunctious and full of life and just plain FUN! These are some things that she has learned to do this past month:

She has learned HOW TO STAND!!!! but she doesn't really like to do it because she gets scared. (She first did this while at my parent's house the end of March). She is found standing quite often while she plays but once she realizes that she is doing it she sits down. She also learned to climb stairs at the same visit and I've even caught her on top of one of my craft tubs at home.

She has actually taken STEPS all on her own but likes to do it more as a fall towards you with steps, and really doesn't like being made to do it on her own.

She LOVE LOVE LOVES to walk by holding on to your hands and insists on holding onto BOTH of them even though she can do it with just one hand.

She has learned to walk with her walker and can walk from one end of the apartment to the other.

She loves to play "I'm gonna getcha" while mommy or daddy advances towards her and she crawls swiftly away. She giggles giggles giggles! (I will have to take a video and post it later).

Ella is transitioning from baby food to eating what we eat. She just started not liking the baby food anymore and now only has it for breakfast (cereal and fruit). She loves pears, peaches, bread, cheerios (preferably hunny nut, but I really only give her the plain kind), peas, GREEN BEANS (she once ate a WHOLE CAN by herself...the proof is in the picture at the top of this post), carrots, any kind of noodle (she shovels those in. I guess she is taking after mama), and so much more.

Ella learned to pull her mobile down, so...we had to take it out of her crib and put it away. Also notice that the bumpers are not in her crib anymore. She kept pulling on them and I was afraid that she would rip the strings off, so...they are put away as well. Just recently I also put away the headboard bumper because she kept pulling on it.

She also learned that it was pretty stinkin' funny to shoot darts at mommy...

...but that it wasn't so funny to have them shot at her!

She learned how to crawl outdoors onto the patio...

...but decided that she didn't like the grass so much

Ella has learned how to eat two foods at once...

Strawberry....OR...Carrot?

BOTH!

Just a cute thing that Ella does now is that she will put something in her car (I will post about that in the next few days) and then move it, and then move it back...it's hard to explain but it is so cute. It reminds me of a story of Auntie Danielle doing that with a washcloth when she was little. So cute!

As you can see, Ella has learned so much just in the past month! She is growing every day and is such a joy. I love just sitting and watching her interact with the environment. Too see what a child sees would just be so amazing. We love her so much!

Here a couple of just plain cute random pictures to end this post:

Ella and Daddy enjoying a sit on the patio. I think Ella was looking at the chime I have hanging out there and that Daddy was just copying her.

I asked Jared to give Ella a bath one day while I made dinner and I walked in there and he was in his swim shorts in the tub with her. What a funny guy. No wonder why Ella likes him so much!

Our quick trip to Washington

I know it has been a while since I have posted but life has been so busy. We found out about Grandma's passing the day of and were driving to Washington by 5:15 that night. We drove through the night and arrived in Washington at around 5:30 the next morning (4:30 Washington time). We had to wake Grandpa Smith up to come and let us in and since Ella had slept the entire way, she was awake and ready to play! She learned to climb the stairs in no time! One funny thing she did (not funny for her) was because the coffee table is right at the height of her head when she is crawling (she did not see this and still is learning depth perception), she crawled head on into it! She cried, poor girl!

The drive to Washington wasn't too eventful...As I said, Ella slept most of the way and Jared and I would trade off driving every hour to hour and a half. We did very well if you ask me. Probably the only eventful thing that happened was when we were going down a large hill in Oregon, Jared, who had been going 60 mph (5 UNDER the speed limit) decided to coast down the hill. Well, when Jared coasted, he put the car in neutral and got going over 80 mph on a 65 mph freeway. Yep, you guessed it. Mr. Policeman was waiting at the bottom of the hill (he had no lights on at all or anything. Don't they have to be visible?) and he whipped around as Jared pulled over even before the cop had his lights on. The cop came up to our back driver's side window and shown his huge flashlight in and saw Ella sleeping (snoring) in her car seat, and as he walked up the the driver's side window, said "shhhh, she's sleeping". To make a long story shorter, he told Jared that he had been "hillbilly freeriding" and that putting the car in neutral was illegal (who knew?) aside from going way over the speed limit. He took Jared's driver's license and registration (as he was walking away I told him we were on the way to a funeral) and went back to his car. He came back a while later and told Jared that he was going to give him the $247 ticket but decided not to because we were going to a funeral and he wanted to show some compassion but that we were on the 3rd rated hill for fatal accidents in the nation and that he didn't want anything to happen to us. PHEW! No ticket!


While we were in Washington, we went to church once, and mostly visited with family. We went to a family dinner in Moses Lake at Great Aunt Cindy's and it was nice to sit around and tell stories about Great Grandma Winder. The next day we went to G Grandma's viewing and it was hard but everyone was still able to laugh and enjoy seeing each other (G Grandma would have liked that). The next day was G Grandma's funeral. Ella and Jared missed most of it because at the very beginning Ella decided to throw a fit. I was so glad that Jared had been there so that I didn't have to miss it. He is such a blessing as is his job for giving him 3 days paid grievance days and he was also able to take 2 days paid vacation, so he was able to be there for the entire week. G Grandma's funeral was so nice. We then went to the cemetery and laid G Grandma's body to rest. It was really nice and there were so many people there. Below are some pictures from that day:





The photo was taken right after Ella threw a carnation into G Grandma Winder's grave. I bawled because it is so hard knowing that Ella won't get the chance to get to know her G Grandma Winder in this life. After throwing the flower, Ella waved. It was like she was saying goodbye for now. I wonder if she could see Great Grandma Winder standing there waving back at her.



This is my favorite picture of all time! It seems professional with the angle and everything. I think I will have it blown up for my wall. Look at daddy's handsome dimples and Ella's feathery hair. LOVE IT!



This was taken at the church family dinner after the funeral. This is Great Grandpa Winder with all of his kids. (Left to Right) Uncle Dee, Aunt Colleen, Aunt Teri (Grandma Smith's twin), Aunt Cindy, Aunt Pat, Grandma Smith, Uncle Dan, and Great Grandpa Winder in the center.



Here is a picture of G Grandma Winder's brothers, sisters, and father. (Left to right) G G Uncle Larry, G G Uncle Roger, G G Uncle Dave, G G Uncle Don, G G Aunt Susan, Great Great Grandpa Barnum, G G Aunt Dorothy, and G G Aunt Anita (G G Uncle Max couldn't make it). (Roger and Susan are twins and Dorothy and Don are twins. Two sets of twins from one mom!)

Another one of my favorites. Danielle's smile is so pretty!

The last couple of days in Washington we just spent spending time together. It was nice to see family despite the circumstances.

After visiting Washington we stopped by in Boise to see Great Grandma and G Grandpa Winston. We were going to visit them on the way there but they got in a car accident and G Grandma was/is in the hospital. It was planned to have an anniversary party for them, but we just visited with them and Grandpa and Grammy Winston, Aunt Caity and Aunt Kira, Uncle Nathan and Aunt Andrea. It was a short fun time.

p.s. After the week of the funeral, Aunt Danielle came for a few days, then Uncle Nathan and Aunt Andrea came for Conference, so you see, we have been very very busy!