Happy Birthday Butter Cow!

Last Friday Ella, Mom and I went to the Iowa State Fair. This was Ella's 3rd year at the fair, look how much she has grown!

August 2009 (4 weeks old)

August 2010  (1 year old)

August 2011 (2 years old)

Ella and Gra Dondie eating kettle corn and a pork chop on a stick, yum!

Ella enjoyed PB&J on a stick.

Ella found some Legos to play with.

 Ella in the mouth of a Lego Lion

 Gra Dondee and Ella inside a Lego Shark.

 This year's fair celebrated the Butter Cow's 100th birthday, so there were little cow statues scattered all over the fairgrounds, Ella had her picture taken with all the ones we saw along our way through the fair. 

We attempted to take a picture of ourselves enjoying a caramel apple.

 Ella and I had our picture taken with the President and First Lady.

 Ella took a nap in the varied industries building.

This is what the first butter cow looked like.

And here we are with the butter cow. Aren't we cute!?!

We also enjoyed fried cheese curds, warm chocolate chip cookies with ice cold milk, lots of lemonade, and some birthday cake for the butter cow. I do not know what happened to the photographic evidence of these events, but they were all delicious. We did not try the fried butter on a stick.

Saturday was Kids Day at Kinnick. Chris, Ella and I enjoyed a beautiful day at Kinnick Stadium watching the Hawkeyes scrimmage. Lately whenever we pull up to our house, Mom and Dad's house, or Eric and Hallie's house, Ella will start listing off who lives there. For example, when we pull up to our house she will say "Mommy house, Daddy house, Ella house, Ruby house, Me (Millie) house, Baby Bow-Wow house." As we were walking through the parking lot on our way into Kinnick Stadium on Saturday Ella points to the stadium and exclaims, "Herky house!" We are so proud of her! :)

Also on Saturday we headed downtown to check out the sand sculptures at Sand in the City. Ella wiped out right in front of the first aid booth and really milked the workers for all the sympathy she could get. They sprayed her knee to clean it off, put a band-aid on it and gave her a balloon.

She was still pretty crabby and wouldn't pose for any pictures with the sand sculptures. But here are a few of our favorites from this year.

Charlotte's Web

 Alice in Wonderland

 The Lorax

 Rainbow Fish

 Humpty Dumpty

 The Very Hungry Caterpillar

 The Little Engine That Could

 The Giving Tree

 The Three Little Pigs

The "highlight" of my week was probably on Monday when I had to take Millie in for her check-up and shots. After spending all morning chasing her around the house I finally trapped her behind the toilet and managed to get her into the crate. It is no easy task to remove a pissed off cat from behind a toilet when you are 8 1/2 months pregnant. Millie and Ella then meowed at each other in the back seat of the car all the way to the vet. Good news, Ella (24lbs)  now weighs twice as much as Millie (12lbs) does!

We made our first attempt at potty training this week. I think Ella has been ready to start, but I didn't really want to start until after the baby came. I'm not sure why I suddenly felt like maybe it wouldn't be that bad. It must have been just the idea of a few slow days with nothing big on the calendar, but whatever it was, I really should have ignored it. Ella might be ready, but I do not have the energy. Going back to plan a and waiting until after Baby's arrival, or maybe Christmas.

Just Another Week

I bet you'll never guess what we did this week! We went to the pool! Oh, you did guess that? Huh! :)  I took a disposable waterproof camera with us, but I haven't finished the roll yet, so I'll have to add pictures of this trip to the pool later. How on earth did we survive before digital cameras? Ella didn't understand why she couldn't see the pictures right after we took them, and it drove me a little crazy that I couldn't tell if the pictures turned out or not and that I have to finish the roll and then drop them off somewhere to be developed.

We have recently decided to refinance our home, which means a visit from an assessor. The banker told me they would probably not be able to get to our house in at least 10 days because the assessors were booked pretty full, so I felt confident that I could get the place looking presentable by the time the assessor showed up. The day after we were at the bank the assessor called saying she would be there the next morning at 10am! Yikes! Chris and I quickly did some crisis cleaning, shampooing the carpets and boxing up our mountain of back logged laundry and hiding it in Mom and Dad's garage. (Note to future self: when buying next home, make sure the carpet and the drapes match, or at least blend well with the fur on the animals). The next morning I got up at 9 so I could quickly make the bed and vacuum the carpet that Ruby had slept on the night before. At 9:40 I'm just about to brush my teeth and get dressed when the doorbell rings. Excellent. Of corse the assessor would be 20 minutes early, of corse I'm not ready for the day, and of corse the doorbell that hasn't worked in weeks suddenly decides to ring, causing Gretta and Ruby to bolt to the door barking ferociously, which wakes Ella up, startled, she starts to cry. Excellent. After tossing the dogs in the yard and picking up a crying Ella, I answered the door. We are off to a good start. HA! We also haven't fixed the carpet that Ruby tore up on the 4th of July, hope that didn't hurt us too much! I guess we'll find out in a week. I haven't photographed my cleanish house yet, as proof that it can happen, I need to do this. How do I not have any pictures yet? Slow week I guess.

Here we go, we haven't had pictures of the dogs lately. Gretta stayed with us this week while Mom and Dad were in Canada on vacation. Gretta and Ruby spent a lot of time chewing each others' faces. It was too hot this week for them to spend much time outside in the yard. Notice the nicely shampooed carpet they are choosing to roll on? At least you can't tell where Gretta has rolled.

Ella requested that I paint her nails one night. She is getting very good at sitting still while I paint. You can't see it very well in the pictures, but she chose a lovely shade of blue to go with her jammies. What you also can't see very well in this picture is how little room there is left on my lap for Ella to sit on! :)

When the nail polish is dry Ella will hold her hands up for you to see. Usually she holds her palms out toward whoever she is showing, but Chris got her to turn her hands around for the camera.

Friday night I got free tickets to a Kernels game from the NL community center. Sadly I was scheduled to work, but Chris, Ella, Eric and Hallie got to go. They had good seats, nobody got hit by a ball (although I hear there were some close calls!), and there were fireworks after the game, which Ella told me all about later ("Fireworks, BOOM!") I think a good time was had by all.

Saturday while I was at work Chris and Ella spent some time at Grandma and Grandpa Lewis'. Ella enjoyed blowing bubbles.

Yesterday was a big day. I had my 36 week appointment a week early since Dr. Minyon will be out of the office next week. Again, nothing new to report really, baby is still head down and showing no signs of arriving anytime before September 9, which is shockingly less than a month away now. Dr. Minyon and I both think Baby will be arriving late, like Ella, but maybe just not as late. Bag is not packed, have not pre-registered at the hospital, crib is only partially converted back to a crib from when Ella used it as a toddler bed, the car seat cover is still in need of a bath, and we don't have names picked out, so no rush really, we can use all the extra time we can get this time around! I have purchased one package of diapers and tentatively scheduled a newborn photo session for Baby, just to feel like I've done something to prepare. The diapers were on sale and I had a coupon, and I'd purchased a LivingSocial coupon back in February for the photo session, and it expired this week, so I kinda had to get that scheduled, but hey, it's still stuff I can cross off my list of things that need to be done before Baby arrives. We also got fiber optic internet service yesterday, which I'm extremely excited about! I can now upload pictures much faster than I could before. Woohoo!! Now if only it would help me find time to update my blog in a more timely manner.

Ella's Turn

Ella had her 2 year check up this week. We've been taking Ella to my doctor appointments so she can listen to the baby's heartbeat (which she loves, and if you ask her what Baby says she will do an excellent impression of the sound of baby's heartbeat),  but at first she would start crying when we got the the exam room because she thought she was there for shots, so we got in the habit of reassuring her that it was Mommy's turn, so the night before her appointment I told her that it was Ella's turn to visit Dr. Minyon, to which she responded "no, Mommy do it." I told her that she would have to have a shot, and that it might hurt just for a second, but then I would take her out for a shake afterword. This was a tradition that my mom started with Eric and I when we were little and I've decided to start it with Ella too.

The morning of her appointment, she knew it was her turn to visit Dr. Minyon, and she did a really great job until we tried to lay her down on the table to measure her height, she thought we were going to hold her down on the table to give her her shot. :( She was not happy. I gave her my iPhone to take pictures with to calm her down, and this is what she felt was important to capture...

Her new pink minky that Gra Dondee made her for her birthday.

"Dr. 'yon"

And Mommy and Baby Bow-Wow, whom she decorated with stickers.

She was big enough to stand on the big girl scale and only had to get one shot, which she did a great job with. She only cried for a few seconds until the beautiful band-aid was applied,

then she looked up at me, wiping the tears from her face and said, "all done, no crying, shake." I love it when I can tell that she understands the conversations we have! Ella's head is still in the 90th percentile, her height is still at the 75th percentile, and her weight has finally climbed up to between the 10th and 25th percentile at a whopping 24 pounds! Dr. Minyon gave Ella a kitty for being a good girl and passing all her tests and she got a sucker on the way out of the office.  I took this picture in the parking lot, she was upset because her sucker was dripping.

Then I took my brave big girl for an Oreo shake.

Gra Dondee and PopPop got Ella a subscription to National Geographic Little Kids for her birthday. The first issue arrived in the mail this week. She LOVED it! She was so quiet in her car seat I had to peek in the rear view mirror a few times to see if she'd fallen asleep. (Don't worry, the car was parked in a parking lot when I took this picture!)

Friday we had Ella's 2 year pictures taken at Kent Park. We also took some last family-of-three pictures. It was pretty hot out, and you can see it on Ella and my faces in some of the pictures. Ella got pretty stingy with her smiles, but she's still pretty cute if I do say so myself.

You can check out the rest of the pictures on my Shutterfly Share Site. The password is ACE

RAGBRAI was in Coralville on Friday, so we stopped by for a little something to eat and evening entertainment.

Ella is the youngest kid in her tumbling class, she made the age cut by one day since the class started the day after her birthday, but she is definitely the most willing to try new things. Her teacher wanted to know if we have her signed up for other sports yet because she seems to have no fear. We told her she should see Ella in the swimming pool. Check out Ella's newest skill, summersaults!


Tuesday it was Mommy's turn to visit Dr. Minyon again. Again not much to report, everything looks good, Baby is still head down, measuring right at 34 weeks, and we are expecting Baby to arrive after his/her due date (9/9), just like Ella did. But just incase baby should come early, I'm supposed to pre-register at the hospital already. Can I really be that close to the end? Yikes! We are so not ready! 6-7 weeks to go! :)

A quick binky update: Ella is still doing really well without the binkies! She hasn't used one at nap time, bed time, or in the car since giving them to Baby Bow-Wow. We've caught her sneaking hits off of them every now and then, so the other day I had Ella help me wrap them up in a gift bag for her to give to Baby Bow-Wow when s/he arrives. Now that they are wrapped, they are sitting on a shelf above the crib out of reach. I thought giving up binkies was going to be a challenge, once again Ella surprised me. Makes me a little nervous about Baby, after being so spoiled by Ella being such an easy baby/little girl, I have a feeling Baby may be a handful! Guess we will find out soon enough!