Fall Break Visitors: Part 1

We were incredibly lucky to have not one, but both sets of grandparents visit us in October. Jim had a conference in West Virginia so they took several weeks and drove to see us, drove to the conference and then down to see Granny and Papa Smith in Georgia.
Jim made a dollhouse for Ella (according to her color specifications, if you will notice) and they had a fun time setting it up. He even made little wooden furniture! So cute! Ella admitted to us in the morning that the first night she had woken up in the middle of the night to play with it. It has been a very fun source of entertainment for her. I am very grateful that she is learning to play by herself. It's really neat to hear all of the little voices that come out of her room when she is playing with her dollhouse.

Brenda helped me tremendously by preparing meals to eat after Aubrey is born. I think we made and froze 11 dishes! They smelled very yummy and I am excited to get to use them later! She also helped stock our pantry. We made three trips to Sam's while they were here.
Jim had a business meeting in Boston, so we took a day trip and had lunch with our good friends, Shelli and Josh. Then we ventured down the coast to Plymouth. We didn't realize how long it would take, so the plantation was almost closed. We did enjoy seeing the Mayflower and Plymouth Rock.

We had fun exploring Yale and took them to our favorite overlook.

We ate at some tasty restaurants. Jim was on the search for the perfect clam chowder, so one night we drove to a nearby town and had some incredible seafood. I saw the largest lobster I have ever seen in my life that night. A table of FOUR was sharing that beast!

Then Jim and Brenda did something I'm not brave enough to do. They took Ella to Chuck E Cheese (or Chucky Cheesers as Ella calls it). Bless them. Ella had a wonderful time and Jimmie and I got to go to my Drs appointment by ourselves. It was glorious to both have Jimmie with me, and to not have to corral a three year old. That appointment was only like five minutes long of course (the ones with Ella have sometimes been up to an hour and a half!) and so we even got to enjoy some quiet time before the Chucky Cheeser gang returned.

We also went apple picking while they were here. We picked about 25 pounds of apples. It was fun and Brenda had fun making pies. We really like apples and there is nothing like picking your own. So yummy!

Thank you for coming to see us! We had a great time!

New Ella-isms

As I keep being reminded by various friends and family, it has been about 6 months since I posted new Ella-isms. Just a warning that I have been a little scattered lately and this is going to seem like a hodge podge of information!

Vocabulary:
"lello" as in "Follow the lello brick road."
"aminals" as in "Mommy did you know that I like almost all of the aminals except maybe The Beast when he is grouchy, but he gets not grouchy at the end."
"curated" as in "In the beginning, God curated the Heavens and the Earth." (Her first memory verse!)
"frefer" as in "Hmmm...I frefer the veggie chips for lunch" (How many three year olds talk about the things they prefer?)
"Miss Donald's" as in "I would please like to go to Miss Donald's for dinner and get a Happy Meal."

"Mom I think we're carrot monsters!"
When going through the hospital for her sibling tour she was asked whether to use a soft voice or a loud voice. She replied "Loud voice, definitely loud voice!" (hmmm....try again)
We have friends that call their daughter "little nugget". Ella came home from their house and told her dad that he could call her "little fry" so that she and Pearl could be a Happy Meal.
When she didn't want to pick up her bath toys she looked at me (who was at least 7 months pregnant) and said "I just can't do it Mom, my tummy keeps hitting the bathtub." Nice try Sis!
She opened her little Toddler Bible one day and pointed and said "That's Rebecca and Sara, but not the ones we go visit" (my sister's names are Rebecca and Sara)
For the first month that we lived in New Haven and drove through campus she would say "Everything looks like a castle!"
She learned her first Bible verse "In the beginning God curated the Heavens and the Earth.-Genesis 1:1"
"That baby that's in my tummy is kicking me so hard it made me jump off the bed!"


New additions to "The Book" of things I never thought I would say until I was a mom:
"Please use your inside puppy voice"
"Can you please tell me when it is appropriate to scream and when it is not?"
"No you may not have any more milk today, you need to drink something else." (better than telling her not to drink so much soda, I guess)
"Puppy Ella, can you please get out of the kennel so that the other dogs can go to sleep?"

Along with the cute things that she has said or learned, there have definitely been some not so cute things. These things may or may not be accompanied by foot stomping, her hand on her hip or throwing herself on the floor wailing.
"You make me so frustrated!"
"You hurt my feeeeeeeliiiiiinggs!"
"You are so MEAN to me!!!!"
"I WILL NOT (insert whatever she doesn't want to do here)!"
"I don't want to hear a peep out of you!"
I think it's time to re-read my book about raising my "Spirited Child"!

She has also been learning all of her numbers and letters and read her first word "if" the week of Halloween. The next day we went to the library for a costume parade and story hour (which I will write about soon I promise). The librarian asked the kids to raise their hands if they could read and our little "reader" shot her chubby little hand up in the air! It was pretty cute. I guess one word counts for something right?

"You know those sirens that you hear?"

It really has been my worst fear, every time that Jimmie is gone and I hear sirens. Especially since Matt's accident a few years ago. I can't help it. I worry each time that he gets on his bike (or when we were in Lawrence, his motorcycle) that something is going to happen to him.

Wednesday night started a little crazy anyway. Ella and I took a late nap and when we woke up I realized I had half an hour to get her bathed, clothed, fed and out the door before her class at church. I also had to get dinner ready for me and Jimmie to eat during her class.  I felt bad, but realized that I didn't have time to take the dogs on a walk before we left. I thought we would be home in an hour and a half anyway, so they could wait just a little longer. I had offered to pick Jimmie up, but he decided that he was going to ride out to the church to make it easier on me and so that he could get a little more work done.

We talked to Jimmie who said he was getting ready to leave the school. She ate quickly and then we headed out the door making it to her class just in time. I went outside and took a deep breath, trying to calm down from the flurry of activity. I sat down on the bench outside to wait for Jimmie so we could eat dinner. I got a little distracted checking email and playing on Facebook on my phone. I did start to worry a little at about 6:30, but thought that maybe Jimmie just had some more things to finish before he could leave. He is a chemist and this happens quite frequently! Then I heard a siren and for a minute wondered where he was, but again thought he just got hung up. Then at 6:45 my phone rang and I heard this sheepish voice on the other end say "Hey, you know those sirens that you hear? They are for me." And I immediately wanted to vomit. I didn't, but I did run all the way around the church and almost started to run on the road and decided that was a very bad plan. Jimmie assured me that he was fine, and I even talked to the paramedic who said that he was ok, but they were going to take him in to the Yale ER just to make sure. However, I did hear him say before they hung up the phone, "Let's go, we're going to run him as a full trauma." As a former trauma nurse that did not reassure me!

I ran to the church office and found a friend that could watch Ella while I went to the hospital and got down to the intersection just in time to follow the ambulance. I did notice Jimmie's bike on the side of the road, but kept driving. I had a horrible time figuring out how to park when I got to the hospital, but figured it out and went in to check on him. I had to wait a while, but when I got in there they had already done several scans and checked him out pretty thoroughly. He was sitting up when I got back to him.

Really only by the grace of God was he Ok. He had quite a few scrapes and one of his hips and the opposite ankle were very sore. They kept him in the ER for a couple of hours because they could not believe that someone that just got hit by a car was not more injured.

We went to get Ella and came home. I walked both dogs(who were incredibly excited to go out) and it took Jimmie nearly an hour to get across our apartment, into the shower and then into bed. For the next couple of days I did a whole lot of moving of his legs for him because he was very sore.

Now, unless you looked at his back and arms where he still has some large scrapes healing, you would not be able to tell that he had ever had an accident. We have had some frustrations about insurance and some other things, but for the most part we are just so grateful that he is ok and that he was wearing his helmet. His helmet cracked, either when he hit the windshield or the ground. His bike is bent. We decided to get a clunker car so he doesn't have to ride on the streets any more in this crazy place!

Thank you all for your prayers, concerns and help during that scary time! I truly believe that God was watching out for our family!