Ho hum.

So Ella's favorite place these days is the bathroom. The reason? She can play peekaboo with herself in the mirrored shower door! Gord has seen it several times, but I haven't yet. Given that it's the best game in the whole world to her, I can believe it without seeing it.

I've also started to do sign language with Ella, like we did for Ben. For instance, when I'm feeding her solids, and she starts to get full, I'll ask her if she's "all done?" And she laughs. Methinks that's not a good sign! (ha ha, no pun intended.)

I bought Ben little Lightning McQueen and Mater cars the other day. They, apparently, are now members of the family and therefore need to be with us wherever we go. The basement. The grocery store. Swimming lessons. And it's a catastrophe when one is missing. "Mommy, mommy! Where is Lightning The Queen? Where is he? I don't know where he is!"

It's a real snotfest over here right now. Ella and Ben both have stuffy noses with lots of gross greenish-yellowish boogers. Ben is constantly saying, "Mommy! I need you to wipe my snot!" What a guy. Ella HATES having her nose wiped. She screams bloody murder when she even sees a kleenex.

So I am a diaper-changing, nose-wiping, potty chaperoning, juice-and-snack fetcher these days. But really, isn't that always the case?

Here and there.

What's been happening with us, you ask? Not much. There ya go. That is our reality.

We're busy most days of the week with some sort of activity. Ella and I do Mommy & Me Aquacise on Monday mornings. Ben's playgroup meets Tuesday mornings. Wednesdays...free. Thursdays, I take Ben to his swimming lessons (which he loves, by the way). And Fridays we still have GymKyds. In all his activities, he's like the oldest kid there. Oh well, he still has a lot of fun and burns off energy!

What can I say about Ella? Her sleeping sucks. I am at a total loss. She prefers to sleep in and stay up late. This week, I'm trying to wake her up at 8 a.m.-ish and put her down around 9 p.m. However, she keeps waking up at 10 or 10:30 p.m. And last night? She woke up at 2:30 a.m. and did not settle back down until 4:30. Grrrrr. So between Ella, Ben (who wakes up to go pee or something) and Charlie, I'm usually up 5 times a night. Very interrupted sleep. Did I spell that right? Forgive me, I'm exhausted. Any advice? Books to read? Should I "ferberize"? Aaahhhhhhhhhhh!

Ella loves her cereal, loves her veggies, but hates all fruit except for bananas. What that's all about, I have no idea. I guess Ella is just a puzzle wrapped in an enigma! She also loves her Cheerios and Baby MumMums. I've also started giving her small cooked chunks of yams and carrots to eat. As you'll see below, she loves to get all messy!

Ben loves to play with beads, play-doh and stickers. I've started pumping him up about his birthday today...that may backfire, but oh well! He's having a Go Diego Go! birthday, which he will absolutely LOVE!

Here are some assorted pics:

Me and my girl:


Superman lovin' on his little sister:


The little chef in his kitchen:


The little chef's creations:


Say cheese! And modeling one of her new hair clips...


Mmmmmmm...yams....and the other hair clip...


Determination...

Kids can sleep anywhere!

It's been a really long time since Ben just went to sleep wherever he was sitting, but last night was the best one yet.


At 6:30, he decided he was done his dinner, turned, put his head on my lap, and went to sleep. Just like that.

That'll teach him for refusing a nap. He's been refusing a lot lately. Grrrrrr...

Potty training is going well - he will now tell us when he has to go. He still has the odd accident in a day, but he's getting it! Yay! I wasn't sure this day would ever come. Now my friend Michelle won't disown me!

What else about Ben? (I feel like I haven't posted about him lately.) He loves Cars (the movie) and we have to watch it at least once a day. Ben usually asks to watch it more, but it's so long (almost 2 hours) that I talk him out of it. He also loves the "building toys" that Santa brought him (the link takes you to the one he actually got, and he also got the Black Dragon) and the Word Whammer from Grandma Joan and Grandpa Bill (he can spell C-A-T no problem and loves to make up lots of words too).

And Ella? Well, I don't want to talk about her - I'm still trying to forgive her for not letting me go to bed at 11:00 last night, but instead keeping me up until 3:00. If she wasn't so cute, I'd hold a grudge.

Chomp chomp!

Her shirt may say, "Who you calling shrimp?", but it should say, "Who you calling a piranha?" 'cause, man, can she bite!

Hear ye, hear ye: the Sheppard family members shall forthwith be known as:

Milord Sir Lord Gordon the Convincing of Bartonhurst in the River

Her Most Serene Highness Lady Carrie the Coherent of Piddletrenthide on the Carpet

The Very Reverend Benjamin the Charming of Yetts O'Muckhart

Her Noble Excellency Isabella the Eerie of Witchampton Under Buzzard

Good stuff.

http://www.masquerademaskarts.com/memes/peculiartitle.php

Go check it out yourself.

Latest happenings...

My parents have both asked me to spill on what the heck it was that Gord tried to draw. I've told them, so I might as well tell all of ya - it was SUPPOSED to be a frog, but ended up kinda like a monkey. So we dubbed it a "mog" or a "fronkey". I'll see what Gord wants to do about declaring a "winner"... But I want to commend everyone on their guesses and their limericks! Excellent work, faithful readers!

Worst Christmas ever - well, my Grandma died on Christmas Day, later in the evening. You know, I think that she's in a better place now, free of pain and suffering. That's what is important.

On the eve of her funeral, Ben got the flu. Threw up for about a day and a half. He felt pretty much back to normal on Saturday, but then Gord ended up hurling his cookies before the day was over.

Ella and I have avoided the flu (thank goodness...knock on wood now please!). Gord is now complaining of nasal and general head congestion. He always seems to get sick the week before school; really, it's uncanny.

Hmmmm...what else can I tell you? Ben has been coming out with some real good ones as we put him to bed at night. Like, "Don't EVER sleep on a hammer, Daddy!", and "Don't forget your lunch!" It's like he's in some really weird dream before we even leave the room.

We are in the throes of potty-training. I've been hesitant to post on this, for fear of jinxing his progress. He's caught on really quickly, but we still have to remind him every 30 mins to an hour to go to the potty. We chose the "bribe with candy" approach, and it worked pretty well! That and Diego underwear and a Diego potty seat, and we were set to go! We still put a Pull-up on him at naptime and at nighttime, but hopefully he'll learn that control pretty soon. He's such a heavy sleeper though...

Ella is such a happy little girl. She crawls everywhere in the house now, following our voices if we leave the room. She LOVES the dog dishes, just like Ben did. What is with that? Why must she make a beeline for them as soon as she crawls into the kitchen? Ella also pulls up on everything that she can, and will even let go with one of her hands now. And she'll also move between two objects (i.e. couch and stool) provided that they're really close together - if she just has to move her hands and swivel on her feet. Our baby is growing sooooo fast...

Ella loves her cereal, likes her veggies, and I'm just starting her on fruit. I'm taking it really slow - partly because I'm just lazy. She wasn't too sure on apples, but pears seemed to be a hit last night. And I think she'll like bananas too. I'm bad...I haven't waited 3-5 days since pears to start the new fruit (bananas)...bad mommy!

That's all. Gonna go and watch the rest of CSI, finish my glass of wine and my bowl of Fruit Loops. Mmmmmmm...actually, not really...Fruit Loops mushy in milk? Not as tasty as I remembered...

A Little Game...

I'll let Carrie post about the worst Christmas ever, but I have a couple of items to tickle your minds...

FIRST: Tonight, Ben asked me to draw him a certain animal. This is what I came up with:

What is this poor animal? There is a fabulous prize to the person or team who can correctly guess A) What this animal was supposed to be and B) the name Carrie and I finally decided on for this animal (hint: it is two normal animal names schmucked together).


SECOND: I tried to tell Carrie an old dirty limerick tonight, but couldn't remember anything but the first two lines. SO...I looked it up online and here's what I found (cleaned up for all audiences):

There once was a man from Nantucket
Whose **** was so long he could **** it
He said with a grin
As he wiped off his chin
If my ear were a **** I could **** it!

Another super-fabulous prize goes to the person who can fill in the blanks with CLEAN words and still make a hilarious, knee-slapping limerick. (If you HAVE to change some of the other words for pacing or whatever go ahead, but your final limerick better be EXTRA hilarious).

All entrants should LEAVE A COMMENT. Even if you don't enter you should LEAVE A COMMENT. LEAVING A COMMENT makes you feel good. People who suffer from excesses of cool are found to LEAVE LOTS OF COMMENTS. LEAVING A COMMENT is the dominion of the wealthy, smart and beautiful. If you are NOT any of those aforementioned things I guess you should NOT LEAVE A COMMENT.

Till next time...

Gordo

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