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

p.s. LEAVE A COMMENT

p.p.s. To LEAVE A COMMENT, just click on the little link below this line that in all likelihood says '0 comments'.

p.p.p.s. That is a zero in '0 comments', and not the letter o. If you do LEAVE A COMMENT you will have the excitement of seeing your COMMENT automatically increment that number by 1.

p.p.p.p.s. See what happens to the number if you LEAVE 3 COMMENTS!

Elveire Schoonbaert 1926 - 2006

To everything there is a season,
a time for every purpose under the sun.
A time to be born and a time to die;
a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
a time to kill and a time to heal ...
a time to weep and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn and a time to dance ...
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to lose and a time to seek;
a time to rend and a time to sew;
a time to keep silent and a time to speak;
a time to love and a time to hate;
a time for war and a time for peace.

ecclesiastes 3:1-8

You will be missed.

Merry Christmas!

Yay! It's Christmas Day! What a long day it proves to be with kids...but also so so so much fun! We traveled out to Morden yesterday to spend Christmas at my parents' house. Ben loves to manhandle every single decoration within arm's reach, so we are constantly following him around trying to redirect his attention. Ella, now that she is mobile, is also very interested in what's on the end table or the "snow" around Grandma's snowmen.

We were up at about 8:30 this morning - not too early! It took until almost 1:00 to open all the presents. But Ben had to check out this and that, and play with something else that was just opened. He, by far, had the most presents under the tree, and was spoiled rotten (Mommy and Daddy are the guilty ones). He got some building toys (Lego), which he asked Santa for, and Ella got the train that Ben asked Santa for, on behalf of her. Santa also left the kids a Tickle Me Elmo, which is providing us adults with loads of entertainment. Here you can see him taking advantage of a Regular Elmo:



Ben also scored some puzzles, a cool zebra flashlight, safari hat and bug collector (thanks K & G & R & F), some books, train stuff, clothes, a movie, paints, markers, finger puppets, the world on a string, etc. Ella got a doll, a glo-worm, lots of clothes, bath toys, the world on a string, etc. Here they are playing with Ella's train:



The kids modeling Ben's new Santa hat a few days ago:




It was a wonderful day today - nice and relaxed. No place to go, just here to enjoy watching the kids at such a fun time of year for them.

We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a very Happy 2007! We love ya...

Pics of our little sweetie!

Just posing for the camera...


Standing in her crib:


Her bottom teeth (click on the picture to enlarge):


Another shot of the pearly whites:



Like I posted previously, she has one on the top, and the top right incisor is cutting through, as we speak. She was so whiny tonight, and would not let me put my finger in her mouth to check things out. Once, when I forced my finger in there, I thought I felt something sharp beside the other tooth, but I could be mistaken.

Flin-STONE!!!!

Well, after a LONG period of time the basement is finally close to done. I think (or at least I hope) that the fireplace is the focal point of the basement. (If it's not, I don't want to hear it! :) ). Here is a pic:

It might be hard to tell, but that is slate tiles with built in (drywall) shelves on the sides. The shelves will eventually hold books and logs in the bottom (larger) shelves.

Now we just need to actually light a fire (# of fires last year - 0) and see if the fireplace still works!


Well enough of that boring stuff - bring on pics of the kids!

Our little models:



In honour of the new Rocky movie coming out:

Adriaaaannnnnnnn!

(And yes, she's mobile! The big secret is that she can already stand - pics of that to come!)

Thanks for tuning in, dudes and dudettes!

P.S. Welcome back to the web Dad and Wendy!!!

Holy teeth Batman!

#3 is here. It's the one beside the top incisor (?) on her right hand side. The top right incisor is just below the gums too. My guess is we'll see that one tomorrow!

This explains why she was up SCREAMING at 1:30 am last night...

And they just keep comin'...

* edited to add: Did I mention that she's also pulling up to standing on ANYTHING 6 inches off the ground or higher? Sheesh.

Ella was kinda grumpy yesterday, and I was commenting on that fact to my mom on the phone last night. She asked if another tooth had come in, and I said, "Hmmm. I don't know..." Sure enough, her other bottom front tooth is here!

We'll try getting a picture in a few days, when they're both a bit more out of her gums.

Introducing the newest member of the family...

Ella's first tooth! I could post random Ella pictures, like Ruby's mommy did (as if there's a tooth in those pictures K!). But I won't, and can't because I left the camera at my parents' house on Wednesday.

Potty update: Ben has cooled on this front. We tried again a couple nights later, but we've gotten lazy. I would prefer to wait until Gord is off for Christmas holidays so that we can double-team him.

I've gotta get crackin' on housework and laundry...but I don't want to. Anybody wanna buy me a maid for Christmas?

What a weekend!

Ella started crawling yesterday! She has been pulling up on all fours for a couple of weeks now, and early last week, she started lifting up one hand and moving it forward. Then on Thursday, she would do both hands (no, not at the same time!), and finally on Friday, she'd do a third. Yesterday, she really started to take off! She now goes about halfway down the living room. Wow, look out world!

And then today, Ben went pee in the potty! This was then followed by two accidents, but it's definitely a step in the right direction! Whoo-hoo! We made a big huge deal about it, and he thought that it was pretty cool. We'll see how things progress this week. We thought that we'd tackle this potty-training thing at Christmas time when we'd both here, but maybe it'll start now...

Other than that, I've got nothing to report. Can't wait for Christmas...

I have a new addiction...

Starbucks Peppermint Mocha.

Yum.

My friend Marla nailed it - it's like Christmas in a cup.

It's kinda funny when...

Ella spits up a bit in her mouth, and then makes this hilarious sour face when she tastes it.

And you know what? Mommy makes the same face when it ends up in her mouth.

'Nuff said.

What was he thinking? (And some more stuff...)

This is what we found when we went in to check on Ben tonight. If you have any ideas, let us know! We're at a loss...




















Otherwise, things are just fine here in the Sheppard house! Ella is a total joy - she is pretty much always happy, unless she is really tired or really hungry. Ben is a crazy, silly little boy and keeps me hopping!

Mmmmmmm...Robeez...














She'll be crawlin' any day now!














Just a funny picture from last weekend...note Grandma Joan's mouth too!














Here's Ben watching "Dumbo"...














Ella was just as engrossed as her big brother!

Happy Halloween!

We trudged through the snow here tonight to go trick or treating - well, Ben walked through the snow while we walked on the sidewalks! The whole family went, as you can see:















Ben practicing his "RRRRRROOOOOAAAAAAARRRRRRR!"














Close-up shots of both kiddos:




























After we hit the houses on our block, Ella fell asleep in Daddy's arms. Daddy and his little ladybug went home while Ben and I continued down the next street. After two houses, Ben said that he was cold and that he wanted to go home. Oh, and I had to carry him through the snow. Lucky me. On the way home, I said that maybe we could have some hot chocolate to warm us up when we got home. Ben said no, that he wanted to share some water with me. But then he added, "Maybe candy would warm us up!" Whatta guy!

Sittin' up...

Here's Ella, sitting up. She is also starting to pull up on all fours and rock back and forth. Crawling, here we come!