Fun Website

Okay, I love this website..but I don't believe it!
www.poodwaddle.com/realage.swf

Biological age: 32
Real age: 18.9 ( though I don't drink on a regular basis or smoke so it's a little biased... but I'll definitely take it!)

Average Life Expectancy: 74
My life expectancy: 87.1

So next time someone asks, I'm 19!!!!!

Potty Success!

Ella peed in her potty this afternoon! We are so excited for her. Ron's golfing so Erin and I went to Toys R' Us for a little shopping after a long day and night of umbrella drinks yesterday. We just got home and I stuck Ella on her potty and within a few minutes she was peeing. She looked shocked and frightened at first and stopped herself, but of course I was clapping and singing "Yeah, Ella" so she finished peeing and had the biggest and proudest smile on her face. Whoo-hoo, our first potty success.

Well, an update from yesterday... our babysitter never got back to us so we took Ella to dinner with the group (our friends brought their little boy, Lucas, so there were two toddlers there). So much for date night. Luckily, Ella slept through her nap until 6pm so she was a peach for the whole night. We did have a message from the babysitter when we got home, a family emergency is sending her back stateside, so Ron will get the details on Monday (she's a co-worker). After all the fun umbrella drinks at the pool, the margaritas before dinner, and drinks at the restaurant, I was definitely in need of an earlier night anyway. I think a night out would have been the end of me. :) Ella and Erin are napping... I think that sounds like a good idea before dinner.

Fabulous!

Erin and I spent the day at the Hyatt Regency in Waikiki on a girls spa day. Ron and Ella dropped us off and we enjoyed the best body scrub EVER! My skin is like cocoa butter and I feel so smooth. It was a nice little pampering. We headed down to the pool and laid around drinking pina coladas and margaritas. We decided we could easily be rich and do this everyday.
After a bit of shopping, Ron and Ella picked us up to come home and get ready for a date night. It's now 5:30, we have dinner plans at 7 and haven't heard from the person who was supposed to babysit. Humm, maybe Ella will be joining us on our dinner date....

Whoo Hoo

I am so proud of myself for standing my ground. I didn't cuss (though I sure felt like it) and I kept my tone firm and even the whole time that Master chief and I were "discussing" my housing issue. I feel especially victorious as he called back today to say my application was approved after bringing the issue up at his meeting. Now we still have to go to Navy housing to get the form and then meet with the property group to see available properties... hey, I'm working on it. I was informed that it will cost us a $300 "transfer fee" to move houses... the same $300 that, in our lease, is the "transfer fee" for breaking our lease. I told the property people we would discuss it at our meeting next week. As our lease is up at the end of next month, we will put our notice in and sign a new lease for November 1. Therefore, technically not "breaking" our lease agreement. Not sure how it will pan out and I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch, but I am ready to battle. (Though, just between us, I will concede to put an extra $400-800/month in our pocket.)


What do you get when you bottle a housewife up in crappy military housing and then treat her like she's not smart enough to know the difference?

A Whole lot of "WELL IF YOU CAN'T GIVE ME A LOGICAL EXPLANATION, THEN I DEMAND TO SPEAK TO YOUR MASTER CHIEF."

(which, I will admit, I had no idea existed until while waiting for my appointment, I saw military guy demand to speak to the "master chief" - hee hee, I'm such a poser.)

I apologize for the rant, I feel I've won a major battle. I just hope they don't show us something so awful that we end up eating crow and asking if we can just stay where we are... oh boy that would suck! LOL

Busy

The girls dancing to Elvis from the "Honeymoon in Vegas" soundtrack...
Sorry it's been a while, it's been a crazy week. Erin was supposed to arrive yesterday but wasn't able to make her Seattle flight as the plane from Victoria was broken... so we are on our way to pick her up today.
I have been doing some purging this week and trying to get rid of so much stuff we don't need. I donated a lot of Ella's outgrown cloths, our old clothes and knick knacks... I have no idea how we ended up with so much stuff! So this week has been busy. The purge was a panic response to the possibility of us moving houses... We currently live in a neighborhood with renovated and non-renovated homes. As of October 1, non-renovated homes will have a rent reduction and by us moving out of our pretty-decent-for-military renovated house into a non-renovated I-can't-believe-I-live-here home, would put a whole lot of $$$ into our pocket. Of course talking ourselves into moving down the street to the "hood" didn't change the fact that the move was denied. "Apparently" the policy is that we are allowed to move from one neighborhood to another, but not WITHIN a neighborhood. Military = government = no sense. They couldn't give us any reason why, even after I demanded to talk to the Master Cheief of Navy Housing, and was told "it's just policy". So now we're going to go talk to the army housing people and see what they have available. Perhaps staying here is easiest but we at least have to try to get that extra money. :)

Some Sort of Update

I've been working on archiving my blog by saving it to file and updating the videos so they can be viewed easier. It's been a time-consuming project.
Ella's potty training is going steady. She sits on the potty a lot throughout the day, but we seem to miss the whole concept. She's usually already wet a diaper by the time we get her on her potty. Today while watching her potty video, sitting on her potty, Ella got so excited with the singing that she stood up to clap... and peed on the carpet! So we're close, just haven't peed IN the potty yet!
Here are some pics from this week. This is how Ella likes to wake up "La-la"...
...and with her new big-girl underwear...... and on her tricycle...

Potty Training Begins

Today we saw the doctor to get a referral to a pediatric urologist for Ella's bladder reflux. Diagnosed last October with a mild case, Ella's been on a low-grade anti-biotic to prevent UTIs and to protect her kidneys. They usually grow out of this condition and Ella needs to see the specialist again for tests to see if she has in fact grown out of it and no longer needs the medicine. We also got the okay for potty training. It does seem a bit young, but my neighbor has a potty training DVD that she started her son with at 15 months, and he was fully out of diapers by 2. At the play group this morning, she gave it to me and then the doctor this afternoon recommended we start with Ella. We stripped Ella down and sat her on her potty in front of the DVD... she didn't move for the full 25 minutes and was mesmerized. We're going to try an be consistent and have her "use" her potty before and after meals, first thing when she wakes up and the last thing she does before she lays down. Who knows how this will go but we have faith! :)

She tripped and fell this afternoon and busted her lip and gums...again. There was blood everywhere and for a second we contemplated taking her to the ER but the bleeding stopped and I was able to rock her to sleep after a good 20 minutes of consoling her. Her bottom teeth cut her gums on the inside of her upper teeth and her upper lip is swollen. She's still sucking her thumb so it's not a complete catastrophe.

Ella is on the rise... she's climbing onto the book shelf and last night after dinner I looked over to see Ella crawling IN to her highchair. I've tried to get some video and will post some soon... it's amazing! Both Ron and I looked over and could not believe she was up in her high chair trying to turn around to sit properly in it. How did she do it???? LOL

Dear Auntie,

I hope you have a happy birthday... Mommy is belatedly re-posting this so blame her:) I miss you and can't wait to see you in a few days time. There is so much to show you and after all the love we get back on our blog, I can't wait to hug you in person.
Happy Birthday!!!

Love Ella

Ella's Tricks

Ella knows her numbers....

Ella blasts off with Little Einsteins...

Big Shoes

Yummmm, Macaroni!

First Bicycle

Today we bought Ella her first bicycle. It's the cutest pink and purple tricycle I found at Toys R' Us while I was looking at Halloween costumes (I know, really early but I wanted to see what was in the store before I ordered on-line). Of course, I walked out with something totally different than intended when I walked in but Ella is one happy little girl!
At our play group at the YMCA, Ella spends all her time outside playing on the riding toys and on the playground, even if every other kid is inside, Ella is oblivious and will stay outside to play. It's a great thing to see her so active, so instead of waiting until Christmas as planned, I decided to get her a tricycle now. Needless to say, a great buy!

And here are some other pics of this week at the park. I love the outfits Karen sent Ella, they're adorable! Thank you, Karen, Ella looks so cute in them!

Waikiki - Update

We headed into Waikiki this afternoon to play at the beach. Just something different as we never go into town. The water is warmer there but the beach itself isn't as nice as some of our regular beaches. Ron and Ella were playing at the shoreline while I watched from a couple feet away, when I noticed the lifeguard looking for someone out in the water just in front of us. I called Ron and Ella back to the towel and we quickly gathered our things to get out of the way for the lifeguard as a man was brought up to shore just feet in front of us. I'm not sure if she saw him go under or he was washed up but the man was unresponsive while she was doing CPR. We cleaned up and got ready to go as crowds gathered. They were still doing CPR on the way to the ambulance and I haven't heard anything on the news... It was on the late news, the man is in hospital, critical but alive...good news to end the day.

It was very sad to know that the spot where they were trying to revive a man, was the spot where just minutes before Ron was burying Ella in sand. We had planned on spending more time and walking around Waikiki, but the events definitely put a damper on the day and we headed home. Here are some pictures of Ella in the sand. She likes it when Ron buries her...