Friday before holiday break

For a kid who gets two weeks off if school after today, she didn't seem too excited to wake up (at least she slept in her own bed!).

Today at school they are having a holiday party and a "holiday program". Ellie has been practicing singing and hand motions at home so I'm pretty sure there will be some performance of carols, but not exactly sure what that will entail.

Ellie told me she had to wear red, green and white. White we got covered. Red and green are not exactly pink and purple so we didn't have anything "fancy enough" in those colors for the party. But we agreed that her pink sparkly skirt and a white collared shirt (after I convinced her that they weren't only for boys), her favorite headband, and a fancy sweater were perfect.



We also took in gifts for her teachers and cookies for the party.



Ellio sure seemed excited about the sprinkles I left out last night after decorating cookies!



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Mommy, I'm scared

Lucky me woke up to the pitter patter of little feet running into my room at 3:30am and Ellie declaring she was scared and wanted to sleep with me. I was tired so I agreed...big mistake.

I know now what it feels like to be kicked by a 4 year old and a 27 week inutero child at the same time! Lucky me. And so yes, I didn't get much sleep. Which unfortunately didn't help my whole inner ear thing and I woke up actually a little worse than I went to bed. Not fun.

Ellie and I had a long discussion about why she can't sleep in our bed anymore and I think she understands. Now I just have to get through the day with the little sleep I got.

At school Ellie was excited to see her friends but picked a baby puzzle to work on. I think she didn't want to do what the other kids were doing or even asked her to do...just wanted to do her own thing I guess.







Back at home Ellio was a little naughty last night finding himself a place on the leg lamp...keep your hands to yourself!




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Feel better mommy!

So I got hit with a bad case of dizziness and nausea while in Chicagoland. It was very unpleasant and anyone that knows me knows I hardly ever throw up and so when I throw up twice in one night...things aren't good. Fortunately after talking with my OB doc about my symptoms it was likely nothing associated with the pregnancy. The thought was it was a inner ear thing, to see if it got better in the next day, and when back in LA to go see an ENT if it didn't.

It didn't.

So yesterday I went to see an ENT who listened to all the symptoms, did some tests including a hearing test, and concluded that it was very likely an inner ear issue and did some procedure where he made me sit and lay down and move my head really fast to hopefully fix it. I now cannot bend over, reach high, carry anything heavy, etc. basically in supposed to keep my head above my shoulders and as still as possible. And I have some exercises I'm supposed to do daily to help. Good news was that at the ripe old age of 32, I have the hearing of someone less than half my age. So my "sensitive" hearing means that I'm not crazy and that yes...the TV really should be turned down.

Today I'm feeling much better. Still a little woozy with change in elevations or if I tilt my head, but it's not constant like it was. If the procedure worked, it'll take a few days for everything to be okay and normal.

So Ellie knows mommy isn't feeling well and has been a good helper. She recommended that I rest and drink lots of water because that will make me feel better.

This morning she wanted to show me how big the tadpoles had gotten while we were in vacation. But they didn't have legs yet so they aren't froglets.






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Back to School.. and Warmth!

After a week's worth of this in Illinois:








...we returned to Southern California and this:








Now, we had a great time visiting with family and friends across Chicagoland, but not having to get all bundled up just to step one foot outdoors was nice.

This morning Ellie found Ellio lounging around in the Christmas tree, hanging out with a new teddy bear friend.









Ellie said that she thinks Ellio was bored without us, but liked watching Mallie try to take ornaments down from the lower branches of the tree. She managed to snag three of them.

I forgot to take pictures at school, but as I dropped her off Ellie was recalling all the fun she had in the Illinois snow, and imparting tales of her sledding and snowball fighting adventures with some of her friends.












































There will be more photos and stories about our travels in Northern Illinois over on the Harrer Happenings, but here are a few photographic highlights:

















































































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Short Day Wednesday

Today is a short day at school for Ellie as we are headed to Chicago later today. She was up early, got dressed herself, ate her breakfast really fast and was ready to run out the door. Someone is excited. So excited she barely let me get a picture of her this morning!


Also, we had a new addition to the mantle last night. Ellio the Elf decided to hang out with it, hopefully he didn't get his fingerprints on it!


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Charitable Tuesday

Ellies school is doing a canned food and toy drive this holiday season. Over the weekend we went to Target and let Ellie pick out a new toy and 4 cans of food to take. We also supplemented this with canned food from our house and a few toys that she received as presents that were duplicates.

And as always we had a good discussion on how lucky she and our family is and that some kids and families don't have as much as us and so we need to be generous and share. Fortunately this is easy for Ellie to grasp and she doesn't hesitate to share things with those less fortunate.















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Reading Monday

Well Ellie was so exhausted from her cookie decorating party yesterday that she took a nap in the afternoon. An actual nap. Not a hanging out in her room quietly but a real 2 hour nap.

So she wasn't exactly exhausted this morning. She woke up on her own, turned on her light and insisted on reading a little but before breakfast.

Then after breakfast she found a new Ranger Rick and insisted on reading that before getting dressed.






Fortunately she was up early enough that this didn't delay us at all.

And she insisted in her purple sweater that Grandma Pam made her to wear to school. I didn't get a pic of her in it this morning but she wore it all day yesterday and I got a couple shots then.






What a goof.

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Early morning

I have to go down to Brawley California today (look it up, it's a long drive) so it was an early morning for Ellie.

Back to the old habit of yogurt at school for breakfast.



We found a bright green bug in the house and so that went for sharing today.



Yeah she was tired.

But on the way to school we had to pull over for an ambulance. After it passed Ellie said, "mommy! Look out for the fire truck!". Good idea kid!

A

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Parental Failures

Multiple failures. Both parents (Nick doesn't get off the hook this time). We are both just off our game this week.

I had to work late last night. Like left the office at 9:30pm late. So I didn't see Ellie before she went to sleep. Apparently she had a hard time falling asleep because when I got home she wasn't quite asleep yet. I went in to check on her and give her a goodnight kids and she said to me, "next time call me when you'll be late."

Nick left Ellies lunch box at school yesterday. She wasn't happy she had to take the spare to school.






Maybe it's the time of year when there are people taking vacation at the TV station and so people are working harder than ever. Or for me, the big push to finish work before the holidays for clients. Or just the added list of to-dos for the holidays. But I'm tired.

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Ornaments

Ellie is in the holiday spirit. And she's getting a little annoying about it. She's asked about 20 times about when we will put up our tree and why we don't have more decorations up (Nick already has the lights up...that's good right?). I told her this morning we didn't have more decorations up because the dining room table was a mess. She looked at me like that was my problem...it's all her stuff.

Anyway, after singing jingle bells all the way to school she wanted to show me the ornaments up on the tree.












Then she wanted to show me the Welcome poster on the door that has sign language for the letters as well. She's practicing and asking how to do certain letters in sign language.






And yes, that is the same outfit as she wore Monday. I didn't notice or realize till we got to school because she got herself dressed today. Apparently she pulled it out of the dirty clothes. Oh well.

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No fail morning

No mommy fails today.

Ellio moved to her bathroom and near her toothbrush. I think it was a sign that Ellio and Santa were proud of Ellie for brushing her own teeth and remembering to brush in the mornings like the dentist told her. She was super super happy.










She wore pants (not leggings, but real pants with a fly) to school. I got her a new pair of pants a couple weeks ago. She wasn't too excited about them, but she wore them. She did tell me she didn't want to wear pants because her friends wouldn't want to play with her because she couldn't play princesses because she didn't have a skirt. I told her she could pretend to have the prettiest skirt ever and use some of her ballet skills to pretend to be a princess.

She still wasn't happy about the pants.








But she was happy to show me an ornament she had made for the school tree!

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Mommy fails...

This morning was not a good one for me. I had total pregnancy brain fails this morning.

First we successfully had Ellio the Elf show up right after we got back from SB yesterday. She was so excited about him. This morning, first thing she wanted to do was find him...and mommy (and daddy, but I'll take the fail here because I went to bed later than he did) forgot to have Ellio move to a new location. She was so bummed that he hasn't moved but I explained that he must have been so tired from his first night of travel and missed her so much that he wanted to be sure that he would see her in the morning. Not sure she bought it. Hopefully she did...note to self, move Ellio tonight.

And my second fail, I forgot to take her recorder to school for her Monday afternoon music class. But Nick will run it up to school before music class.

At school she was happy to see new decor including a giant candy came with all the kids names on it. And she also took a book for her teacher to read.









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