Time Flies....

One year ago today.

Ella Madelynn was born at 3:32pm, weighing 8lbs.

And now....

Our little baby is growing right before our eyes!

Happy 1st Birthday, Princess!

The Princess...

My baby girl will be one year old in less than 2 weeks. She is walking--truly walking, from one room to the next, without holding onto anything or anyone. When she makes eye contact with anyone, she squeals in delight, because she knows she's pretty cool. She walks around like a mini Frankenstein--arms stretched out in front of her for balance.

We've started cutting out one of her most prized possessions: the "ba-ba". Girlfriend LOVES her ba-ba, but it's gotta go! What a break our wallet will have when we stop buying formula! The only problem so far is she doesn't seem to care for the taste of regular milk. If it comes down to it, I will gladly buy her a different form of milk--whether it be soy, or almond, or whatever. Anything to keep the little princess happy--but no more formula! So I figured while we cut out the formula, we might as well cut out the ba-ba's too. Milk in sippy cups only.

Chris is worried about her having her "nuk," but I figured if we can get rid of it by age 3, we are good to go. Right now Ella is cutting her 2 top front teeth, so there is NO WAY IN HELL I'm going to take the nuk away from her right now! Those things have been a blessing!

We are in the midst of planning her first birthday bash. We are doing a general princess theme--because Ella is certainly the princess in this house!

Last night Chris said he hopes her big blue eyes change color, because if they stay so big and so beautifully blue, he will never be able to say "no" to her! :) I agree. That girl looks at you, and she melts your heart....

It's like crack

Facebook, that is. It's so damn addicting. I can easily waste time away checking out my friend's status, and pics they've uploaded, and their notes. I jump online and check it out multiple times a day. It's not right! I can get a little insight into different people's daily lives, which I find totally interesting. Sometimes I feel like I'm spying on people...reading their comments to other people and stuff. But it's not REALLY spying...they are fully aware that everyone can read their stuff. If there's something that needs to be said privately, there is the private mail feature. Beyond all that, Facebook has allowed me to get back into contact with some long-lost friends and people I knew in high school. I love it.

The News Headlines....Staci style! :)

~Miley Cyrus Apologizes for Controversial Photos. Really? How many times will that dumb whore have to apologize to the world due to her poor judgement? You don't want to get "attacked" by the media, keep your photos private, and don't do dumb stuff in public.

~Bill Gates playfully frees swarm of mosquitoes. How nice of him! He assured the mosquitoes were Malaria-free. But were they blood-sucking-free?!? I wouldn't have wanted to be in that audience. Mosquitoes flock to me like white on rice!

~Home of man linked to 1982 Tylenol deaths searched. Wow. Finally, after all these years!

~Pranks involving electronic road signs stir worry. Seems as though hackers in a few states thought it would be funny to change road signs to read warnings of zombies and raptors. Funny, huh?!

~Man boldly robs Colo. store with Star Trek Sword. Seriously? That's the best weapon he could come up with?! Dude should get a refund from his "How to be a criminal" class.

~Police say Ohio woman set fires out of anger. This chick set 10 fires to homes and garages because she was "angry." Makes me look like an angel! 0:)

That's all for now, folks!

My week in numbers

32: pages in a book that Cole read to me on Monday. Of course it was a Spongebob book....

4: times I tried (unsuccessfully) to text Chris while he was in New York on Tuesday for work. I have no idea what that was about. Thankfully he has a BlackBerry and got my email message instead.

20: minutes to remove the snow and ice from the van and the driveway so we could go to Target on Wednesday.

14: times the boys asked to go sledding....before it was even noon.

48: minutes the boys went sledding w/the neighbors before I had to pull them in cause I was freezing!

100: dollar gift card I got from work....WOOHOO! (our store won a contest)

1758: times I've wiped poor Ella's snotty nose during the past week.

102: degree fever Ella had Thursday night.

3: hours of sleep I got Thursday night....while holding a sick baby.

13: minutes on the phone w/the nurse at the Pediatrician

2: ear infections my Princess was diagnosed with at the Drs.

10: days of antibiotics for her.

9: loads of laundry to do. *yawn*

My week in numbers

1: days Cole has slept in later than me. If only he'd do it on a weekend!

23.5: Pounds Ella currently weighs!

3: days the boys had school this week. They both had off Monday for MLK day, and Cole had off today for a teacher in-service day.

3,596: Rice Krispies I've vacuumed up off my floors. Ella is learning to self-feed, but sometimes they just don't make it into her mouth!

97: The percentile Ella is in for her weight.

19: times Cole has asked to play the Wii today alone. Also the number of times I've told him no, we will play tonight after dinner.

60: dollars raised for the March of Dimes walk I'm participating in!

8: days since Ella fell in love with her pacifiers.

100: tokens used at Chuck E. Cheese

7: loads of laundry I'm currently working on.

48: total minutes spent on hold with Verizon before speaking with a live person for less than 5 minutes.

70: degrees in my house, yet I still feel cold.

131: dollars in the bank account until next Friday. Thank you, Dave Ramsey for making my life miserable!

Moo....!

Yesterday we took our annual trip to the Pennsylvania Farm Show. Fun times had by all.

First, we park the car, and get a bus ride over to the Farm Show Complex. Sure beats walking! The boys love the bus ride. They think it's so cool. Then after dodging all the smokers standing outside the entrance, we finally arrive inside and we are instantly greeted by the sweet smell of animal poop! "What's that smell?" the boys ask. "It's poop!" we answer. Then we ride the escalator up, and then down to enter the area where they have the cows displayed. The boys love to pet the cows. I had Ella in a carrier, facing outwards so she could see the sights. She wasn't very interested in the cows.
Then we went to the goat and sheep area. We had to stop at every pen that had a goat within touching distance so the boys could pet them. Owen announced that we needed to buy a goat. We asked him where we'd keep it, and he never came up with an answer, so the conversation was dropped. Then it was off to the rabbit exhibit. This was where Ella finally got VERY interested in what she was seeing! She loved looking at the bunnies (I think she may have thought they were cats, which she adores!) and tried to reach out and touch them! It was very sweet to watch her expressions and hear her noises! After the bunnies, we went to see the chickens/ducks. We hit that arena just in time to watch the baby duck show...baby ducks go up a ramp that's set in a water table, get some food, and go down a slide. The kids just love it! And those little ducklings are just so cute, you wanna squeeze them! We also saw the "peeps" in the incubator hatching. Ella got to go face-to-face with a rooster, and Cole got to feed a chicken by hand. Owen was too scared to feed the chicken, but Cole thought that was the best part of the whole day.
Then we walked around the exhibits, and the boys got to play with some recycled plastic and create waterways with it. They love anything that involves getting messy! Afterwards we had some lunch and caught the bus ride back to the parking lot to go home.
I'm sure later today or sometime in the very near future, the boys will begin asking when we can go back to the Farm Show. Maybe we have some future FFAs in our house?!