Best Friends

This was taken on a Sunday about a month and a half ago in our church's chilren's ministry.

She is with my very good friend Jenny Sander's precious girl Tabitha. They are exactly a week a part. See Jenny! They are best friends without us forcing them to be! Notice Ella Reese is holding her hand!

She's Here!!!

My older sister Doris had her baby last, last Thursday! Two weeks overdue at 6:51 pm she arrived at 8 lbs abd 5 ounces, 20 1/2 inches long. Evangeline En-Mei Dalton is here! Her middle name means beautiful grace. And as you can see she is SO Very Beautiful!! So precious and absolutely gorgeous!!!

We all rejoice and celebrate with you Doris and Tim! What a blessing a joy she is!

Love you!!

My first niece! I love you Evie! (that is what they are calling her)

Happy Birthday!

Lil' Jailbird

Ryan came home on Wednesday and said she looked like a jailbird. But a cute one!

You can see the exzema she will occasionally break out in from time to time on her face. It started probably around a month old appearing randomly. It never gets any worse than this photo. She has gotten - more like a dry skin- on her legs and on ehr arms. But right now it has only been coming on her face and hands. I have tried taking out certain foods out of my diet-- since I am nursing- to try to get down to the bottom of it. Milk, cheese, eggs... and I can't pinpoint it. I talked to Amy M. and she gave me some pointers. I need to first try to take out those foods for longer than a week span and test it out for more like 3-4 weeks. Any one else have any similar thoughts or have had to deal with food allergies in baby?We just got a hold of an exersaucer and she loves it! Here is the little jailbird exploring her new toy.


Ryan was going to go skiing with Dave Stanley yesterday and was getting his gear ready and put on his face gear to show Ella Reese. She wasn't scared at all, she just stared at him...

Visit from Sharon and presents

"I love you Sharon", says Ella Reese.
Sharon stopped by the other day to drop off some Christmas gifts from mom and my big sister Doris. Doris had her baby by the way last Thursday! Pictures and update will be coming soon....

There is a funny story to this picture...Sharon was holding Ella Reese and I was opening her presents that Doris had gotten her. I was opening the last one explaining what it was and who gave it to her and I looked up and she was leaned in real close to the toy. I got excited and said ,"Sharon! Look! She must really like this toy! Look how interested she is in it. She is leaning in and staring at it!". Then moments later I realized that she was NOT leaning in because she was interested, but that she had leaned over too far and could not sit back up...since she hasn't mastered the sitting-on-her-own skill yet. I told Sharon and we died laughing. And here we thought she really loved the toy I was opening for her. Which Doris by the way she DOES love the toys you got her. I hung that one toy on her care seat and she loves it. She also loves that Chicco rattle, but she bops her head with it all the time when she is laying down becasue it is heavy. She hasn't cried yet though. She was shaking it so hard once that I thought she was going to bruise Sharon's leg!

My Grandmother sent these silk sashes to me as a gift. I was trying to give Ella Reese an 80's material girl/Cyndi Lauper look and we turned around and the sash was covering her eyes and she was franticaly shaking her head back and forth until she could see. We both cracked up laughing. Cruel, I know but it was very funny.
























"Doris thanks for all my gifts!" says Ella Reese. She really loved this the best. A was a winter potholder you got me. She could not keep her mouth off the penguin's beak. She was very hungry and was sucking on the beak thinking, I guess, that milk was going to come out...

Play Dates

These are mixed together but we had two playdates this week. We met up with Elizabeth B. on Monday and Leah and Eli came over today for lunch and we hung out for a bit. It is so wild that Eli is 2 yrs old! We are in Caregroup together at church and I remember when he was as tiny as Ella Reese! Leah and I tried to get a picture of the kiddos together. Once we took a shot, Eli would just get up. This was the best shot I got. He is watching Ella Reese trying to put her toes in her mouth. I love his face.momma and bebe

- she kept watching Eli playing guitar and wouldn't look upER and EB

Here is Eli practicing his mad guitar skills. He loved playing it and kept offering for Ella Reese to play it too. He was really smitten with her, it was sweet. He would point and say "Baby" and grin- or actually Leah would tell me what he was saying because I could not understand him at all. He kept wanting to share his trains and toys with her. Of course all she did was lay on the floor and suck her toes. We had a fun time!

First time playing with Asian/Caucasian kids !

I did Diem's hair for Kim's wedding. So on Friday she came over so I could practice and brought two of her kids, Anna and Cole. I was so excited! Diem and I would always talk about how fun it will be for our children to play together.

They are both so adorable and BEAUTIFUL!! Look how precious Cole is... He looks a little distressed here because he was hungry.

Anna LOVED Ella Reese. She kept making funny faces at her to make her laugh and was constantly offering toys to her to play with. I once turned around and saw Ella Reese on the floor with toys all around her head and on her body as Anna kept giving her more. It was so sweet... Cole on the other hand just looked at her.

"Play with me Cole!..." Ella Reese says.

Bottle Update :

Still a no go folks. BUT, I did purchase a cheap-o Walmart brand bottle that was 94 cents and that has become the bottle she prefers to drink from ( the nipple is super soft- probably because it is so cheap). She just won't do a full feeding from it.
But, as you can see she loves carrots!
Kim's wedding went fine. I fed her before I left, then Ryan brought her to the church 30 minutes before the ceremony began and I nursed her in the truck. It was close though... I literally RAN back into the church to catch the bridesmaids ready to walk down the isle. It was an awesome wedding!!! I had a blast!

She found them !

I know this picture looks like she is trying to shove her fingers into her mouth,..but nope..
Those are her toes! I know, she has monkey-like finger toes.
She has been grabbing at her feet and holding them for the past week, and this weekend she finally found their way into her mouth. Now she's addicted and can't stop. She is not a pacifier baby,..but she would be if they tasted like toes.
I caught these as she did this baby milestone for the first time.
"Yummy!", says Ella Reese.

Faker...

The past month Ella Reese has been crying wolf- so to speak. She will wail and cry in her crib in a distressed pitiful pitch. So I scoop her up and begin to pet and soothe her only to hear her start talking in a very happy voice then look up at me and begin talking to me in that adorable baby voice. The first picture is of her taunting me with her games...Ella Reese is saying " You came again mommy! This is fun..go away so I can do it again!"

This past week she has begun to roll onto her belly once I put her down to sleep. Which is fine and all....but she hasn't learned to roll back over. So she gets stuck. So here I am ever 2 minutes going to her room to roll her back onto her back...only to take two steps and turn my head to see her back on her belly. So yesterday and today I have been letting her cry longer to see if she will go back on her back by herself. Also during play time I am helping her practice rolling back.
Here is a picture above of what I have resorted to today...Confining her to a no-roll-over space so she will take a nap. I know...she looks pitiful.

WELL!... I just put her down for an afternoon nap and heard her whining a bit and let it continue. Then she started to cry in a really painful tone. This time she definitely was not faking but really was in need of some assistance! Don't ask me how she managed this....

Snowy Day, Fashion Shot and Close-ups...

We took Ella Reese to a professional fashion photographer and he snazzed up the picture a bit...as you can see. Just kidding..Ryan was fooling around with a program he downloaded that does crazy things to photos. I thought this one was cute a funny. It looks like she has a monster zit under her nose to the right...
This was Ella Reese's first snow ever!!! It snowed last week and I had us both ready to go out to run some errands and lo and behold...Snow!! Had I known I would have put her in a snowsuit and taken some fun pics...but we were on a time crunch,..so these just had to do. Here she is looking at it thinking..."What is that white stuff and why am I so cold?" Here she is with the snow...not actually in it...but sort of. Ahhh...a nice beautiful white blanket of Tennessee snow!!!
...Actually it was only on our flower bed in the front yard and no where else...But she doesn't know that.

My sister Doris in Philly is probably belly laughing right now because a "snowy" day in Tennessee is a sad sight. But it is enough for me to get excited. This will probably be all the snow we will get all winter. Sad,..I know.

When I have her in the back of the car in our driveway..the sun shines in really nice and I started to notice her eyes are starting to change! I tried to take some close-ups for you to see. If you click on the picture it will blow up for you and maybe you can see it better. The photos didn't capture it as clear as I wanted...but oh well.

Her eyes have turned a little light brown around her pupil and I think that the rest of it looks like a bluish green color. That is what Ryan's eyes look like. Hazel green and brown right around the pupil. We'lll see. Her eyes might just be turning brown.

This is her new favorite thing to do. She use to blow bubbles or "razz". Now she sticks her tongue out and spits. It sounds like a little child taunting you and saying,.."na na-na boo-boo" then he sticks out his tongue and blows. That is what it sounds like. She does it ALL the time. Even while she is crying she will cry, then make that noise then continue to cry. It's pretty funny...

A better closeup...But it's still hard to tell in the picture.

The Great Houdini: How'd she do that???

The past two weeks Ella Reese has been dazzling us with her new tricks...

I LOVE those porky legs!!! Notice that the snaps on the PJ's have NOT come unsnapped. Amazing huh?
We have no idea how this happened! It was last monday, on her 5 month Birthday, and I was on the phone with Sharon and went to get ER from the crib and died laughing. Twice that same day I came to get her and happened upon this...This is going to be her official 5 Month Birthday picure! I promise I didn't stage this! I guess she was trying to show me her birthday suit???

You can see here that her right leg is stuck in her PJ's. She will pull her knees up and then can't get them back into the legs of the PJ's. So I come to the crib and see a baby that looks like she is pregnant and has no legs. The pajama legs just lay there empty. Hilarious!

I Love Rice !

" I don't like the bottle mommy.."" I love rice!"

(maybe it's the Chinese in her...)

I have been periodically trying rice cereal with Ella Reese for the past month on and off. She wouldn't really take to it. But yesterday I offered it to her again and she slopped it right up! I even read somewhere that some babies will take to a sippy cup before a bottle. So I tilted the small cup I was feeding her from and she drank the rest of it,...or sipped it.
I am very glad because she is still not taking the bottle! It is slightly frustrating. We have been trying, it seems like for over a month now, and she will be 5 months on the 8th. I know, we should have tried sooner...We have tried it all. Ryan has tried, I have tried, we have tried before, after and during feedings. BUT, I did have a break through last week. Lately here she is putting everything in her mouth. So last week after a normal feeding I let her hold the bottle and she put it right into her mouth and she took a few sips. She drank maybe half an ounce.
SO, here is my plan of action. Everyday, and I will try at almost every feeding, offer her an once at the end of a feeding. IF she continues to take it, I will increase the amount and offer it earlier in the feeding until I see that she will drink a good amount. I will be helping take photographs for Kim N. 's wedding on January 20th...so that is D-DAY. I will be gone from about 4 pm till late evening and Ryan is watching her.
I am beckoning all mothers out there...do you have any suggestions, ideas or pointers for me?
Dr. Perry told me not to stress about it since I am not away from her for long periods of time consistently. He did suggest, once she took to cereal, to offer half water and half apple juice to get her to take the bottle.
What do you think? All I really want is to be able to leave her and know that she will take it anytime and from anyone. Thoughts???

New Year Party in New York

Chad and Bec hosted a New Year's party that took place in New York. It was really at their house but they had all the decorations, a banner of the city wall size, food, confetti China town, food vendors and even Dick Clark to make it feel like Time Square. Above is Dick CLark with Sharon and Lon. Notince Mr. Clark's hand is on Sharon's shoulder...back off bud she is taken. Thanks guys for inviting us and hosting a fun New Year's bash! It was a blast!

Sharon and I for a sister shot. People say we don't look alike at all. Josh Andrews didn't know we were sisters until like a year ago! And we've both know him throguh our college years. We get that alot. People assume Sharon and Kim N. were sisters more than she is my sister. What do you think? Do we look alike?
Chad and Bec...thanks for hosting ! Notice Chad's New Year's hat.
All my roomies from Sterling Heights, to the Baxter house then to the Courtyards. We lost Bec to Chad while at the Baxter house.

Mel on the far right has been my faithful roomie and bunk bed mate all through college. I miss our pillow talks, your sound machine that has the scarey heartbeat on it, and our silly adventures!
Sharon and I in China town...with yummy chinese food behind us. Loved those eggrolls Bec..
Mel, Joz and Leslie. We miss you Les!! It was great to see you, and not only at church from afar.

Three Years of Marriage

Our three year anniversary was last Wednesday on December the 27th. We both couldn't believe that three years has passed already! It is amazing how time flies and we know it will only go more quickly.
We had received, as a wedding present, a beautiful prayer framed and written in calligraphy from Doe Barbee. It sits on the top shelf fg our computer desk and I rarely read it, but I did last Wednesday and was reminded of God's goodness and provision to me.
I am SOOO very thankful for Ryan. How kind of the Lord to provide a husband who leads me and knows my heart so well. I am not one who makes New Year resolutions, but this is one I constantly resolve in my heart. And that is to adore and respect my husband more and more and to PRIZE him as God's appointed leader, protector and lover for me. I want so much to grow in longing to and joyfully serving him, caring for him and admonishing him. But most of all that I would seek to cultivate a gentle and quiet posture before the Lord, trusting in him ONLY for the satisfaction of my soul- so that I may be all these things to Ryan.
This is what the prayer Doe wrote reads:

"For these two are now one, by your hand! May their lives together be made rich by your favor, their affections sustained by your eternal love, their faith secured in you mighty grace! How beautiful are your ways, O Lord! How precious are your mercies toward us who believe in you!

'God has raised us up together, to sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.' Colosians 2:4-10"