The Poster Child for Birth Control

That is what Mitch jokingly called Ella last night during her 20th fit in 20 minutes. In her defense, Ella has been ill with a fever since Sunday (it broke Tuesday evening) and a rash showed up last night. She is very tired and add to that trouble sleeping from not feeling well (to her already stubborn character) and yeah, she's definitely the poster child for birth control. But we still love her!

(This is her using her old swing. She's way too heavy for it, but loves to hang out there!)

Our Newest (Bald) Addition

Our dad, dzia dzia, Grandpa Vee, Big Guy is bald. As long as any of us has known him he has been bald and has endured years of jokes and harassment for being "Folically Challenged".

Our brother-in-law is currently fighting cancer. Matt just finished his second week-long round of chemo and is now sporting a Tom Van Buren hair-do. Karin misses his grizzly-Ben locks, but we here in the Gabel house think he is one good lookin' dude even without the thick, curly locks (so much so that I felt the need to share!)!



We always knew there was a hottie under all that hair and a hoodie!
We love you, Matt!!

Children's Health Care

I need to vent. I have spent the past 2 days reading about Bush's veto of the State Children's Health Insurance bill and how awful this is. I can't find anywhere why he vetoed it -- and I am sure that he had good reason to do so. Do we seriously believe any human being would just cast aside children in need? Give me a break. It is really sad that I have to go digging around to find the entire story.

Persistence

I'm not quite sure how to describe Ella's personality -- stubborn, adventurous, daring, self-assured, maybe persistent? Yesterday we went to the park with a friend whose daughter is 4 months older than Ella. This little girl stayed close to Mom and explored the play area cautiously. Ella got out of the stroller and took off at a dead run, fell on her face, got back up and proceeded to run and fall (over and over). We had to leave when she threw a fit because I wouldn't let her go play in the sprinklers at the soccer fields.

This morning the trunk was gone from the window and I put her toy crate there instead. Did that stop her? NO WAY! Turns out you can use the crate to get up on the speaker to get to the cat on the window sill behind the TV.

Fairy

Yesterday afternoon Mitch showed Ella her Halloween costume and she fell in love. She insisted on carrying it around the house on the hanger. So Daddy decided to put her in it instead. A little sneak peek at Halloween...

Have You Seen My Carabeener?

We are definitely in to the climbing stage. I knew this day was coming. We have (had) a chest/trunk under our living room window -- the cats sit on it, Ella likes to throw small objects behind it...and last week she started trying to climb on it (hey, Felix can do it, why not her?). This morning she succeeded. Not only did she climb it, she tried to get behind the TV as well (again, this is what Felix does -- mostly to get a way from her!). Now the trunk has been temporarily moved to the middle of the living room until I can decide what to do with it.




Getting down...




Anyone need a trunk??

Today was one of those days....

Ella was a handful today. Crying, not eating, not sleeping, having fits.... from 6:30 AM until 6:00 PM. But she is starting to understand more. Yesterday the Veggie Tales "Hairbrush" song came on and she ran around pretending to brush her hair! She loves my hair brushes and gets them out of the drawer all the time (she can open it, get the brushes out, and then shuts the drawer!). I was just amazed that she connected the song with the hairbrushes.

She is also getting tall. Yesterday afternoon she came around the corner with a yogurt cup and spoon in hand. I had left them on the table after lunch because she had only eaten half of it. So there she was trying to eat with the spoon all by herself (and getting yogurt EVERYWHERE!). Apparently she can reach further than I thought.

Today I left a kitchen mitt on the counter (again, too close to the edge) and she came out to the living room -- ready to help cook!



P.S. These were taken AFTER a major fit over the fact that I wouldn't let her have the camera that I had gotten out to take her picture.