Gymboree class

Ella j is really enjoying our Saturday morning class. She calls gymbo a snowman and goes nuts about the stamps kids get at the end of class (which the teacher happily places all over kids bodies!).

Happy Birthday Poppa!

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The last days of summer????

I envisioned a lot more blog entries than ONE during the summer but it's been a fabulous, very fun few months and I feel we've definitely spent the time that wasn't used for blogging in a very productive way. As per usual with the blog, I'm out of order and I'm going to upload pics and stories about our family honeymoon or "familymoon" first and then get around to the wedding post shortly thereafter.

The Familymoon was soooo much fun. We went to Hyatt Lost Pines Resort about thirty minutes down the road. We swam, ate, roasted marshmallows, walked by the river, pet horses, floated in the lazy river, watched HBO, and relaxed for a few days. We had a fabulous time. Ella J absolutely loved swimming in the water. She could have stayed at the pool all day. In fact, anytime we were in the hotel room, she'd grab her float and drag it to the door and start banging on it, letting us know she was in on the fact that the hotel room was actually just a giant play pen.

The resort was great. It was all families-Texas Chic for sure. You could rent bicycles, ride horses, they had movies in the lawn and you got to make smores every night (even though kids running around with huge metal forks with flaming marshmallows attached to them is a little bit unnerving). We had an awesome time and really grew excited about the prospect of sharing a family vacation like this with our friends someday. It was the perfect familymoon for us!

The first days of summer

It's already so hot here that I really think this blog title should be the "middle of summer", but it's really just begun. Last week was my last week at work so besides summer school and running around for wedding stuff, I'm home full time. The Little Big Feats school moved to our house last month, but this week was the first week Clay had all three students: Ella J, Hutch and the newest addition, baby Lila. This is my second day as an impromptu 'assistant teacher' and already I have so much respect for the job Clay does with all the kids! Currently, he's cutting up an organic spinach pizza and feeding it to one of the kiddo's as a snack, cleaning a sinkfull of bottles and kids forks and plates, pushing another kid in the swing, singing songs and wearing a baby in the Bjorn. All with a smile and no stress (this is after a full morning of swimming down at Aunt Bev's with 5 more kids). I'm on my 4th break today ;).

We've been having a fun time enjoying the outdoors and friends. Our weekends seem to fill up quickly with fun friends and family stuff this time of year. The spring and summer birthday parties have started (it seems almost all the little ones were born between April and August), Nanny's annual pool party in Temple was fun, and we've been enjoying the awesome neighborhood pools and friend BBQ's.

This summer Clay is going to continue working on the awesome backyard he's building for us. We're excited about having all our friends together for our (hopefully not too hot) Texas wedding in July. I'll be working at summer school again this year in late June and hopefully be learning a little spanish with rosetta stone so I can hang with the little kids and Clay at school. And we hope to spend a weekend in August at a nice hotel in the hill country for a much needed family getaway.

Ella J at her friend Jayden's first birthday

Ella J and Hutch building couch forts at school

Morning visit at Twin Falls on the green belt in Austin

Ella J Turn(ed) 1!

Ella J is so much fun! She's a great baby and fast approaching kid-dom. We're having a great time being busy with all the new fun outdoor activities we get to do now that the warm weather and summer vacation is here. Ella J seems to be growing and learning exponentially. She's saying 'mama', 'dada', 'outside', 'more/mas', 'kitty cat', and laughing all the time. I was putting the final touches on this video and realized it's out of date! This is video of her in April and some of May.

She walks!!!

Just a few days shy of 1 year old and she's walking! Ella J took her first step towards our 4 year old neighbor Annabelle on Saturday. Clay texted me all day Wednesday from school that Ella J was practicing walking. This video was taken in the evening when they came home from school. How exciting!!

*for those of you receiving this via email, you will need to click on link to view video.

Easter!

The bluebonnets are awesome this year! We couldn't resist throwing Ella J in the middle of some in her pretty dress Grandma Liz got her.
Enjoy!

Growing growing growing

Ella J "playing" with Franny

Pushing her stroller and chair-which she also tries to stand on (no pictures of that!)

I bet that the next time I actually have 10 minutes to blog, Ella J will be walking. She is getting so close! Not that we're in any hurry really. Here's what I've learned about each baby milestone: it translates into "being able to get into more stuff". She is so coordinated and strong! She crawls up onto and ooches down off of all the furniture in the house. She likes to push around chairs, crawl out of the bathtub, and jump on the bed. She's fearless!

Spring Break

I've always thought that having a child meant finally having someone to tidy up around the house and do the dishes for you. Hah! Like most of my perceptions about parenthood that one was dead wrong. Ella J is a kind and wonderfully considerate baby, but boy can she make a mess. Mom and Dad have been busy spending spring break tilling the yard, painting, visiting Ikea and organizing closets. Ella J decided to do a little spring cleaning of her own with her toy box-daily. And yes, of all the toys strewn about, those items in her hand that she prefers to play with above all others- are a red pen and diaper.

Happy Valentines Day!

Make a Smilebox greeting

Christmas 2009

Continuing with the theme of updating the blog and never-mind-the-absence-of-chronological-order, here's Ella J's first Christmas.

Great time. Christmas Eve day with Dad's side of the family in Temple. We had a wonderful time at Nanny Zelisko's house and visited and ate and celebrated together in a very fun visit.
Onto Mansfield for Christmas Eve and morning. Grandma and Grandpa were thrilled to see Ella J and spend the holiday with her. The older Ella J gets the more fun she is for Grandma and Grandpa. Ella J and Grandma Liz really like each other and have a special bond.
Mom and Dad got to sneak away and see a movie and play games at the arcade at the mall. Air Hockey: Dad 2, Mom 0 (but I did kick his butt on our first date, multiple times).
We all got caught up on rest and absence of good, home-cooked holiday food. Dad met his yearly quota of peanut butter balls in one weekend (36).
On the way back home we stopped in Temple at Grandma Jeanie's and had a really nice visit with her and Michael and got the update on Buckholts Christmas.
Great Christmas. Definitely spent the way it should be and definitely look forward to spending many more together.
*Folks who receive this blog via email may have to visit the site in order to view the Christmas slide show.

eating? check, sitting? check, crawling? check, blogging?.. whoops

Shoot. Ella J has been doing so much lately that I figured she'd taken over the task of updating everyone on our blog. I guess that's not what she's been doing in the wee small hours of the morning when she's up messing around.
It seems like the theme of each blog recently has been "things have been busy"...but things have been busy. And, I have to admit, the thing preventing me from updating the blog recently was that I haven't updated the blog recently and would have too much to report and that the entries wouldn't be in order. Then I remembered that this is a BLOG and read by people who want to hear about Ella J and not her mom's neurotic thoughts, so on with the update.
Ella J has sprouted into a lovely little 9 month old. She sits, she crawls, she pulls up, and she gets into cat food. She has a very happy disposition when her two top front teeth that are growing in simultaneously don't get her down. They have finally popped through and boy are they cute! She's got a big ol' gap between them. (We're starting a braces savings account). She's shy about showing them, so we don't have any photos yet.
Her favorite song lately is Itsy Bitsy Spider and we think that she sings it on her own when she wakes up in the middle of the night and her boring parents won't play with her. She claps and she likes to stick her finger in people's mouths. She's super interested in basically anything that is a choking or electrical hazard.
She's started eating baby food two or three times a day. We've found some really yummy baby food and she's started actually attempting to use the spoon herself while she's eating things like roasted bananas and brown rice or carrots, apples, and mangoes.
She is so wonderful and we have so much fun together. She's such a great baby and makes all errands fun (well, most errands:) Today we're off for Ella J's first trip the farmer's market downtown while Dad installs an attic ladder in the ceiling for our stuff so Ella J can have more room to play around.

Ella J: 9 months

On the move

Ella J has left the blobby, sit in your lap, play-gently-with-a-toy-while-sitting-in-mommy's-arms-stage in the dust. She now spends every waking second trying out new moves with her body. It's pretty cool to watch a human being experiment with their center of gravity and balance as she learns how far she can push herself before....face plant!
She has so much fun scootching and climbing and rolling and pulling and bopping. She's even found new ways to move in things like her bouncey and the bath tub. She will be completely mobile soon and I have a feeling our lives will be changed forever-again!

CARROTS!!

Happy Halloween!

This is Ella J at 5pm on Halloween. She pooped out early after a big day.

Her morning started out normal enough with a bowl of cereal with dad.

Then we got ready for the baby Halloween party at our friend Anya's house.
Ella J lived it up with her buds, Gavin and Lewis at the party.
Costume change! Our little bee tolerated this for about 5 more seconds after the photo.
Happy first Halloween baby girl!

Ella J Month 6!!!

Do they make a t-shirt that says "it's my 6 month birthday and all I got was a stinkin ear infection?" Poor Ella J spent her birthday weekend at the doctor's office. She'll be just fine though.
As a matter of fact, she's pretty much back to her old self already. Except these days, there is no "old self" for Ella J. She is changing so rapidly!
In the past 2 weeks, she's mastered rolling both ways, sitting up (with a little support), pivoting around on her tummy, getting her baby booty up high in the air, picking up the remote control with her feet (just like Dad!) and screaming when she wants something (her mommy and daddy's favorite new talent ;). It is so crazy how quickly this kid changes and grows. She literally changes every day.
Along with all her recent growth, we've had to adopt a new way of thinking about her. No longer is she just a little blobby thing that will sit in her bouncy and be entertained by her goofy parents. Now she is fascinated by power cords, boxes of wipes, cell phones and pretty much anything inappropriate and/or dangerous for babies.
It's so great to be around somebody like her. She's such a great, easy going, sweet baby. She's challenged daily with not being able to control her body fully yet, but at moments, she gives some good old fashioned roller derby "rarrrh" grunts to help get her what she wants or where she wants to be.

Ella J ready for the big kid part of the stroller!

Testing out a baby backpack this weekend.

9\20\09-10\19\09 (43 photos), by ashley aretakis-fredo

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Butt-kicking busy

Wow! I was archiving photos this morning (hold the dork comments please), and noticed that another month has flown by. I remember writing a while ago about a busy August....hah! I don't think Clay and I understood or imagined how much work we'd be putting into our little family.
Both of us have just finished up a very busy first month of teaching, organizing classrooms, and learning about content. We've also managed to keep the house at a liveable level of clean and see friends and family this month. And of course the best part, spending every spare minute available hanging out with Ella J. All this has filled up just about every second of the day. It's wonderful, rewarding work that we both enjoy doing, but it has left us pretty pooped out lately.
I've also continued to grow in appreciation for how my parents. It's amazing how having a kid brings everything full circle and leaves you with a deeper understanding of your own parents.
I imagine as we continue to learn and experience things as parents we will get even more efficient at the working part and less sleepy. For now, we are still all smiles, just with half-opened eyes!
If Ella J's smile is an indicator as to how we're doing as a family, then we have nothing to worry about. She is one happy baby (and well rested :). The other evening she was in her swing that Clay hung in the house and well... I'll stop typing and you can just watch the video.

2009-09-08

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ella j's big weekend

This was Ella J's first true 'weekend' after spending all this week workin' with her dad.

She is doing great with her dad at 'school' (that's what we call it). She spends the day riding around in the Bjorn on Clay's chest, in the bouncy seat being loved on by her 5 older boyfriends, or in Aunt Autie's arms being soothed by a mama. The transition has gone really well. Clay really enjoys having her near him all day and I'm very happy to spend the evenings with her after a long day of work. We've relaxed a little this week about the independent sleeper thing as now the night isn't just about sleeping but making up lost cuddle time!
AND, Ella j is enjoying practicing her latest baby skill: rolling over from back to front! She is getting really good at it, but doesn't want us to take her picture quite yet :). We'll update you when she lets us.

The weekend after our family's first official work week was very relaxing. We went to this great pool in Austin at Reed Park and swam for Friday happy hour-much better than a hot crowded bar!
Saturday was spent sleeping and bbq-ing at a friend's house. Our friends Nicki and Gavin found a baby yoga class on Sundays so Ella J and I aren't missing out on those! We were very happy to spend sunday afternoon together at yoga. Check out the picture of Ella J in her first skirt!
Our little family is very busy these days but having a wonderful time together.

Ella J's first skirt!

In her new jumperoo!

Relaxin with dad in the backyard pond