A Name For The Baby of Cuteness

Ella Jones

I had always said that I didn't want to name my kids after ancestors, I like the idea behind naming your kids after someone but I didn't want to do that with my kids.

So we originally started playing around with the name Ella when I was pregnant, just because we liked it. Actually, we were first playing around with another name that we really liked, but whenever we called the little kicking basketball in my belly that name it felt wrong. 

So then we started calling her "Ella" and it felt right, which surprised us that there was a right answer to what she should be named.

We were thinking pretty seriously about naming her Ella but weren't totally positive about it.

And then we went to Adam's grandparents' house.

While we were there, Adam's grandmother had us choose a quilt for our soon-to-come baby. 

She pulled out multiple beautiful quilts, all handmade by her.

But there was one quilt that she pulled out and right when I saw it I thought, "That's the one for Ella."

When I told Adam's grandma the one I loved the most she said, 

"That's the one I would have chosen for your baby too. The fabric for this quilt was given to me by Ella (Adam's grandpa's sister) and I made a large quilt for her with the fabric and then I had just enough left over to make this baby quilt."

Adam's grandma didn't know that we were thinking of naming our baby Ella and so when she said that we were taken by surprise by what she said about the history of the quilt and how Adam's great aunt Ella had had one just like it.

That's when we knew for sure that our baby needed to be named Ella.

And not just because we liked the name but because she was supposed to be named after her great great aunt Ella, who wasn't able to have children of her own.

Adam's grandma gave me a whole binder full of stories and pictures of Ella Jones who passed away several years ago.

These are some of my favorite pictures.

Isn't that picture of Ella at the top just beautiful?

And this is her husband, Robert.

He is so dashing!

And pictures from Ella as a little girl-- I love these so much!

That hat and coat with the large buttons

I want to draw this picture, her hair is so whimsical and that cute face

How did they get her little brother down after the picture?

And that wonderful hat that her dad is wearing!

Oh that face with the down-turned eyes

Happy Friday!

General Conference is this weekend, it will be wonderful!

And some of Adam's family is coming into town today-- we are stoked!

We will be playing lots of board games.

Also, this little boy is one day younger than Ella and I think he is so adorable.

The mom of this blog is super trendy and funny which makes her blog fun to read.

10/10

1. Every morning when Ella wakes up she stares up at the ceiling fan and coos at it. 

She loves that thing. 

To which, Adam responds, "The clawwwwww! The claw chooses who will go and who will stay." 

2. Ella can have the entire top half of her outfit soaked in drool in less than an hour. 

Can you do that? 

While I carry her around I can hear little splatters of her drool hitting the ground. And I usually have her drool dripping off my elbow. 

So awesome.

3. I realized how much I talk to Ella when I went to the grocery store with just her and I caught myself talking non-stop to her, saying things like, "Do you think we should get grapes? Your daddy doesn't like grapes too much, so maybe we should get strawberries instead. And where do you think the potatoes are, Ella?" I avoided eye contact with everyone in the store so I wouldn't have to see how ridiculous they found me because I just couldn't seem to get myself to stop talking out loud to Ella.

Embarrassing? Yes.

4. It's also awesome when you're at the grocery store and your baby decides that she has had enough and she starts screaming her head off and you are rushing through the rest of the grocery list at lightening speed and again avoiding everyone's eyes because they are either judging you and wishing you hadn't decided to come to the store or they have a sympathetic look on their face and I have no idea how to respond to those sympathetic looks. Although when I apologized to the man standing behind us in line at the check-out counter for having to endure a front-row seat to Ella's melt-down, he responded, "Don't apologize. That's just what babies do." Thank you, kind man.

5. She is not a huge fan of veggies-- shocker? Or applesauce-- what?!

6. Sometimes I put her in her Bumbo to watch me as I cook or do the dishes and she'll start getting antsy and arch her back to try and maneuver out of it but luckily her thighs are so thick they get stuck in the leg holes. But to try and distract her from trying to wiggle out, I put on a singing and dancing show while I cook and she'll stop fussing and watch me with this huge grin on her face-- I can only imagine how ridiculous I must look to her, prancing around the kitchen to keep her happy, singing all these made up lines to real songs.

7. She especially loves the song "You Are My Sunshine." What is it about that song that kids love so much? My favorite songs to sing to her are from musicals. Adam will sing her anything and everything.

8. She pounds her tummy with her arms ALL THE TIME, like a gorilla and leaves scratch marks on her tummy from her vicious claws. 

9. When she gets fussy while laying on the ground, we throw a blanket over her head and that will keep her entertained for at least 20 minutes as she tries to figure out how to pull the blanket off, I have no idea why she loves blankets over her head so much.

10. I fully intend to dress Ella in dresses and skirts all summer long

Best Mustache

Some friends of ours are leaving for the summer and they threw a farewell fiesta.

Adam, Ella and I grew some mustaches for the occasion.

At the party, everyone voted for their favorite mustache and little miss Ella won!

She got a huge trophy and a couple of $2 bills.

The park

The End

Hackin' a loogie and other weekend achievements

Ella accomplished many things this weekend

1. Went on some walks and talked a lot about who knows what

2. ROLLED OVER ON HER OWN!

We have been trying to teach her how to roll over for the past month to no avail. And then yesterday I laid her on her tummy and walked away for less than a minute, when I came back she was on her back and just staring at me like it was no big deal.

3. Produced some awesome milk curd spit up and rubbed her face in it

Ella and I talk about ice cream.

Ella, the doctor said that you are at a really healthy weight for your age.

I know, look at my chins!

I'm thinking of adding a third one.

You know what else the doctor said?

What did he say, Mom?

He said we shouldn't feed you anymore sweets until after you've tried several kinds of vegetables.

Really? No sweets?

Yeah, and you know what that means? No more ice cream.

What?! 

No more ice cream?

Yeah, no more ice cream.

I'M NOT OKAY WITH THAT!

I know, I'm sorry about that.

Well then, I guess we won't be seeing that doctor anymore.

The Apartment Book

This is one of my favorite children's books. 

I checked it out a million times from the library when I was little.

And finally I got it as a gift a couple of years ago.

I was reading it to Ella today 

(if I make really enthusiastic noises and crazy voices she will listen to me read stories)

and I remembered how amazing this book is.

Leo Hartas is the illustrator and he is fantastic.

I can't imagine how long it must have taken him to illustrate this book.

So, this book takes an apartment building and removes a wall so that the reader can view inside of it and see what happens in the lives of the tenants in a single day.

Every page is a new hour of the day.

Here is what a page looks like

(yes, those are my black-painted toes holding the pages down)

Do you see that amazing detail? 

All the tiny people?

And on the sides are comments that the people are making.

Okay, let's look at some of my favorite details in this book

(you might have to click on the pictures to enlarge them to really see what's going on)

When I was little, my favorite character in the book was the actress who lived on the 4th floor 

(see the water building up in the ceiling? It will come crashing down later on in the book)

 

But now it's the insane-o family that live two floors below the actress that ride motorcycles out the window (there's also a normal family that lives on the 3rd floor. They're the only normal ones in the whole book):

My brothers and I thought this picture of the grandpa sitting on the toilet with his pants down was the funniest one when we were little (and you can see what he is saying to the left):

Motorcycles aren't the only thing that go through that window. The kids lower their sleeping grandma through it as well (at the same time that a giant sculpture goes crashing through the floor on the main level):

There's an artist and a scientist that live above the actress:

 The water finally comes crashing down on the actress 

(and starts building up in the floorboards below her):

 And a hot air balloon crashes into the apartment at 7pm

(the grandfather, having been kicked out of the bathroom finds a ledge on the 4th floor where he can smoke and the scientist's experiment in the left hand corner takes a turn for the worst):

 The book also shows you what goes on in the basement of the house. A homeless man lives there with some rats and some cats and a dinosaur skull:

And don't forget the happenings in the elevator where some thieves try to escape after stealing some art from the wealthy and art-crazy family on the first floor:

In the evening, there's a party raging on the first floor:

And the scientist is about to launch a rocket while the artist paints a picture of the firemen who helped save the people that crashed their hot air balloon into the building:

Isn't that the coolest book?

Good job, Leo. 

Way to make a really fantastic children's book.

The closet is a mess

Our closet should look like this:

Once my cousin was helping me move into my apartment at school and she organized my clothes so that they were all color coordinated and I loved it so much I've been doing it ever since. I know, it's a weird habit, huh? 

But also really cool to look at!

But instead it looks like this:

I took all the clean clothes from the dryer and threw it in a basket with all the clean clothes that were piled in the bedroom and dumped it all into the closet, so at least the bedroom looks clean now.

Instead of cleaning, I have been working on things like this:

Random drawings on onesies

Illustrations for Laura

And Ella is happy because I play with her instead of put away clothes

And Adam is happy because I make him yummy food like this:

Picture and recipe from Our Best Bites

And, of course, I've got March Madness to worry about:

No, I don't watch any of the games, but the winner in the Jones family gets a free dinner so I flipped a coin to help me fill out a bracket. Unfortunately, my chances of winning hugely decreased when Missouri lost, so now I'm rooting for Adam's bracket.

And there are wonderfully dear friends that we haven't seen in so long to see:

 And walks to go on.

So the closet is going to have to wait.