Monday, December 1, 2008

Thanksgiving traffic...UGH!

I hope you all had a terrific Thanksgiving and didn’t deal with too much traffic. We left for North Carolina on Wednesday afternoon. Our time of departure was based solely on one thing…Ella’s nap. Our plan was to leave around noon since she usually goes to sleep between 1-1:30. So when we were packing the car and Metti came upstairs and told me that Ella was asleep at 11:30, I almost had a panic attack. We tried our best to move her into the car without waking her up, but to no avail. She woke up and was ready to play. Ella stayed awake for the entire 5 hour drive! Thank heavens for portable DVD players and Elmo videos!

We had a great time in NC and my cousin’s daughter, Kit (Kathryn…named after me, or at least that’s what I tell people), and Ella developed a special bond. Ella now has a picture of Kit in her photo album and when she looks at it she says “Kit” with a very emphasized “T.” Kit was great with Ella and brought out all sorts of toys that she knew she’d like.

While we were there Joe saw a commercial for Wal-Mart that had a GPS for $97. Since our GPS was stolen a few months ago we have been going without, and anyone who has a GPS knows that $97 is a great price. So at 4:30 am on Friday morning Joe, Lindy (my cousin) and Kit headed out to Wal-Mart. Apparently the store was bananas and Joe and Kit waited in line for a long time to get the GPS.

We decided to head home Saturday in order to avoid most of the traffic, and I’m so glad we did. It rained all day Sunday, and combine that with Thanksgiving travel and I’m sure the roads were a mess! The trip still took us about 7 hours, but Ella at least slept much of the way home and she watched her DVD’s the rest of the time. She was a champ!

Ella continues to grow more and more. She has recently started saying 2 word sentences…and one of the words is always either “yay” or “yeah.” So she’ll say “Yay, baby.” Or if you ask her if that is a star she’ll say “Yeah, Star.” What’s even funnier is that she has started to answer questions very directly. So if we say “Ella, do you want a snack?” She’ll say “Yeah, yummy!” Or if we ask her if she pooped she nods her head and says “yeah.” The best, however, is that now, when she cuddles her toys, she also says “awww, baby” or “awww, snowman.” And she has added “Bless You” to her vocabulary and says it whenever there is a commercial for cold medicine. We really do have a funny kid.

Joe has only one final this semester (the rest were papers or class presentations) so he’s studying hard for that. I got some of the Christmas decorations up yesterday, but there’s still a lot more decorating to do. I am most excited that I’ve discovered battery operated tea lights! No worrying about Ella burning herself, and they look great. Ahhh, Christmas is in the air.

No comments: