Neighbors

Woo-hoo!
we're going to have new neighbors soon: Smadar, Moshe and 2-year-old Ori are moving to Chicago and will live in our building. I'm so happy! i can already imagine us having "family dinners" :D

Shana Tova!

New album

i split Ella's photo album and started a new one at 4 months. there's a link to it at the right side of the page.

Sweet potatoes!

i'm ready, bring it on!


Ella's first food::::
(enter drum roll here)

Sweet Potatoes!

Ella was thrilled to finally eat something fun, and had a chance to make a big mess. after a few bites, she decided to try and "help" us feed her with her hands :)

did i say big mess?

surprisingly, she somehow managed to swallow most of it! (we think). at this stage eating "solids" is more for developing skills (both motor and social) and not so much for nutrition - she won't need more than breastmilk until she's 6 months old.

Crafts Fair

a few things i liked at the crafts fair (maybe some day i'll have time to explore these websites):

http://www.littlekorboose.com
http://rawtoastdesign.com/illustration/index.htm
http://ariyamastudio.com/section/55159_Original_Prints.html
http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=7099052
http://matdaly.com/posters.php
http://www.orkposters.com/chicago.html
http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5993647

craftiness

Ella's daycare bag. i used a reusable tote bag, the one you can get at any of the stores now for 99 cents. covered the store-brand logo with a scrap of fabric, and added her name onto it. easy and fun!








we use her bag to transport extra clothes/diapers etc and her food to daycare, and get usd/dirty ones back. don't know if the bag will last very long, but hey, it's a 99c bag and easy to replace!

i think Ella is ready for people's food

no, we didn't give her any new food yet (there's still time to vote), but we're getting her used to the idea.
for a few of days now we have her sitting in her new green chair, and let her get used to the idea of a spoon. first day just the spoon, the 2nd day we gave her some water (she swallowed some of it), and yesterday we gave her a little bit of breast milk. she swallowed almost all of it, only a little got spit out/sprayed.
so i think she's ready!
(plus, another clue to her readiness is her trying to drink her bath water every night)

we'll do that for a couple more days and then go on with the interesting stuff.
and we'll get the camera ready for that, for sure!

buying a bed

we realized that as much as we absolutely LOVE Ella's cradle, she's going to grow out of it REALLY soon. her arms already stick out from the rail now (she breaks out of her swaddle, so we're leaving her arms out more and more now), and as soon as she starts to roll over and be more mobile, bedtime will become a carnival ride.
so we started shopping for a crib. after a couple of trips to BRU and a few hours online we settled on a crib, only to realize that actually the more important item is the mattress. duh. she's going to spend half her life on it, so it better be really good!
a couple more trips to BRU and a few more hours online, and we're now the owners of a fancy mattress featuring 231 pocketed coils, a layer of memory foam, hypoallergenic materials etc etc. just the best for our little princess (whose sleep quality/duration is a major factor our overall sanity).
we don't have the bed just yet. i think when we get it we'll set the bed up in her bedroom, and move Ella out of ours.

happy 4-months birthday, Ella!

Ella had a great day. she woke up bright and early (before the sun did!) played with her aba for a while, helped ima do laundry, threw this ball around, and talked with safta dalia.
in the afternoon, she watched her first ever Michigan football game with the O'brienim. i think she particularly enjoyed flirting with Liam.

What should be Ella's first food?

please mark your answer in the poll at the right of this page. if your answer is "other", add it as a comment to this post!


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update -- poll results:

sit ups

Ella's thing now is sitting and standing. if she can have it her way, she would rather sit on our lap or push herself to stand on our lap (she's not at all stable, but very strong and can support her own weight! even the doctor was happy about it).
sometimes when she sits in her bouncer she exercises her ab muscles and tries to sit up.

we got this little baby seat, it supports her all around and lets her sit on her own even though she's still not stable:


now we need to prepare some stuff for daycare - like lable her clothes and bibs.
i'm planning to make a little tote bag with her name on it, for all her stuff (change of clothes, bottles, etc).
another thing i plan to do, is to convert "Mr Echo" into a fabric form, so that little curious hands don't tare it up.

i'm feeling a bit overwhelmed with the hundreds of pictures that we took during the vacation, so it's hard to put a decent "vacation" post together. maybe i'll work on it this weekend.

First day at daycare!

I think i'm doomed to be nervous on August 31st for the next.. ah.. 18 years or so.

Ella's first day at "school" went well - she had fun during music time, took a couple of naps, and seemed happy to see us when we came to pick her up. yayy!


Ella and Yakini saying good bye to ima and aba...

Dr's visit

Ella is still way above the curve, 17.75 pounds = 8.05 kg, and 26.75 inches = 68 cm.
she took her shots bravely and gave a good act to the doctor - she even pretended to like tummy time :)