Whoo Hoo - I made it 3 days!!!

Yeah, I didn't really live up to that challenge, now did I?  I instead went the other direction and decided to just not post for 28 days.  See, I can do something!

I have spent the last 28 days in a blur. A blur of family visiting, 11 year wedding anniversary celebrating, baby play dates, football, Halloween parties, crazy work, behavior unbecoming to children, new assistants that rock, Brazilian blow outs, boats, babies that army crawl, buddy walks, more Halloween parties, new cars, Thanksgiving drama. See. I am one busy chick.

One busy chick with some awesome hair.

I know, 28 days away from the blog and you would think I would talk about Ella. Well, I will, but more importantly, I have found the worlds most awesome thing ever. The Brazilian blow out.  It is amazing for those of us with frizzy, curly hair.  It makes your hair smooth, straight, flat, just amazing. These darn celebrities who have known about this treatment for years were hiding it because they didn't want us normal people to have hair better than theirs.  Well Jennifer Aniston, I now have nice hair and a husband.. Looks like only one of us is 2/2. Oh, if you google the BBO (as those of us in the "club") call it, ignore those formaldehyde comments, I am sure it is safe, I mean, have you seen my pretty hair? How couldn't it be??

I have pretty hair that lasted through 2 weeks of Halloween nonsense.  I like Halloween, I really do, but it seriously stretched out for 2 weeks. Between block parties, parties at the clubhouse, school parties and the actual night of trick or treating, I am so sick of seeing vampire teeth and tootsie rolls I could scream.  When did Halloween turn into a month long ordeal that involves costume parades and frosting cookies? When I was a kid we just had Halloween day. That was it. Just one day. We trick or treated, we went home, we ate some candy, washed the makeup off our faces and went to bed. Now my children think Halloween is a 2 week event. I can't wait for Christmas this year!

Before I spent two weeks in costume hell, I got to spend time with some of my favorite people in the world, Mike's aunts and cousins from New York.  They all came down for a week of non-stop fun and well, fun we had - non stop..  It was a crazy week that ended in Mike and I staring at a wall and recuperating the day after they left, but we had a blast. They got to meet Ella, I got to take some time off work and hang out. It was all good. 

I also spent a good part of the last month really focusing on what we want for Ella.  The state has made some changes to the program she is in (her early intervention therapies) and we have been tasked with the tough task of learning we will be footing the bill for all of her therapy from November 1st on.  While I am thankful that right now we can afford that, I get frustrated that my tax dollars do nothing to help my own family!  I can't change it though so we are at a point of deciding what we want for Ella and what we can afford. Our insurance covers some things, but the only therapist I care about keeping isn't covered by our insurance.  I won't give her up though, so I am keeping PT once a week and really researching a clinic type setting for OT and Speech.  I have spent way to many hours on the Internet reading research about therapy and what others think of what works / what doesn't and I am leaning towards Ella going to a clinical setting 2 or 3 times a week for more speech and OT than she gets now.  I am learning the clinics around here aren't really set up for babies, but I am pushing them to see if I can get a clinic to take a chance on us.  In the future Ella will need more from a speech therapist than 1 hour a week, so why not start now?

I also had an anniversary (my amazing husband deserves a whole post related to our anniversary) and I had an assistant quit and another one start in my Crazy October.  Old assistant...Well, let's just say he Facebook un-friended me and I wasn't sad about it.  New assistant... Well, let's just say she is my clone. A mini me. (really, a mini me, she is much smaller than I am) and she is full of ideas, sarcasm, great jeans, hard work and candy. It's awesome. It's like me but with 3 less kids. Erin's new assistant is a lot like Erin and while not so full of candy as my dear assistant, she is full of baseball trivia, cute shoes and patience so it is all a great balance around the office right now. Cute shoes, cute jeans, ideas, patience. What more could we want!  I like it. We are setting out to accomplish some amazing stuff in 2011.  Erin and I are blessed with the smarts and guts to have made it this far, now we have the team to help us be amazing and world overtaking.

OK, OK, now on to why you actually read the blog.

Ella is doing amazing. I can't say enough about how wonderful she is, how great she is doing, how she makes everything in my life better, you get the picture.  She is starting to wave, starting to army crawl, starting to get mad when her brothers take her toys, starting to sit up better. She is just being Ella and smiling and loving every day she gets to get up and roll around with her toys.  I love it. I love her.   She did awesome at the Buddy Walk, she did awesome at her baby play date.  See, I can't spend 31 days writing about Ella, all I would say is how wonderful she is and well, it would get a little tiring after a while, I get it...  :)

What else... My other two children....

Let's just say that for every amazing baby with chubby cheeks, there is a Storm Trooper and Vampire waiting in the wings to bring you back to parenting reality.  If I didn't know better, I would think that my dear boys were sent here to test every ounce of patience I have before I turn 31.  I know they are saving something for when they are 14 and I am 33 so I am assuming it was just a tough month for Storm Troopers and Vampires.  A month full of teacher visits, phone calls, time outs, bite marks and no X Box.

So much else has happened, but well, I must get my pretty little hair to bed.  Till next time my friends! Oh, and by next time, I don't mean 28 days, I mean just a few!

Liz