Do you like me when I wear this dress?

“Do you like me when I wear this dress?” “Do you like me when I have this bow in my hair?” “Do you like me when I twirl my skirt?” “Do you like me when I wear these new shoes?”

These are just a few of the things that Ella has asked us at different times, and I imagine are the types of things that many little girls ask.

We’ve made a habit for our response to Ella to be something along these lines: “Yes, we like you and we like your dress. But we like you and love you whether or not you wear that dress.”

My husband and I don’t want Ella’s self worth to only be in her outer appearance. We want her focus and self worth to come from her inner person. We also want Ella to know she shouldn’t have to be flashy or do crazy things to get our attention.

Raising a child, I think particularly a girl, in today’s world to not be consumed with the outer is a difficult and constant task. Most influences around her in the world teach her that she must focus her efforts on the outer person. Ella hasn’t even come close to being exposed to most of these influences at this point, and yet my task as a parent has already begun. Hopefully, by encouraging and teaching her course now to be focused on the inner person when she is exposed to more things in the world she will be better prepared to keep her focus on the inner person.

We want Ella to become the virtuous woman of Proverbs 31, summed up in Proverbs 31:30: “Charm is deceitful and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised.”

 

Let’s Talk About Noah

Teaching my children about God’s Word and hiding it in their hearts is one of the most important tasks I have as a parent. There are so many ways to teach and engage children so that they learn God’s Word, and I want to share a video of one way with you. The video is Ella talking to her dad about one of her favorite Bible stories right now: Noah.  We talk about something like this almost every night before Ella goes to bed, and Ella really loves to talk about these different stories and things from the Bible. Teaching children about the Bible doesn’t always require a formal lesson; rather, it can be something as simple as a conversation.

Let's Talk About Noah from Lisa on Vimeo.

Shutter Love Tuesdays: Father's Love

Two words: Nose kisses!!

No . . . .No . . . No . . NO!

These days the word "no" seems to be the most frequent word in my vocabulary. Ella is exploring everything, which is wonderful and annoying at the same time. I love watching her learn, watching her experience things for the first time, and watching her interacting with the world around her. However, her inquiry has to be carefully monitored; after all, part of the reason she is so fun to watch is because she really doesn't know much at all about the world around her. Ella doesn't know about gravity, or electricity, or choking, or sharp edges. All she knows is that object over there sure does look interesting. As she's exploring, I'm constantly telling her "no" to help guide her exploration. Although she doesn't understand the concept of safety yet, I'm trying to teach her by guiding her away from dangerous things with my words. I'm trying to gain patience in this process. After the tenth time I've said "no" for her touching the same thing, I can feel my patience slipping away. I must remain strong!

It was a beautiful day today, so I was brave and let Ella crawl around in the backyard. She had so much fun playing in her new environment. My patience was certainly tested as she played. There were leaves, sticks (which amazingly resembled straws), rocks, shells, and all sorts of other things to "play" with (aka, put in her mouth). I'll let the sequence of photos below speak for themselves. If you'd like to see other shots from today, be sure to check out my Project 365 blog.

She's growing too fast!

Today should be Ella's last day in her infant car seat. Her convertible car seat should be arriving tomorrow. In the top shot, Ella is two days old, on the way home from the hospital. In the bottom shot (taken today), Ella is a little over 11 months old. It is truly amazing how much she has grown in 11 months!

In the beginning of October, when Ella was 8 months old, I took Ella's picture in a rocking chair. At the end of December, when Ella was almost 11 months old, I took Ella's picture in the same rocking chair. I'm amazed at how much stability and balance Ella has gained in the past three months!

Less than an month before she turns one year old! Where did the time go?

A Joy of Parenting: Watching Ella Learn

Even though Ella is only 10 1/2 months old, I've truly been blessed by her. She has already taught me many things, and brought great joy to my life. One of the many things that always brings a smile to my face is seeing her learn to do new things. It is sometimes hard to imagine that 10 1/2 months ago she couldn't even hold her head up, and now she is saying her first words, crawling, pulling up, cruising along furniture, and doing many other things.

This first video shows Ella doing one of her newest tricks: "touchdown!" She also shows up she can pull up, and even stand up (on a crib mattress no less) without holding on to anything.


This second video shows Ella playing with one of her toys, her cookie jar. When she first got this toy, she liked hearing the music and watching the lights, but really couldn't do anything much with it. Now she can place the pieces inside the cookie jar, know to look inside to find the pieces, and take the pieces out. Hopefully one of these days she'll learn to match up the shapes with the cut-outs on the sides!

Singing to Ella: Bible Songs

This past quarter, I taught Ella's cradle roll Bible class. During that time, I learned a number of great songs to teach her about spiritual things. While the songs are very simple, many have great messages embedded in them, teaching important spiritual lessons. Here are a few of the songs about the Bible that we sang during Bible class, and that I also sing to her on a daily basis.

• This is the Bible, God's written word.
  It tells that God loves us, it tells that God made us.
  This is the Bible, God's written word.
  
  
• The B-I-B-L-E, yes that's the book for me
  I'll stand upon the Word of God, the B-I-B-L-E.
  
  
• (Tune: Mary had a little lamb)
  Read your Bible, pray everyday, pray everyday, pray everyday.

Memories and Ornaments

I always enjoy pulling out all the Christmas decorations every year. My favorite part of Christmas decorating is probably decorating the Christmas tree - I love the beautiful lights and ornaments. My husband recently commented that his favorite part about the Christmas tree was not the tree itself, but the recollection of memories associated with the ornaments. These memories are certainly precious.

Every Christmas while I was growing up (and still to this day), everyone in my family got a new ornament. When I got married, my mom gave me all of my ornaments from my childhood. One of my favorites, even to this day, is this Hallmark gingerbread house. The picture really doesn't do it justice - it sparkles beautifully.


If you examined the ornaments on my tree, you'd probably notice the large number of Snoopy ornaments. I have liked Snoopy a lot since I was little.


Some ornaments are newer but still carry great memories. The first year we had each of our dogs (Ali and Reeses) we got them each an ornament.


And, of course, the ornament from our first Christmas together as a married couple. My husband surprised me with this one. :)


Last year, during the holidays, my husband and I were still debating what we should name our baby girl. Although we tossed around lots of ideas, our most serious debate was between the names "Ella" and "Emma." My husband favored Emma more, and I favored Ella more. As we were driving home from spending Christmas with our families, we finally decided on the name Ella. When we stopped to eat lunch, my husband pulled an ornament with Ella's name on it out of the back. To this day I don't know if he had one that said "Emma" also, or if he just knew we'd end up with the name "Ella." Either way, I was happily surprised with the ornament. Pulling this ornament out of the Christmas decorations box brought a big smile to my face. :)

Side note: I have learned it is really hard to take pictures of ornaments :)

Forming My Relationship with Ella

Ella and I have both had a cold the past few days, and I've almost completely lost my voice from it. I've lost my voice so bad that my husband can't really hear me sitting on the next couch over from me. This is the first time that I've lost my voice since I've had Ella, and it made me realize something - I sing to Ella a lot. I sing spiritual songs and educational songs to her. Sometimes I sing crazy things to her that probably only a mom can understand (I'm not kidding when I say I sing songs about changing her clothing or changing her diaper, but you do what you do to make a baby smile!).

Losing my voice also made me realize that I talk to Ella a lot. I talk to her about many different things ranging from the silly to the serious. I know you are probably thinking, how serious can a conversation with a 9-month old be? But honestly, I talk to her about things she doesn't understand yet and things she won't understand for many more years to come, but a large part of my conversation with her is a training process for me. I need to be able to talk to her about silly things and about serious things. I need to be able to talk to her about physical things and spiritual things. I need to be able to talk to her not only so I can form a very special relationship with her, but also so that my husband and I can bring her up in the Lord.

In a Christian parenting book I read recently called Your Mama Don't Dance, the authors (Glenn and Cindy Colley) make the point that parents who get the attention of their teens are the parents who gave attention to their toddlers. It is important to me to start forming my relationship with my daughter now, while she is still young. I highly recommend Your Mama Don't Dance- this book has given me many great ideas for raising children in the Lord. One of the authors, Cindy Colley, also has a blog you might want to check out.

Hot Glue

Today was Ella's first Halloween. I decided fairly last minute that I'd get her a costume (and I'm glad I did!) but because I waited so late, I couldn't find anything in her size. When I found her "pea in a pod" costume, I really thought it was good for her (especially since she was "Lima" for so long to us). The only problem with the costume is that it was way too small. Oddly enough, it was a 6-9 month size (and she's just now 9 months old) but her legs didn't come close to fitting in the suit. So, I cut leg holes out of the bottom, and ended up having to hot glue the inside lining to the outside fur so it wouldn't fray. While I'm glad it ended up looking pretty cute, I really wish that I had the skills to sew it, but then again, maybe I don't need to learn to sew - all I really needed was the hot glue!