The night before Easter, we spent some time at our friends, the Griffins, house and Hank (almost 6) and Eddie (3) kept us entertained all night!  They are two of the sweetest boys you will ever meet, and they wanted to do all they could to ensure Ella was having the time of her life.  They brought toys to her, played blocks with her, and sang songs to her that made her smile.  Eddie sang her the "ABC song" while she ate dinner and Hank sang her "Baa Baa Black Sheep."  Jennifer also spent some time singing to Ella and claims it was the first time anyone ever applauded after she was finished singing   We had such a great time with our friends!

What a wonderful Easter Sunday we had this year!!  Ella popped up pretty fast early Sunday morning when I stuck my head in and said..."It's Easter!  Today we find some Easter eggs!"  She loves eggs - especially scrambled - so she was pretty darn excited.  We went to church with Grandma and PaPa and enjoyed a great service with beautiful music and a wonderful Easter message about the Resurrection.  Ella slept the entire service back in the Cry Room with Grandma - she does not like to be "shushed" during church and likes to pick that exact time to practice her counting reallyloud!!!  We headed over to Grandma and PaPa's house after church and set up for the big Easter lunch.  We had quite the crowd - but nothing unusual for a holiday with Jill's side of the family!  Great-Grandma Blitz came over from Aspen Grove and Lucille (Denny's mom) also joined us.  Rounding out the group were Di, Karley, Denny & Marlene, Marty & Missy, Mans, Michael, Skyler, Alex, Corey & Leah, Olivia, Mason, Kevin, Mark & Julie, Johnny, Alyssa, Chrissy, Grandma & PaPa, Erik & Jill and Ella.  We shared a delicious Easter meal that we realized was the exact meal we shared in 2001 as a mysterious home video was resurrected and we enjoyed watching how much everyone had changed in 7 years!!  I made the infamous Bunny Cake that I have been making ever since I was little (my dad used to help me) and I refuse to be humble.  It was the best Bunny Cake ever!  Usually it just sits in the middle of the table as a centerpiece and ends up getting all hard and crusty and no one wants to eat it.  Let me just tell you that there was a line of people, cake plates in hand, this year to try the Bunny Cake.   I was feeling pretty good about myself!   Grandma put on a great Easter Egg hunt for the kids with eggs hidden all over the house (still too cold outside in Michigan!) which contained either yummy goodies or pennies.  Ella even found her own 6 eggs with help from various family members.  We saved the pennies for her piggy bank and gave her a couple of jelly beans - which she loved!  It does not take much sugar to get Ella all jazzed, so the rest of the candy was stashed away for another time   We did want to get some sleep that night!!

There is a lot going on around here these days!  We are just over a week away from Opening Day for the Toledo Mud Hens 2008 baseball season.  Erik's parents arrive on Thursday to stay with us for a week, and they will be joining us for Opening Day festivities, along with my parents as well.  This is one of the earliest Opening Days that we can remember, so I told Nana and G.pa to bring warm clothes from California cuz it will be CHILLY here in Ohio!!  Thankfully we know "people" so we can warm up on the suite level if we get too numb.  One of the perks of Daddy's job!!  This will be Ella's second Opening Day and I am excited to see how she enjoys the ballpark this season.  We have been teaching her the words to "Take me out to the ballgame" so she is fully prepared for her first (of many!) seventh inning stretches this year!

Ella has learned a few new words as well as three new signs lately.  She is catching on really quick and it is so fun to listen to her go through her list of words!  She says them all at the appropriate times as well.  She is still doing well on her counting, and now she can tell us the numbers out of order as well.  We ask, "what comes after 5?" and so on, and she will get them right - every time!  When she tries to sling her skinny leg up onto the couch to climb on, she yells, "Up!" and when she gets on her belly to slide back to the floor, she yells, "Down!"  When we are changing her diaper, I say, "dirty diaper..." and she says, "Off!" and then I say, "clean diaper" and she says, "On!"  The same goes for "In" and "out."  Erik will sit on the floor with her and they will be playing with her tin can with the lids and she will put them in and take them out, all while yelling out what she is doing.  Another favorite word lately is "Boom!"  We taught her to say this when she ran into things with her walker, or fell back onto the ground when she was trying to walk.  Now we say it when we throw her onto the bed, the couch, etc.  When she says it, it comes out more like "bum!" and it is so stinking adorable.  I absolutely LOVE to see her making these connections. 

I also taught her the signs for mommy, daddy, and milk the other day.  We learned those from sitting and watching a Baby Einstein video of My First Signs.  Now she knows those three, along with hungry, thirsty, love you and storybook (kind of!)  She still gets confused with signs sometimes, but we continue to work on it daily.  Just another thing I never thought I would be able to do with my blind child...and I stand corrected yet again!!  She is pretty amazing right now - and we are excited to see how she continues to progress as we approach her 2nd Birthday coming up in June!