Yes, I cooked.  I cooked a 13+ pound turkey, dressing, cranberry relish, a vegetable casserole, sweet potatoes, and a pie!  Sophia spent less than 10 minutes at the table eating just a little bit and that was the extent of our sit-down, family-style Thanksgiving dinner.  Except for all the leftovers, it clearly wasn't worth the effort.  The best part of Thanksgiving has been Ella's turkey breath.  Seriously, her breath smells like sweet, delicious, oven-roasted turkey... even Esen confirmed it, so I'm not going crazy.  Guess I should lay off the turkey leftovers, huh?

 

In addition to cooking more for one meal than I usually produce in a month, I also undertook the task of assembling Sophia's new play-kitchen (actually, kitchen and laundry center).  Grandma and Grandpa Sautner sent an early Christmas present which should adequately train our girls to take over all the household chores in just a few years.  Genius!  Now, I have assembled most of the contents of our house.  I am not afraid of the allen wrench or complicated instructions or unlabeled pieces.  But the assembly of this latest piece damn near broke me.  As with past projects, I had construction worker Sophia assisting me.  She began by dumping into a pile on the floor the entire contents of the carefully segregated and well-labeled container holding all the hardware.  There were 20 different kinds of screws that all looked basically the same, so it was choosing the right one was like playing Russian roulette.  Here are a few pictures of the assembly process... there aren't many because I eventually just shoo'd her out of the room and returned to it after she went to bed.

Thank goodness the picture on the box encouraged me to keep going...

 

The real problem was that this thing is so small that the power drill wasn't useful and there were a LOT of screws.  We finally finished the last bit of assembly on Friday morning (see, it looks just like the box!) and Sophia was super-cute playing with it:

 

My favorite parts are the hologram picture on the front of the oven... it looks like cupcake pans filled with batter from one direction and fluffy, baked cupcakes when you look from another direction... and also the little dryer that has a bell to tell you when your clothes are "dry".  Sophia was quite frustrated by the three jars of spices, which look like they should open but don't.  We'll have to give her some empty real spice jars from the cupboard.  She even went into her bathroom at some point and brought her hand soap to put near her kitchen sink.  :)  Too cute.  Thanks for the great gift!  My days of household chores are nearly over now that we have such a great training tool!!

 

Other Updates:

1.  Sophia's first Turkish play-date with Kutay (the one-year-old son of a Turkish professor on campus) was pretty uneventful.  They stared each other down from their Babas' laps and then just sat there and ignored each other.

2.  Ella continues to be cute enough to keep her from being listed on Ebay:

3.  Although Sophia still has her posse, Mahmut has fallen off in popularity, while Becky has risen to rock-star status (she even goes to the grocery store and to play in the backyard despite the fact that we have a baby-dolls-don't-leave-the-house policy):

4.  Sophia sure likes painting, but her current artistic expression is mostly in the form of "hand" art:

Other artistic expression comes in the form of fashion.  I mean, this combination of monkey pajamas and Jackie-O sunglasses is genius!  I'm pretty sure that Esen let her take Suzy for a walk looking like this.  What must the neighbors think?

 

OK... diaper changing time over here.  Actually, it's always diaper changing time.  Earlier today we did some synchronized diapering of both girls.  I can only imagine that will become an Olympic sport soon.

We just came from Ella's two month check-up.  She's got a cold (thanks to her germy sister) and a fever, so we postponed her first round of vaccinations until next week.  Here are Ella's first statistics:

Weight: 14 pounds (100th percentile)

Height: 24 inches (95th percentile)

Head circumference: 15 7/8 inches (75th percentile)

 

The nurse proclaimed her "the size of a four month old". 

 

In what I'm sure will be a lifetime of comparisons with her big sister, I can't help but point out that Sophia only weighed a bit over 12 pounds at her two month weigh-in, but was a half inch longer than Ella.  It's bizarre to have such big kids given our average size, but at least we don't worry about their growth and physical development.  I'm grateful for that.

 

We asked the doctor some more questions about Ella's laryngomalacia.  She definitely said we should minimize activities that cause Ella to get really agitated and cry a lot, which will exacerbate her condition.  That means no unnecessary car travel because she does not tolerate the carseat... she cried so hard on the short drive over to the doctor's office that I had to pull her out of the carseat... clearly not a safe option.  I've been getting really antsy being stuck in the house or places within easy walking distance, but it is so horribly stressful to have her screaming and choking in the back seat that I'll just continue to stay put.  I'm not very optimistic about Ella's transition to daycare, which could begin as early as next week.  Just driving her there will be a challenge and then we have to make sure that the teachers in the room are willing and able to soothe her well enough that she doesn't have long crying episodes.  It's one thing to not *want* your baby to cry, but it's totally different when you're told that their breathing and health *depend* on it!

 

I'll share with you a nice picture I snapped with me cell phone this weekend on a family walk.  Sophia and her Baba (with Becky, her current favorite baby doll, in tow):

She didn't make it easy (surviving the past two months or getting this picture with the pink pig).  Here's the winner:

At least she's smiling!  Here are some of the more amusing out-takes:

 

I should take some pictures of Ella in her diaper only so that you can get a look at the fat rolls (without breaking Microsoft's anti-nudity policy of course!).  She may not be as long as Sophia, but she seems chubbier to me.

 

In other news, Esen has totally given up and given in.  It's official... the women of the house have broken him:

My work here is complete.  And it only took two years...  :)

I think it has something to do with Ella getting a little cuter and even smiling at me.  I've had a hard time capturing the smile on film, but I got some cute pictures of her riding in the Baby Bjorn after we got back from meeting a friend for lunch and she's giving me a little bit of a smile:

 

She's also started to say "agaaah", which was Sophia's first sound, too.  It's very cute... so cute that she should consider doing it in the middle of the night when she gets us up a ridiculous number of times.

 

You know, something looked oddly familiar to me about one of the pictures above.  Check it out... the picture on the right is Sophia at about 3 days old:

Hmmm... they sure seem to share a lop-sided smirk, don't they?

 

I can't resist posting a cute picture of the Drama Queen, too... this one captures her in a good mood, but Sophia has some serious mood swings that clearly demonstrate the "terrible twos" start well before the second birthday!

I'm sure you don't believe me given how cute and angelic she looks with those "doot-doots" (aka, pig-tails), but one of these days I'm going to get a video of one of Sophia's tantrums just so that you all know why we drink so much beer and wine over here.

If I could go back and do Halloween over again, I'd dress Sophia as Luke Skywalker.  I think her hair (the color and semi-mullet) is a dead ringer for Mark Hamill:

 

Given we have characters for the girls, that just leaves Esen and I (and Suzy).  I guess I'm a fairly obvious Princess Leah (and have done this for Halloween before), but could Esen pull off Han Solo?  Hmmm...

Esen had to go and make this comparison:

Apparently I'm not the only Star Wars geek in the household.  Now I can't look at Ella without thinking, man that Lando Calrissian was a traitor with funny looking friends, but he sure had style!

I haven't taken very many pictures of Ella.  Now before you make comments about how the second kid always gets the shaft and this is just the start, please keep in mind that it is difficult to snap pictures while simultaneously holding a super chunky baby.  I have given it a shot, however, so here you go:

 

... a good enough night and day that I feel like blogging!  To say that Ella's sleep challenges have continued to be a "challenge" would be an understatement.  We continue to feel optimistic until approximately the hours of midnight through 6am every night... that's when the pessimism sets in.  But last night she slept for nearly FIVE hours in a row.  This is a dramatic improvement over the typical two hours in a row that we usually get.  Now, please don't make the silly assumption that *WE* slept that whole five hours.  Last night Ella slept in a little contraption I call the "bento box" (check out a picture:  http://www.amazon.com/First-Years-Close-Secure-Sleeper/dp/B00012CHFI), which holds her safely in our bed in between us.  In a queen size bed, this leaves surprisingly little room for adults (and Suzy joined us for a while, too).  Additionally, because this was her first time sleeping on her stomach in this contraption, I was particularly nervous and woke up a lot to monitor her.  We actually got more nervous the longer she slept.  While this might seem neurotic, anything out of the ordinary seems scary when breathing is involved, you know?  Still, the fact that she slept that long gives us hope because at least there's evidence that she's capable of it. 

 

During the day I've started to let her nap on the couch on her tummy:

I hate having her napping all the way at the back of the house in her basinette, even with a baby monitor on.  Here's why... I periodically go in and look at her and think she's dead and it freaks me out.  This has happened to Esen a few times, too.  It's because of her color, which is probably related to the color of our bedroom.  Our bedroom (where the basinette is) has dark red paint on the walls.  An artist friend of ours explained that the color of the walls means that red is absorbed from the light that comes into the room.  This means that there's more blue in the light during the day, making her take on a bluish hue that we don't see when she's in other rooms.  Even with this explanation, my heart just can't take it anymore... going into the bedroom to see her so still and sleeping soundly, but that crazy bluish color... it's just too much for my ticker!

 

We had Sophia home with us today for Veteran's Day and yesterday for a teacher in-service day.  Thankfully the weather has been decent so she's enjoyed some time outside in her new playhouse:

Such a serious face, huh?  That's what you get when she's in her abstract-art-chalkboard mode.

 

Because it had rained, the leaves on the back patio were slippery so Sophia helped me sweep it clear.  She also tidied up the inside of her playhouse:

 

Ella also joined her inside.  It's hard enough for a full-size adult to get into this thing... even harder when you have a baby in your arms, so kudos to Esen for getting in there and back out again without dropping Ella:

 

On these days with Sophia, I get pretty desperate to entertain her.  Yesterday I got her ready for spring break or a career as a stripper with a glittery butterfly tattoo on her stomach.  She lifts up her shirt for anyone, so look for her on the next "Girls Gone Wild":

I can't wait until her teachers go to change her diaper tomorrow and find this little gem.  Actually, I'm sure she'll be showing it off long before it's time for a diaper change.  I had to put a similar temporary butterfly tattoo on my belly to get her to do it, but I'll spare you a picture of that.  :)

 

Esen made us a delicious Turkish-style bean dish this weekend.  Sophia really enjoyed it and Esen was proud to see her eating it like a true Turk with toast and pickles!

 

Sophia continues to mimic my behavior with Ella.  She almost always has a baby doll in her arms (one even went on a walk with her and Suzy this morning).  Sometimes she sits next to me as I nurse Ella and she holds her doll in a similar way.  Esen captured some of this behavior on a video the other day.  We routinely give Ella nose drops to keep her nasal passages nice and moist (this helps keep some airborne germs from getting in); Sophia sees this so often that now her doll Becky gets the same treatment... laying her down on a blanket, drops in the nose, and then gentle wiping.  (Permanent link: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1935284665786572101)

    

Becky also routinely gets a diaper change (complete with wipes and diaper cream unfortunately).  Mavis and Polly have been spared some of this extra treatment, but I suspect their time is coming.

 

OK... wish us luck tonight.  It's about 10pm and Ella will probably be sleepy soon.  I'm not so foolish as to think we'll get a repeat of last night, but perhaps we'll get lucky enough to have a good enough night to fuel my optimism about future nights.

Grandma and Grandpa Sautner were out to visit for a long weekend.  Although they only saw one day of "sunny" California, both girls were well-behaved and a lot of fun.  Sophia sure enjoys having visitors and being the center of their attention!  Since Grandpa seemed to have a knack for making Ella cry, there was a definite divide-and-conquer approach:

 

Esen and I thoroughly enjoyed not having our hands full for a change!

 

They shipped ahead a present for Ella, which required some assembly and which we strongly suspect will be Sophia's territory for the next year or so.  Take a look at the assembly process and Sophia enjoying the end result:

The playhouse has four sides:  a school house, a gas station / ATM, a market, and a sports side complete with basketball hoop and soccer goal.  So far she's been a real big fan of sitting inside and talking on the phone (with her feet up as you can see!).  She also enjoyed a nice snack in her new hangout:

 

 

Esen went in to check it out, but I hope he realizes that it won't be long before "No Boys are ALLOWED!!"

I'm sure that both girls will enjoy this playhouse for years to come.  I'm also hopeful that it will allow us grown-ups to sit peacefully on the patio for happy hour!

 

In other Ella news, she didn't/doesn't have whooping cough.  As we later suspected, it was laryngomalacia that exacerbated her cold symptoms into that bad cough.  Since we've continued to let her sleep on her stomach, Ella has slept better and better.  And as she's gotten better sleep, she's been more reasonable when she's awake.  We're feeling really optimistic about her sleeping (and ours!) in the weeks to come.  We are still struggling with what to do with her when she's awake given that she doesn't tolerate any sort of usual baby-holding implement (bouncy chair, swing, sling, etc.) for very long.  Sometimes she's content to lay on her back on the floor and wiggle around, but that usually only lasts for about 10 minutes.  I bought her a bumbo seat, which holds her quite upright, but she's still a bit too floppy to find that comfortable.  Here's her first time in the bumbo (in her tutu skirt for Halloween):

Again, this might work really well for her in a few more weeks.  The carseat still proves to be her least favorite thing on the planet.  Being in it (even when moving) results in such intense screaming/crying that she gets completely hoarse and actually works up a sweat.  I got scared the last time I took her on a short drive and had to stop multiple times on the short trip to pull her out of the carseat and calm her down.  It was horrible enough that we'll avoid driving with her in the short term.  Her two month check-up is in two weeks, so we'll have the doctor reevaluate everything then and give us some more advice.  In the meantime, we'll just continue to try and figure out this little girl and what makes her happy and comfortable.