Elisa Partridge's Family Tree

Chloe Waking Up

2009-10-20T14:34:00.007-05:00

So obviously I'm good at making goals, just not so good at achieving them. Oh well. Here are some cute pics of Chloe. The first one is just cute, but the other ones I took right after Chloe had woken up from sleeping with her face lying on some blankets. August 2009.

She has those cute lines on her face.

This one's a bit blurry, but you can still see the lines on her face.

You can see the lines really well in this pic.

Halle's First Day of School

2009-10-20T14:16:00.006-05:00

Halle looks so cute in her school uniform!

August 25, 2009

Success!

2009-05-24T23:18:00.007-05:00

I have recently made a new goal. At first I was going to make a goal of putting up a post on my blog once a week, but I soon realized that this was much too ambitious of me, so my goal is now to post once a month. That's better than once every 5 or 6 months, right? So here is the one for May, and from now on there will be one every month! Once I master that, maybe I can move up to every other week. For now, here is the latest news.

Halle is getting in to preschool. Or should I say Pre-K? That's what they call it out here. I'm very excited (and Halle too) because she is so ready for it! Not only can she recognize numbers 1-10 and some letters, but she is eager to learn! She'll be going to a magnet school out here that focuses on core knowledge and she'll be going half days 5 days a week. Yay learning! and yay free time! (sorta)

Which brings me to Chloe. My little baby girl is 7 months old now! My how time flies. Ever since she was 4 months old I have been trying to get her to eat solid foods, but everytime she spit it out. Today that has all changed! She ate a small handful of cheerios. I'm hoping this means that she's ready for solid foods now and that I can start giving her more foods, but we're going to take it slow. Chloe is also rolling over both ways, holds herself up on her arms while lying on her tummy, and she can pretty much sit up without support. I still need to be close by so she doesn't give herself a concussion when she falls over, but I think she is doing rather well.

Here are some pictures that we took while watching fireworks about a week ago at the Riverfest here in Wichita. It was cold and the fireworks were mediocre, not to mention there was a building in our way, but we had lots of fun.

As a last bit of news. The semester is over and Wade has officially finished a year of grad school! He's still busy, but at least he has a bit of a break. Then he will have a class for 3 weeks in June and another one for 3 weeks in July. In between then we will get to visit Utah! I will come out with the girls a week before Wade, then he'll come for 2 weeks and then the girls and I will stay an extra week. That's a month! We are so excited. Everyone be sure to set aside some time for us!

Well that's all for this month. I imagine I will be posting my next blog from Utah. Until then you can find me on facebook or twitter. Become my friend or follow me because I update those a whole lot more. Shoot me an email if you can't find me.

Spanglish

2009-03-19T10:23:00.004-05:00

Before I get into an explanation of this video, I just wanted to apologize to everyone for not posting anything for 5 months. Wow, I can't believe little Chloe is 5 months already! Just a little update on her. She is now rolling over from front to back! It's only a matter of time before she rolls back to front and then I'll have a very mobile baby on my hands. I'll post some pics from the past 5 months before Sunday. Until then, Please enjoy this video of Halle speaking "Spanish."

You see, Halle loves to watch Dora the Explorer and Go, Diego Go! And since she knows a few spanish words, she thinks she can speak the language. She decided to use her spanish speaking ablility on a few unsuspecting hispanic children one day at the play area at McDonald's. Her words were pretty similar to the ones used in this video. Those poor kids looked really confused and I could tell they were trying to figure what she said. After laughing hysterically for a few minutes, I was able to regain composure, and told Halle a few things to say to the children in actual spanish. Ah yes, life would be a lot less interesting without Halle.

Chloe Brenda Marie Partridge

2008-10-18T17:44:00.001-05:00

Weighing in at 6 pounds and 11 ounces and standing (or lying) at 18 and 1/2 inches, Chloe Brenda Marie was born October 15, 2008 at 1:37 p.m. She has a head full of dark brown hair and has bright pink skin. Chloe really likes to sleep right now, which is good for me, but I worry she's not eating enough. That's the magic of percocet. I've been trying to keep the meds at a minimum, but I did just have major surgery.

Halle loves her little sister. She decided we could go ahead and name her Chloe. After watching the Disney movie "Twitches" she decided that the baby's name had to be Alex, which was the name of one of the twin witches in the movie. Luckily, we were able to convince her that Chloe was a much better name for her little sister. After the birth her Grandma spoiled her with twin baby dolls and she named one of them Alexis. The other baby's name is Brandy. I don't think that was the name of the other twin in the movie, however.

I came home from the hospital friday night. I'm doing a lot better than I thought I would. I don't really need a lot of meds to keep the pain under control, and I'm up and about without too many complications. I should probably take it easy a little more though.

I decided to breastfeed despite the many complications I had with my first experience, and it's gone surprisingly well, painful, but well. My milk has already come in, but Chloe is so sleepy that I'm producing more than she's eating. I guess it's time to store some milk for the future in case I need it for anything.

Dropping Bomb Bird

2008-10-09T00:26:00.001-05:00

You know, this is the first time I've uploaded videos on You Tube. It's only been a few hours and I've already had 10 people look at them. It's kind of exciting and disturbing at the same time.

Feeding the Giraffes

2008-10-09T00:23:00.001-05:00

Halle had such a good time feeding the giraffes.

Good Times

2008-10-08T14:08:00.001-05:00

Here are the pics that I promised.

First is our trip to the Sedgwick County Zoo.

This is our day at the Science Exploration Place.

You can't see the screen, but they are flying a virtual Wright Bros. plane.

Apparently this took great effort. Ok not really, but you'd think so by the look on my face. Actually, I'm pretty surprised that I was able to get the bubble over my head.

And a few pictures from Halle's 4th birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese.

Halle's all ready for her fairy tale birthday party. Unfortunately there weren't any other kids with us, but that didn't stop us from having a great time!

You had to grab those metal things and it would "shock" you. It really just vibrated very intensely and you had to hang on to them for 30 seconds to get the maximum amount of tickets.

Hey you try it.Halle was so excited to meet Mr. Cheese.

Yes I made that cake. The frosting was supposed to be purple, but I put too much blue in it and I didn't have any more red. Oh well, I'm still proud.

Those are all the fun things that we tooks pictures of. I need to utilize my camera more. Well, at least I will next week with the birth of Halle's little sister. Or Wade will.

As for her name. We know that her first name is going to be Chloe, but her middle name is still under heated debate. It will either be Marie, which is my mom's middle name, or Brenda, which is the name of Wade's professor that set him on his path to grad school. Neither of us want to budge, so she may end up with both. Doesn't Chloe Marie have a much better flow to it though? And besides, Halle's middle name comes from Wade's side of the family, so I think I deserve to choose Chloe's middle name from my side. It's only fair. I guess we'll find out her full name next week.

Next post: Chloe's birth!

I finally did it!

2008-09-30T14:15:00.000-05:00

Drum roll please...

Announcing Elisa Partridge's long awaited family blog! (please hold back the applause)

I know that many of you have been wondering what the goings on have been since we left our long time home in Utah, for the Urban life of Wichita, Kansas. Well, since we have been here for nearly 2 months now, you are all in for an earful, er, eyeful.

We arrived in Wichita on Friday, August 8th, and since then, have been very busy getting our lives together here. We've had to find doctor's, insurace, school's, and we are still settling in. I found an OB pretty quickly, but have yet to find Halle a doctor. Since we are living off of student loans and Wade's measly $6000/yr stipend, we had to apply for medicaid, which was expidited for me and baby in utero, but we are still waiting to get medicaid for Halle, and Wade isn't eligible.

Not having medical for Halle, I have had to put off finding her a doctor. I did try in the the past to find her a pediatrician, but even if they were taking patients with medicaid, they had met their quota and would not allow new ones. That has led me to finding a family doctor, but I decided not to attempt it until her medicaid comes through.

As for Wade's insurance, he is able to get his through school for a reasonable price. Now he just needs to find an eye doctor, general physician, and neurologist. I offered to find doctors for him, given his packed schedule, but he insists on finding them on his own. Men...

I have seen my new OB several times now. I really like her. She's been really good at picking up where my last doctor left off. She has looked into past concerns, and she has scheduled my c-section. Why a c-section you ask? Well, Halle was delivered by c-section, and we felt there would be less possible complications if we went ahead and did another one. Halle's sister's delivery is scheduled for October 15th, which is just 2 weeks from tomorrow!

Now, I bet you are wondering what the name is going to be. Well, you'll just have to wait until my next post! Oh, and for those of you who weren't aware, it's a girl, hence "Halle's sister" above.

I have been wanting to get Halle into some sort of educational environment since we got here, but it's turned out to be a difficult task. For one, we can't really afford to pay for her to go to school. Preschool, or Pre-K as they call it here, is free at the public schools, but unfortunately she missed the age cut off to get in this year. I do, however, due to our low income, have the option of getting her into headstart (that's pre-pre-k) but the school she would go to doesn't have any openings as of now, and she has to have her shots up to date, which isn't possible right now because of the medicaid situation. I do try to keep her busy though. I just bought a bunch of stuff for her birthday to teach her the ABC's and 123's, and I take her to a play group 2 or 3 times a week. I don't hear "Mom, I wanna do something..." quite as often anymore.

Before this gets so long that you give up reading, I just wanted to announce one more thing. I have recently been called to be the 2nd counselor, or Enrichment counselor, in the Relief Society in our Ward! This is very intimidating for me since a)I've never been in a position of leadership before, and b)I'm going to have a newborn while I'm doing this! Eek! Luckily, I was on the enrichment committee back in Utah so at least I'm not going in completely clueless.

I hope you find this worth the wait and the time it will take to read. Next post: Fun things we've done since we arrived, complete with pictures and videos! And I promise it will be before the baby is born. Stay tuned!