Well what do you know, I have not posted to the family blog for almost an entire year.   Yikes!  But in the meantime, we’ve managed to accomplish a lot…including adding a new member of the family, Anna Claire.  Anna is four months old now and doing everything right on schedule.  I took her for a four month check-up yesterday.  Besides the unpleasant immunization shots,  Anna was a perfect angel.  She offered plenty of coos and smiles for Dr. Niland and the nurse staff.

Anna’s stats on 1/15/09:

• 14 pounds (75th percentile)
• 26.25 inches long (97th percentile)
• 16.5 inches head circumference (75th percentile)

She’s a very healthy baby!  The doctor says she is old enough to sleep through the night without feedings…but that would require me to let her cry it out.  I’m not sure if I’m there yet.  For now, I think I’ll focus on introducing cereal and getting her to roll over -it should happen any day now.

Human Polydactyly, originally uploaded by Thomas Roche.

Weird.

Holiday 2008, originally uploaded by Brian, Charlotte, & Ella Sturtz.

An iconic pug look…You got somethin’ for little ol’ me?

DSC_0834, originally uploaded by Brian, Charlotte, & Ella Sturtz.

Such a big girl.

IMG_9316, originally uploaded by Brian, Charlotte, & Ella Sturtz.

Last year – Ella and Daddy – she’s grown a lot since then! (see above)…

Daisy, originally uploaded by moggman_42.

My cousin-in-law Brett (married to Katie Durigg) is becoming quite the portrait photographer. This is a particularly excellent picture of their dachsund Daisy I admire.

Ella plays with Daisy

Ella and Chaley hanging out

We’re rounding the bend towards Labor Day and it’s amazing to see how quickly the Summer passed by.  We had a lot of fun over the past few months and we are continually surprised by the new things Ella does each day.  Last night we took a walk at a local recreation area.  Ella was so excited to get to the playground that she practically begged us to turn around and take the shortcut towards the swings and slides. It was only a brief time ago that we could even get her into a swing–let alone create any movement by pushing her.  Yet, last night I had to literally pry her off the swing so we could finish our walk.  As Brian and I took turns propelling her forward, Ella exclaimed “I’m happy Mommy!”

Ella is almost 2 years old and we are working on potty training.  Last night we went to the store to buy some “princess” underwear and we also have “princess” pull ups.  I hate to admit that Disney got to us but it seems to be a motivating factor for potty training so I can’t complain too much.  Ella seem so to vacillate between wanting to potty (she will loudly exclaim, “it’s my potty training!”), but then she also refuses  to go to the potty at other times.

The most amazing element of Ella’s development has definitely been her language acquisition.  As is the case with most little girls, her verbal skills are excellent.  Some of Ella’s fun statements:

• “Couch down” aka I want to lay on the couch
• “This is my Mommy” or “This is my Daddy”
• “Want some?”
• “This is really nice”
• “Shoes on”
• “Perry, no”
• “Inside, Perry”
• “Mommy, I’m stinky” or “Whew, I stink!”
• “Baby Ben” (the little boy that Mom is watching now)
• “Baby Moses” (a play doll that goes into a wicker basket)
• “Ella’s bike”
• “Charlotte and Bean” (she hears other people call us by our names)
• “Hi, Grama/Papa Sturtz or Wade” (she pretends to call them on her play phone)
• “Potty, Mommy”
• “Sheesh”
• “Daddy’s Funny”
• “Perry treat”
• “I’m messy” or “It’s a mess”
• “It’s hot” or “It’s cold”
• “I’m cleaning”
• “I help Mommy/Daddy”

Maybe it’s because I just completed my performance review at work.  Maybe I’m especially reflective as I fully embrace my 30′s.  Maybe I’m just bored. Anyhow, over the weekend I took the StrengthsFinder personality test.

Who needs another personality quiz, right?  Well this one is pretty cool.  This is the 2nd version of this particular personality quiz/analyzer from the Gallup organization.  I really like this one because it is focused on all the things you do really well and it offers specific ways to nurture your strengths in your life rather then telling you to change to fit another person’s idea of who you should be.

You have to buy the book to do the test.  It is $20 at Barnes and Noble, $12 at Amazon. Or you could get the book at your library.  Anyhow, Brian and I both did the test over the weekend. Maybe it just hit me at the right time but I just found it really powerful in helping me more explicitly define what opportunities I will ask for at work.

Here is my assessment (pdf download)

1) Healing After Tragedy: Chapman Copes With Loss of Daughter

2) Our tragedy and God’s love for orphans

The service automatically integrates with other photo sharing site like Flickr.  So I just logged into my Flickr account and grabbed a few random photos, picked out some music, decided which images I wanted to feature and Voila!

Here is my test.