3 months old!

My baby girl is 3 months old!! So hard to believe. I can hardly even remember my life before Ella. Life is just so much more fulfilling now! The only sad thing about this 3 month mark is that it also marks the point of my maternity leave being over and going back to work. I have 1 more full week with Ella and then we'll be getting used to our new schedule with me working Mondays and Tuesdays. I know I'm SO blessed to be able to work just 2 days a week so I'm not complaining. But it will be hard to be away from her for those 2 days! I have so much respect for the moms who have to work 5 days a week. I have lots of friends in that situation and I always sympathized with them but I now truely can feel how their hearts break at having to be away that much. The timing of this change in our schedule isn't great because Ella is in the process of going to a 4 hour schedule and we haven't quite gotten the hang of it. She's definitely not hungry before 4 hours between feedings, but she is still wanting to nap after the same amount of time but then wakes up before its time for her to eat again, so that messes things up a little. But overall she's still doing really well. She's been waking up a little earlier in the morning than before but I heard that is common around 3 months since that is a growth spurt time. She still sleeps about 7-8 solid hours before waking up so I'm happy with that!

We had a very good Christmas. It was really relaxing. Rusty got a wii for Christmas so we spent the majority of the day playing that. So fun! Ella did great for her first Christmas. She was a happy girl all day.

Saturday we had some friends over since we had some friends in from out of town. The boys played games while the girls talked and caught up. Here's us girls...

Mandy, Anya, me, Jenny
Here is Ella's 3 month picture!! I need to put her newborn, 1, 2 and 3 month pics up all side by side to see how much she's grown!

Rusty and I will Ella on Christmas day.

Ella on Christmas morning :)

I love this picture of Ella! She looks so cute in hats but she normally gets pretty mad after a few minutes of wearing one.

The Monday before Christmas, Rusty and I went to the Trans-siberian Orchestra concert. If you've never been to one, you are missing out!! It was amazing. The musicians get very into their music, to say the least. Here is one of the violinists.

Hope everyone has a great New Year's Eve! Not sure what our plans are yet but I'm excited to be ringing in the New Year for the first time ever with my husband and daughter. God has brought us through a lot in 2008, can't wait for 2009. Oh, and a shout out to my good friend Amber who had her baby, Kennedy, on Tuesday and got to bring her home on Christmas day!! Congrats Amber, Nathan and Keegan!

Fun week ahead...

I'm so excited for this week! My little sister Rachel is coming into town and will be staying with us for the whole week! That hasn't happened in a long time! Other than hanging with my sisters, I'll be seeing friends who I haven't seen in awhile, having my mom stay with us for 3 days and get to enjoy Rusty being home Thursday and Friday. I decided this year for Christmas I'm just making a roast in the crock pot rather than spending all day in the kitchen like I did for Thanksgiving. I'd much rather play games, watch Christmas movies and play with Ella than be cooking all day! I'm hoping to make some new traditions this year with Ella. I feel like my family doesn't have a lot of holiday traditions and I'd really like Ella to grow up having that. Does anyone have any fun family traditions that you'd like to share?

Tonight was the Christmas program and dinner at our church! Here is a pic of Rusty, Rusty's dad Mike, me and Ella :)

A Family picture of the 3 of us...

We tried for quite awhile to get some good pics with Ella in front of our tree. She is so squirmy that almost all of them came out blurry! This one is a little blurry but I still like it!

And, last but not least, Ella in her princess crown robe that my friend Michelle sent me before she was born. She finally fits into it! She looked SO cute!!

What a sweet, adorable little girl I have! I feel so blessed to have her. Every day I just love her more and more, its amazing. This year for my Christmas present to her, I'm going to give her a journal. I'm going to write in it to tell her about her life so far in the past 12 weeks. I'm going to keep recording in it, hopefully at least a few times a week to just tell her what she is doing new each week, record special memories, milestones, etc. I'd like to keep this up through out at least her first year but hopefully for longer and then I'll give it to her again for Christmas many years to come so she can read all about her life and about how much I love her!

Finally, if you are still reading this mushy post, here is a video of my sister Sarah playing with her Saturday morning. Its pretty cute!! Ella loves her Aunt Sarah!

Better late than Never!

I should definitely be doing about a million other things than blogging but I'd so much rather blog than clean! Although, I do like to clean. Weird, I know. I especially like to clean my kitchen! You can always count on that being the one room of my house that is clean, even if every other room is a disaster. Anyways...Ella has been changing so much in the past week! I feel like she looks different every day and is doing new things constantly! Her newest things right now are sucking on her hands (or sleeves, blanket, anything near by...), squealing (both when she is happy and mad!), and laughing/smiling/cooing. She's been smiling for quite awhile but now she smiles much more often and she's started the big open mouth smile. A few days ago I tried to do a little photo shoot with her in her fancy Christmas dress. I tried for about 30 minutes and could not get ONE single smile out of that girl! Of course, as soon as the dress was off (and my camera not out)...all smiles.

Daddy and Ella time on the couch!

This pic is kinda out of order, but this is when I tried the dress on her the first time to make sure it fit after I bought it.

And finally....better late than never....our master bathroom remodel is FINALLY finished!! Well, pretty much. Its been usable for quite some time (since before Ella was born), but there were lots of finishing touches that needed done. There are still a few things that need to be done (painting the trim, touching up around the ceiling, putting carpet in the closet), but its basically done. Here are the before and after pics! Sorry, the after pics somehow ended up first. I still haven't figured out how to upload my pics so they are in the right order...

Angry Angel

15 days until Christmas! How can that be! I'm so excited for Christmas this year with Ella. She's at such a fun age right now! Now that the first 9 weeks have past I think I can say that she's just now starting to be a lot of fun and not as much "work", I guess. She's such a sweet and happy baby! She had her 2 month appointment last Monday. Her stats are as follows...

*Weight 11 lb 8 oz (61st percentile)
*Height 23 inches (65th percentile)

I'm actually doubting both of those numbers. I weigh her weekly at my breastfeeding support group and 6 days prior to her 2 month appointment she weighed 10 lb 5 oz. I find it hard to believe that she gained 19 oz in 6 days and if she did, then we are cutting back on feedings! I weighed her at support group yesterday and she weighed 11 lb 9 oz. I'm sure she gained more than 1 oz since her dr appointment 8 days prior, so I think my dr's scale weighs heavy (by a lot!). I've heard that from other mom's too...that the dr.'s scale always weighs much heavier. But either way, I'm just so proud of how far we've come!! It seems like yesterday that she was the tiny baby in the 20th percentile and we were supplementing 5 feedings a day, WOW. Praise God!

Ella had 3 total vaccinations-2 shots and 1 oral. She did pretty well. The nurse was really good and did them so quickly and then immediately handed her off to me to nurse her for a minute so she would calm down quicker. She was asleep within about 60 seconds, poor girl! She was really fussy that night, I think her legs were hurting, but she slept normally that night and was like normal the next morning! Speaking of sleeping-she is basically sleeping through the night, yay!!! She sleeps 10pm-5am pretty consistantly now. Now and then she'll wake up at 3-4am but then I just feed her and she goes right back to sleep. Her final wake up time is 8am and then we start our day.

I can't believe that almost 3 months have gone by. I go back to work on Jan 5th. I'll just be working from home on Mondays and Tuesdays (10 hrs each day) and then off the rest of the week, I'm so blessed to be able to do that. It'll be hard to be away from Ella for most of the day on those days though! I'm glad Rusty's Mom will be watching her, that will make it a little easier! I'm sure I'll be calling lots at first though to see how my sweet girl is doing! I'm glad that I can get through the holidays without worrying about going to work yet. I know that once I go back to work, time will start flying by even faster! Right now it seems like my week goes by SO fast, I can't imagine how it will be starting in January.

Here are a few pics. This first one is of Ella in her cow outfit that her Aunt Melissa bought her. She looked so cute in it!!
And here is the reason for the title of this post. Yesterday at breastfeeding group they had props set up to take angel pics of the babies so people could use them for Christmas cards or whatever. I didn't get any good enough for a card, but here are a few that I took. This is one I took AFTER I fed her...

But this is one I took BEFORE I fed her, what was I thinking? HA!

Now here are a few videos. They are kinda boring but this is pretty much what Ella does all day long now! She loves to hear the sound of her own voice, its so sweet! Sorry they're kinda pixalated (is that how you spell that??), and sorry for the vomit at the end of the second one! :)

Giving Thanks

Happy Thanksgiving! Hope everyone had a great one. We have so much to be thankful for this year! The depth of God's faithfulness still amazes me. His love and faithfulness sustain me daily. Every good thing that I have to be thankful for is because of HIM! Just a few things I'm thankful for are...
*The Cross
*My wonderful husband who loves me all the time, even when I'm unlovable
*My daughter who has already taught me so much in 2 short months
*My sisters who add so much to my life
*My friends who pray for me, listen to me, and make me laugh

Ella is 9 weeks old today! I can't believe how much she has changed in the past few weeks. She went from being a somewhat high maintenance, fussy baby to just a bubbly, smiley, happy baby! The transformation really has been amazing! I'm not sure what brought on the change-if its just her getting older or what. One thing that it coincided with was when we started using a swaddle blanket! Almost immediately, Ella started sleeping so much better for her daytime naps. Before the swaddle blanket, she would wake up after about 20 minutes of her nap and wouldn't go back to sleep, and it would take her at least 15-20 minutes to fall asleep. Now, she's asleep within 5 minutes (usually), we don't have to rock her to sleep, and she'll stay asleep for at least an hour at a time. At night, she's sleeping for 2 good 5 hour stretches. She eats at 7:30pm, goes to bed at 9, then I give her another nursing while she's still asleep at around 10:30. After that, she's out until usually 4 or 5am, I feed her again, change her diaper and then she's back asleep until about 8:30am. Not bad! Big shout out and thank you to Audrey for suggesting swaddling again! We had sworn it off after about 2 weeks because she seemed to hate to be swaddled! But now she loves it! Here are a few pics from the past few weeks...

This one was taken last night before we headed to the mall
Making a silly face

Her 2 month picture-she's grown so much!

With my sister Rachel!

Our girl is growin!

Whew, sorry its been a few weeks! Ella and I are trying hard to get on a schedule and it just takes a lot of time. Thank you so much to everyone who has given me advice, it has really helped a lot! It seems like as soon as I think we are getting on a good schedule, something changes. Its really frusturating right now but I know eventually it will get better. I really can't complain. On Tuesdays, I go to a breast feeding support group. There are about 40 women every week and everyone pretty much just sits around and talks about everything baby. Sleeping/scheduling is a big topic. After listening to the other women talk, I think I have it pretty good with Ella! Most of the babies there are wanting to eat every 2-3 hours at night still (and they are the same age as Ella). Ella at least will go about 5-6 hours between feedings at night and is pretty consistent with 3 hour apart feedings during the day. This week she has seemed to want to eat a little more frequently during the day so maybe she is going through a growth spurt. She sleeps really well at night (knock on wood). Usually after her last feeding, she goes down right away, or within 15 minutes or so and then is out for about 5 hours. She wakes up, I feed her and then she'll normally go right back down for another 2-3 hours or so. I really hope this trend continues! A few nights ago, Rusty took the overnight feeding so that I could sleep. I was really excited about it, but by the time I got up and pumped and then tried to get back asleep, I was awake about the same amount of time as I usually am with Ella! Oh well! Rusty has been so great with helping out. He's pretty much on baby duty from the time he gets home until her last feeding. Ella is just getting to be so much more fun every day. She smiles at us a lot (she's most happy right after she eats), and makes lots of cute cooing sounds and has even started laughing a little.

So, what did I write about before Ella came along? Funny how I can't remember :)
I'm starting to get pretty excited about the holiday season. I've already started my Christmas Shopping. Rusty and I are going to see the Tran-Siberian Orchestra on 12/22, I can't wait! I tried all last year to win tickets on the radio but never got through. This year, his mom and dad bought us tickets, yay! I'd also love to see Jim Brickman, A Christmas Carol at the IRT, and The Polar Express at IMAX but I doubt we'll be able to fit that all in and that's a lot of babysitters to have to get. Oh well, maybe next year :)

Here are a few pics from the past few weeks, including a few more from the photo shoot with Amber. Those are a few weeks old but I like them!

Ella gazing at her Daddy :)
Right after bath time

Pictures!

Yesterday my friend Amber came over and did a photo shoot of Ella! I stole these pics from her blog! She took lots of good ones and I think they turned out really well! Thanks Amber for taking time out of your day to come take pictures for us!! She took over 100 but here are just a few...

Here are a few pics I took this week, not as exciting as Amber's but still cute, I think!!

Here's Ella's Halloween Costume, she was a cute little pea in a pod :)

Other than taking lots of pics, we've been trying to start Ella on somewhat of a schedule. We're using Babywise as a starting point but we're not being super strict with it. We're just trying to find a good balance between following Babywise (which is a very strict schedule) and making sure I can bond with Ella. She's doing pretty well. Putting her down for a nap is the hardest part right now. If I try to rock her to sleep or hold her until she's asleep, she just wakes up within 5 minutes of putting her in her crib. But if I let her cry herself to sleep, she will sleep much longer. But I hate letting her cry herself to sleep! Is 5 weeks too early to let her do that? If her cry gets hysterical and panic sounding I'll pick her up but otherwise I just let her cry. She's usually asleep within 10 minutes or so. I'm interested to hear what you other mamma's out there did for your babies! If you have any advice, I'm all ears!

5 weeks old already!

Sorry no Ella updates in awhile! She has been changing a lot. She's definitely starting to look less like a newborn and more like a baby, if that makes any sense! She smiled at us for the first time last Sunday, at 4 weeks and 1 day old. Yay! It was so sweet. She actually smiled at Rusty first and then at me about an hour later. Since then, she's smiled at us a few more times but the smiles are still few and far between. Can't wait until they are more regular! I've been taking lots of pics to try and capture her sweet smile but no luck so far.

Things are getting a little better every day. Ella is a really good baby. She's going 3 hrs between feeding during the day and will go 5 hours at night. She's had a few fussy nights where she gets a little confused about it being night instead of day, but that's only happened a few times. She has a fussy time of day, usually from about 7-9. We had her 1 month dr. appointment this week. She weighs 8lbs 4oz, which is in the 29th %. We're still having some trouble with nursing and weight gain. She's taking about an hour at each feeding plus taking a supplement of pumped milk at 4-5 feedings per day. Its wearing me out! Eating is definitely our biggest challenge so far. Here is
Ella's 1 month picture:

Last Sunday Rusty and I took Ella to the orchard to take some pics. Unfortunately, it was super windy, kinda cold, and the orchard was really small and didn't have many good picture opts. But we did take a few...

Last Sunday was also Ella's first time to church! It was a lot of work to get her ready in time and coordinate her eating schedule. She did really well during the service until the last 20 minutes. She started getting really grunty so I took her out to the foyer. But it was fun to show her off and it was so nice to be back at church! We didn't get a family pic like I wanted but here is one of her getting strapped in her carseat. Notice how HUGE her tights are! None of her clothes fit her yet!

I can't believe Ella will be 5 weeks old on Saturday. The past 5 weeks have flown by. I feel like we have new triumphs and new challenges every day, but each day seems to be getting a little easier and more rewarding. I can't wait until Ella can start interacting with us more and more! I'm also really looking forward to the holidays with her!

Happy Birthday Rachel!

This blog post is devoted to my amazing and awesome sister Rachel who is 21 today!!
Rachel, I wish I could be there to celebrate this day with you! I've been thinking about you all day and keep thinking of all the fun times we've had together. I'm so lucky to say that my sister is also one of my best friends! Here are some things I love about you Rachel:
*I love your devotion to God and your genuine desire to please Him in everything, even when its really hard and it would be so much easier to go the other way
*Your family and friends are the most important thing to you
* You are so sacrificial of everything-your time, money, gifts
*You tell me things just because you want to share them with me, before I even have a chance to ask you.
*I especially love the simple times when I'm just in the kitchen cooking and you pull up a chair to just keep me company.
*You share my love of Fall, Christmas-time, Gilmore Girls, and Jane Austen.
*All the silly things we've done together and laughed about-like the graham cracker crust at Walmart :)
There are so many other things I could say! I just wanted to tell you a FEW of the things that I love about you and that make you such a great sister to me. I hope this year is an awesome one for you. I know we don't talk quite as much right now with both of us having crazy lives right now, but there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of you and pray for you! Most of these prayers are taking place at about 3am right now but they still count! :)
Hope you have a wonderful birthday, I love you!!

Ella is 2 weeks old tomorrow (Saturday)!! It seems like she has been here longer than 2 weeks. I have to remind myself of that several times a day when I am getting discouraged that her schedule is still different every day or when she is fussy for a lot of the day. She is just 2 weeks old and trying to figure out what she needs to be doing! No 2 days (or nights!) have been alike so far. We had one awesome night-Monday night. It seemed Ella had figured out her days and nights and was settling into a routine. She slept in her crib for the first time Monday night-a huge unplanned surprise. I had been thinking a lot about when to transfer her into her crib and figured it would be at least a month away. But Monday night, I had already gone upstairs for the night and was putting her in the bassinett when Rusty said he was gonna be noisy doing bathroom work (uhm no, bathroom, still not done-but its usable!). So, my only choice was to put her in her crib! I was gonna bring her right back in our room but she was doing so well after a few hours, I decided just to leave her in there! She slept from 8-12, woke up to eat, then slept from about 12:45-5, then slept from 5:45-8:30. It was so awesome! That next day I felt so so good. Its amazing what a good night of sleep can do for you! The rest of the week didn't go quite as well. Ella's little personality has started to come out more and turns out she is pretty strong willed and fiesty! Not sure where she gets that...Rusty and I are both pretty laid back! She definitely has a temper and can go from 0 to 60 in about 2 seconds. So that has been challenging this week. We also went back to the dr. on Thursday and found out she has gained NO weight since last week, and is still down 5 oz from her birth weight! That was pretty disappointing since I really thought she had been doing well with eating! We have another weight check on Monday and she needs to gain at least 2 oz by then or else we may have to start supplementing with formula, which will be a big hassle and I really don't want to do that! I'm pretty sure my milk supply is good, I just wonder if I'm not feeding her long enough? She has turned into a pretty slow eater. She would probably go an hour or more if I let her! I usually cut her off when it seems like she is done but just hasn't pulled away yet, maybe I should stop doing that?

But, despite the frusturations this week, we have had some small triumphs...sleeping her in crib, I took a shower with no one else home (something I was pretty scared to do), and we made it without too much drama to the dr. on our first car ride with just the 2 of us. So...not really a LOT of triumphs, but I'll take what I can get right now!!

Now here are some pictures of sweet Ella:

In the middle of a goofy smile (she hasnt' smiled at us yet while she's awake, but smiles a lot in her sleep)
Me and Ella, she's in the middle of a small melt down in this picture. How can she not be in a good mood when I'm wearing my Office t-shirt??
Getting prepped for her first photo shoot (taken earlier today).
Not QUITE ready for her glamour shot...
Aww...there it is! :)
And...1 video. Its kinda boring, but this is just her waking up from one of her many naps! I like it because at the very end you can see her dimple! Its on her left side. Love it but hardly ever see it unless she's making the right expression!