5 months already!

Happy 5 month birthday to my sweet Ella Bella! Can't believe 5 months ago today she was born. Its amazing how much my life has changed-for the better-in 5 short months! Every day I feel like I just fall more in love with this little girl. Tonight I was putting her to bed and when I finally went downstairs I realized I'd been in her room for almost an hour-not because she was fussy, but just because I love spending time with her, rocking her, singing to her and just loving on her. I can't imagine a sweeter little girl! Here are some things about 5 month old Ella:

*I wake up most mornings to her sweet voice-little coo's, squeals and babbling
*She's rolled over once (about a month ago, from belly to back) but refuses to do it again
*Her favorite activity is definitely her jumparoo...she loves that thing!
*She's just recently started warming up to her bumbo seat but she doesn't like it for long
*She's had rice cereal 3 or 4 times but I'm not going to officially start her on it until next month
*Today, for the first time, she started to "fake cough". She did it all day long! At first I thought
she was actually coughing but then I realized she was just doing it because she figured out how
to!
*Her favorite book is Old MacDonald
*Her favorite songs are Twinke Twinkle and Jesus Loves Me (she just starts smiling SO big
whenever I sing either of these songs!)
*She is a big time Daddy's girl...she gets SO excited when he gets home from work
*She is very friendly and smiles at pretty much anyone who will pay attention to her

Ok, I better stop now...I could probably keep going but I'm sure this list is getting boring! Here are some pics from this past week.

These 2 were taken today in her Purdue t-shirt!

Tonight at Chik-fil-a

Getting dressed!

This week has been so hectic for us! We were out and about all day Wednesday and Thursday. Ella was so off her routine so today we just stayed in. Its amaizing how much better she did today. I think she's gonna be a homebody like her mamma. I love going out and doing things but really I'm happiest just hanging out at home! I can definitely tell that Ella knows when she is at home. She's just more herself. Wednesday we went visiting a lady from church. She was pretty good while we were there but I could just tell she was a little off. Thursday I went to get my license renewed. Did you know you can't show your teeth when you smile for your drivers license picture? How weird. I wonder if that's just in Indiana or everywhere?

Tomorrow night I'm making a Pioneer Woman favorite...Apple Dumplings. Oh my. If you haven't tried this recipe, TRY IT!! You won't be disappointed. And, for a simple recipe, I thought I'd pass along a "recipe" I have for a 1 minute apple dumpling dessert that I found in my Kraft Food magazine awhile ago. Its not like award winning or anything but I must say its pretty tasty!

-Put 5-6 vanilla wafers in the bottom of a bowl. Scoop some applesause on top. Add some cool whip and mix together with the applesause. Microwave for 1 minute. Put more cool whip on top.

I'm telling you-its good! The vanilla wafers get really soft and yummy and the cool whip tastes really good microwaved. Cool whip is always something I have in my fridge. In case you were wondering.

My little ballerina

The tutu I ordered for Ella finally came in the mail today! I love it! We tried it on tonight for size. Oh my goodness, she looked so adorable!! Can't wait to get her pics taken in this!!

Good mail day!!

I love love love getting good mail. I guess everyone does. So I was super excited over my good mail day and thought I'd share it with you all :) FIRST, when I open the mail box, I see 2 packages. yay!

I anxiously open package number 1.....its the wipe holder I ordered on etsy! I love it! The best part is that all the proceeds go to help build Cora's Playground. If you haven't read this story, it is so heartbreaking. It really touched my heart. There are a ton of things being sold on etsy right now to benefit Cora's Playground...check it out!!

Here is the front of the wipe holder..

And this is the back side. So pretty!

Next, I open an envelope and pull out this cute card from my good friend Marisa! Thanks girl, made my day! :)

Now, time to open the next package. Woohoo! A headband for Ella. She has so much pink and brown and had no headband to match!

And...last but not least...

I promised some Ella pics in my last post, so here they are!!

On Valentines Day

Gettin ready for a bath

Ella and mommy

Thanks so much to all of you who gave suggestions for our 10 year date anniversary! We haven't decided what we'll do yet but I'll let you know! Also, I opened up my comments to annonymous comments now. A few of my friends don't have google accounts and I want you to be able to post!

Picture funk

I've been so bad about taking pictures lately, I don't know what it is! I'm getting ready to finally get Ella's pics taken professionally-its about time! I intended to do 3, 6, 9 and 12 month pictures. Hmm, that didn't really happen. Since I don't have any new pics to post, I thought I would put some old pics so you can see how much Ella has changed! Here is a picture taken a few weeks ago:

Here is a picture of Ella at about a week old. I can't believe how much she's changed!

Ella is getting so funny! She's starting to discover her voice more and more. Unfortunately, recently she's decided to practice her new sounds at about 2am! She wakes up almost every night now-not crying, just babbling away to herself. When I go in the nursery to check on her, the first thing I see is her feet straight up in the air. Its so funny! Even though its 2am, all I can do is laugh. She just has such a fun little personality. I look forward to seeing it come out more and more! This week we're heading to Crawfordsville to visit my Mom. She hasn't seen Ella in about a month so I'm looking forward to them seeing each other! My mom only lives about an hour away but somehow its hard to get the time to see her as often as we want.

For Valentine's Day, Rusty surprised me (kinda) with tickets to Cirque du Soleil! I hate surprises so I always make him tell me what he has planned. This is one thing we are very opposite in. Rusty loves suprises! We have a thing where we take turns planning our anniversary plans. When its my turn, I have such a hard time not telling him what I have planned because I just love to know things in advance whereas Rusty would much rather it be a surprise! Anyways, Cirque was awesome!! It was so different from anything I'd ever seen before. It was definitely entertaining! One weird thing that happened though was that when we were walking there, there was a girl about our age standing on the street corner handing out money! She had this huge stack of dollar bills and was just saying "free money!" and handing out dollar bills. I was so confused! I wish now I would have asked her what she was doing but I didn't. I just took my free money and kept walking!

The 10 year anniversary of our first date is coming up in about a month and we're trying to decide what to do (without spending much money!). Any suggestions? I thought of The Melting Pot (a really yummy fondue place in town). I've always wanted to go there but its pretty expensive! We also thought about recreating our first date. But driving to Lafayette and going to Applebees doesn't really sound that exciting, and I doubt we'll find a theater showing Forces of Nature :) Plus Rusty said he doesn't want to be reminded that I had to pick HIM up for our first date (in my mom's car). Yes, our first date was obviously quite romantic.

Ok, I promise by my next post I'll be out of my picture funk and have some new Ella pics for you!!

4 month stats

Ella had her 4 month dr. appointment last week. She did so well and I was so proud of her! She was giving lots of sweet smiles to the dr. and nurse. She had to get 2 shots and 1 oral. She did pretty well until the last shot and then she cried pretty hard but she calmed down really quickly and actually was giving me some smiles by the time I got her in her carseat! What a sweet baby she is. Here are her official month stats:

Weight: 14lbs 11 oz (67%)

Length: 25 inches (69%)

Head: 17 inches (91%)

I can't believe how much she's grown! It's crazy to think that she had such a hard time gaining weight for so long and how much I worried about it. I feel like lately I've just been hearing so many stories of babies and kids who are sick-like, really sick. I hate to hear about things like that. Its always made me sad to hear about sick children but now that I'm a mom, it's a sadness on a whole new level. But whenever I hear about it, it just makes me so much more thankful that I have a healthy baby. Tonight I was thinking back over the past 4 months and all we've been through. Things were pretty rough for the first 2 months or so, but, now, I'm glad I went through the tough times. Its just made me so much more thankful for the little things now! For example, tonight I nursed Ella downstairs, on the couch, so I could be in the room with Rusty. That sounds like something so little, but for the first 9 weeks of Ella's life, I could only nurse her in 1 particular chair, upstairs, and had to nurse her in a certain position (football hold-so uncomfortable, but that is the only way she'd latch on!) and I always felt so isolated and alone! She would take over an hour to nurse and even then I wasn't sure if she was getting enough. I would literally just sit there for an hour and cry, it was horrible! So tonight, as I nursed my baby, sitting cross-legged on the couch, watching Groundhog Day with Rusty, I praised God for that blessing. I know that sounds so silly, but these are the kinds of little things that I think about now and give God the glory for!

Ella is LOVING her jumparoo right now. It took her awhile to figure out what exactly she was supposed to do in it, but obviously she's figured it out :)

Kate!

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've heard of Jon & Kate plus Eight. I have to admit, I'm addicted. There seems to be a Jon & Kate marathon on every day. Even if it's an episode I've seen 5 times, somehow I don't mind watching it again! Rusty says they should just give them their own channel and get it over with! Disclaimer: I love the show but I in no way approve of how Kate treats Jon! She is so mean and disrespectful to him! That being said, I'm still hooked. So you can imagine my excitement when I heard that Kate would be coming to Indy to speak at the home show!! I read her book after getting it for Christmas and was excited to bring it with me and have Kate sign it. I even thought I might get to talk to her and have my picture taken with her! Here is Ella and I minutes before Kate arrived. Ella can hardly contain her excitement.

Kate spoke at 3. We got there around 1:30 and there were already no seats left and a huge standing crowd had already gathered. The line for a book signing had already started. By the time I got in line there were at least 100 people ahead of me. From where they had the book signing set up, you couldn't see the stage where Kate would be speaking. I asked a worker about it and he said I had to chose-either stand in line to have myh book signed or see Kate speak. And he said that he couldn't guarantee that my book would get signed because she would only be signing books for an hour and I was pretty far back. So, I decided to skip the book signing and see her speak. Here's some pics of her speaking!

Overall it was fun. I was a little disappointed because she didn't say anything I didn't already know. She pretty much talked about everything that she has either already said on the show or wrote in her book. But it was still cool to see her!

I just had to include this pic too, even though it had nothing to do with this post really. Last night we went out to dinner for Sarah's bday and there was a TV at the restaurant. The Purdue game was on and Rusty and Ella were glued to the TV...bummer the Boiler's didn't win. But I thought this was a cute picture of the 2 of them!

Happy Birthday Sarah!!

Happy birthday to my dear sister Sarah! Here is a pic of me, Sarah and Rachel taken at her college graduation in May. Sarah, this is how much I love you...I'm posting a picture that YOU look great in but I don't (I'm at that awkward early 2nd trimester stage where I just look chubby...not pregnant) :)
Sarah, thank you for being such a wonderful sister to me and a great Aunt to Ella! You are my sister but also one of my best friends and I love you! Hope this is a great birthday and year for you!