Vacation!!

Well, we survived our first vacation as a family of 3! It was great! Definitely much different than the vacations we used to take, but still great :) We went to Holland, MI for 3 days and 2 nights. We just wanted something relatively close by (about a 5 hour drive) and for a short time to see how Ella would do. She did great in the car. She got fussy a few times but then, so did I! :) We ended up getting to our hotel around 3:30 Thursday and went straight to the beach (about a 2 minute drive). Here's Ella, in her swimsuit cover up (modesty first!) all ready to go...(notice the lovely decor of our hotel/condo room)

And...here we are at the beach! Ella LOVED it. She really liked the sand. We ran into some problems though because she's at the stage where everything goes straight in the mouth, so who knows how much sand she ate. Also after about an hour she started getting sleepy and rubbing her eyes...not good. We didn't stay for too long that day.

Friday moring we woke up bright and early (thanks, Ella) and headed out to the boat dock for our condo just to take some pictures. There was also a cute little park and Ella went on the swing for a long time.

After Ella's nap (which didn't go well), we left to do some sight seeing. Since my Mom's from Holland, I had a list of dutch foods I wanted to bring back for us and her. We went to this place called Windmill Island. We didn't see any other tourists...we were literally the only ones there! Not really sure why! Slow day I guess?? I also realized the next day that I'd left my wallet there. Thank goodness someone had found it and turned it in! I guess I should be thankful there were no other tourists there that day...someone could've taken it!

Then on our last day there, we went to the beach again for a few hours and then headed to do more sight seeing. Here's Ella right before we had to leave the beach!

At the place we went sightseeing the 2nd day, we were about to leave and I see this guy walking really fast towards me. Then I notice he's holding my camera! I'd left it sitting on a counter in one of the stores. Sheesh! I felt like I was losing my mind! Thankfully, I think we did make it home without leaving anything important behind!

So, overall a good trip but we learned lots of things about what to do on our next trip. First of all, we need a hotel/condo with 2 seperate rooms, or at least a much bigger room if its just 1 room. We just brought Ella's pack n' play for her to sleep in. Our room was so small that we had to put it about 4 feet from our bed. Her bed time is about 7:30 so it made it pretty hard for us to watch TV or read, play cards, anything really! I'm not sure what was up with our room but there was this huge crack between the door and the frame so it let a lot of humidity in so our room just felt damp. yuck. Ella had a really hard time going down for her naps and going to sleep at night. It was just too light and too noisy for her. Today she napped about 6 hours total...she was so tired, poor girl! Also on our trip, she turned 9 months old and her front top left tooth popped through! But even through all of that, she was SUCH a happy girl. I lost count of how many people commented on what a happy and content baby she was. She is such a blessing! Even though this vacation wasn't as relaxing and carefree as our vacations were before Ella came along, I wouldn't want it any other way!

First Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all you Dads out there!! And most of all, Happy Father's Day to my wonderful husband. Rusty, you are such an amazing Dad. I love to see the look on your face when you get home from work and see Ella. Your face just lights up and so does hers. Even though right now she's a bit of a mamma's girl, I can tell how much she loves and adores you. Watching you become a Dad has been one of the greatest things I've ever experienced. We were both so clueless when we got home from the hospital (despite all the books I read!), and I just couldn't believe what a natural you were. You just seemed to fit perfectly into the role of being a dad, so effortlessly. You were there for every night time feeding, waking up with me sometimes just to sit with me while I nursed so that I didn't have to be up alone. You'd get me glass after glass of water and just do anything you could think of to make it easier on me. We've come a long way from those sleepless nights (praise God!) and you are still there for me, every step of the way. You're so willing to get up early with Ella on Saturday mornings so I can sleep in; to let me go out and have "me" time; to change diapers (even the dirty ones!). I'm so blessed to have you as the father of my child. SHE is blessed to have you as her father. Thank you for providing for us and for loving us selflessly. Happy Father's Day.

Picnic!

Well, Ella went to her first picnic this past weekend and she loved it! She loves to be outside and it was such a gorgeous day for it. It was our church picnic and it was lots of fun. Rusty got to play lots of football (although he's been pretty sore since) and I got to hang out with the moms and babies. Ella was totally hamming it up towards the end of the night. I sat her in the grass and there were about 10 people behind her, all making funny faces and noises at her. She was definitely a crowd pleaser. I got about 50 pics in about 5 minutes probably! We tried to get some family pics but it was really windy and this was at the very end of the night so Ella was very ready for bed! Here's a few though!

This picture is so funny! She has started making this crinkle nose when she smiles now :)

Such a happy baby!

Ella and her friend Zoey. Zoey was NOT a fan of the grass so we didn't get many pics of these girls together!

Unlike some kids, Ella really likes being in the grass! A lot of my friend's kids about her age really hate their legs touching the grass but she doesn't seem to mind. Maybe she'll be an outdoorsy type of girl. Not sure how I feel about that.

She was a little uncertain about the swing at first and was hanging on pretty tight with both hands. By the end, she got courage to let go with one hand and seemed pretty happy!

This picture was supposed to go first. This is when I first sat her in the swing.

Ella has just been cracking us up lately. I can't remember when I've laughed so much!! I guess this is making up for all the CRYING I did the first few months, ha!! She's "talking" so much, its hard to know when she's actually trying to say a word and when it's just babbling. When do you count something as her "first word"? She's repeated lots of things after we say them...mama, dada, bye bye, duck, baa, quack, and several more.

The funniest thing she's done recently was last week. She's started moving (dancing?) lately, just wiggling her torso. Rusty's afraid she got his sense of rythm. :) Anyways,whenever she does it, I'll do it back to her and say "wiggle wiggle wiggle". So we were visiting my Mom and were at Kroger and Ella was sitting in the front of the cart. She started her dance move and started saying "wiggle wiggle wiggle", just over and over. We were cracking up! And of course now she won't do it anymore.

I took a ton of pictures on Sunday of just Ella and Rusty, I can't wait to upload them and post them! Speaking of Rusty, I have to give him huge props. Last night I broke our coffee maker. Our brand new coffee maker. Oops. So this morning I roll out of bed, half awake, and I remember that I broke it and say I'm super tempted to go to McDonalds and get an iced coffee (they are SO good...as good as Starbucks I think and less than half the price!). So we start our day and Rusty leaves for work with Ella and I start working. About 15 minutes after Rusty left, I hear the garage door come back up. I go downstairs, assuming Rusty forgot his laptop or lunch or something. But, in the door he walks with an iced coffee from McDonalds! Yeah! I knew marrying that guy was a good idea! :)