For Aunt Sarah

Ella has some excellent advice as to what to do if you are getting your wisdom teeth taken out.

A Sunday Afternoon

Just a few pictures of Ella and Carter in their big sister/little brother matching shirts. Ella's has an "E"-it's kind of hard to tell. I love these. Carter will grow out of his soon! I tried so hard to get some good pics of them together in these shirts but one of them (usually Ella) was not at all cooperative with this any time I tired, so I just had to take what I could get! Carter was crying off and on during this, that is why Ella is plugging her ears :)

Oh Ella. Playing on her "computer" :)

I told my sister Sarah I would post this video of our Sunday afternoon...so here it is :)

Back to Blogging

Yes, the rumors are true. I'm back to blogging! Try and contain your excitement :) If anyone is still reading my little blog, great! If not, that's ok! The other day I was going back over my blog from the time Ella was born through now. I LOVED reading it! Yes, I have all the same pictures saved on my computer. But I don't have the story behind the picture. I have some things written down in my journal, but it's so much easier to read in short tid-bits (with pictures!) on my blog. I want to be able to look back and read the same things about Carter. It's also great to back to for reference.

Carter is 11 weeks old. Hard to believe this little guy has only been in our lives for 11 short weeks-feels so much longer! Cannot imagine life without him-he just makes our family feel complete. For now at least! He started smiling a few weeks ago and I just LOVE it. This is the first actual smile I got on camera.

This face of his cracks.me.up. He makes this face when he's really trying to focus on my face.

My sweet boy!

Right now Carter is on a pretty good schedule. He LOVES to eat, unlike his big sister! He pretty much eats every 3 hours and naps about 1 out of every 3 hours. He's still waking up twice at night to eat. Every one in awhile he'll just wake up once. I'm trying to decide if he's actually hungry when he wakes up or not so I'll probably start using a paci to see if he'll go back to sleep with that. Ella never took to the paci which was nice later on when we didn't have to break her of that. So we'll see how that goes! So right now he goes down at 7:30, up to eat around 1 and again around 5, then back down until about 7am. Sleep training is much harder with the second in my opinion! With Ella we were able to give her a few minutes of fussing to see if she would go back to sleep on her own. Since Carter's room is right next to Ella's, I really don't let him fuss for too long because I don't want him to wake her up! Ella was pretty much sleeping through the night at this point-Carter, not so much. Oh well...he'll get it eventually! I can also say I've been MUCH more relaxed the second time around. I drove myself crazy trying to get Ella on a schedule from day 1. It did pay off in the end I guess but not sure it was worth it! This time, I didn't even attempt a schedule until I had to go back to work and it was much more enjoyable :)

As far as Ella goes, she is doing GREAT as a big sister! She just loves Carter to pieces. Sometimes she loves him a little too much (like...oh I'm going to just squeeze you because I love you SO much!), but overall she's doing great. Although, I never realized how LOUD she is until Carter came home! That girl is either not talking at all (which rarely happens), or she's loud. She also thinks every toy of Carter is actually hers. One of her most spoken lines is "yeah, this toy is Carter's. It's mines though."

This past Saturday Rusty and I took her to see her very first movie in the theater: Winnie the Pooh!

She did great. I think this was the perfect first movie for her. It was only an hour long and was such a kid movie that I wasn't worried about her talking during the movie. She actually didn't talk except at one part she got a little scared and asked me to turn the channel :) I think she loved having popcorn and orange fanta (her first soft drink!) just as much as going to a movie. We also left Carter with my mom so that just Rusty and I could take her. Such a fun memory.

Lastly, here's a little clip Rusty took of Carter. Nothing too exciting but he just doesn't do a whole lot yet! We love just watching his little face, hearing his sweet noises and seeing his crooked smile.

At long last

My poor little blog. So neglected. So unloved.

I've been meaning to update but then keep thinking-everyone who reads my blog is probably my friend on Facebook anyways! So, I may or may not keep up with my blog.

BUT, I at least wanted to blog about our newest addition, Carter William!! He is the sweetest most beautiful and wonderful baby! We are so in love with him!! Ella just adores her little brother. She asks to hold and kiss him all day long. Her most said phrase each day is "he is SO CUTE!".


This picture makes me laugh...this is Ella wearing her ladybug Halloween costume from last year. Backwards.

Carter was born on May 19th. He was technically considered a preemie since he was only 36 weeks 2 days. Quite the surprise to us!! I had a routine dr.'s appointment on May 18th and was surprised to find out I was 3-4 cm dilated already. In hindsight, I probably should have just tried to take it easy from the point. But I didn't. I went to Hobby Lobby to get the rest of my nursery decorations. Then I went out to lunch with Ella and my mom, went home and got Ella to bed and then started having lots of nausea. I took a little nap and woke up feeling worse, plus having mild contractions. Finally around 3pm I called my dr. She said to come in and get checked again. Rusty rushed home from work and I got in to the dr. around 4pm. She checked me and I had dilated to 6 cm! Total deja vu since that is what happened with Ella as well (just not quite as quickly!). The NP told me to go to the hospital to get monitored. Rusty and I got to the hospital around 6pm and by 8pm they decided to admit me! I wasn't contracting a ton but they figured if I was already 6 cm, I wouldn't go much longer anyways and they didn't really want to send me home being that dilated.

I got my epidural pretty quickly (yay!), the dr. broke my water (thankfully my dr. was on call that night!) and by about 3:45am I was ready to push. My whole labor really went very well. I had gotten an anti-nausea medicine that really knocked me out so I was able to sleep quite a bit before it was time to push. Carter came at 4:31am! This labor was definitely different than Ella's. It was hard work for sure, but a little easier than the first time around. We were So thankful that Carter was healthy! I was really beating myself up that he was being born so early-just feeling like maybe I could have done something to have stayed pregnant longer. It did take awhile to get him warmed up and regulate his temperature but other than that, there were no real problems. He stayed 1 night in the NICU because of his high jaundice level but Ella had the same problem and she was only born a week early.

We went home on a Sunday morning! It was so relaxed and a great homecoming. Rusty was able to take a full week off so we really had a chance to bond as a family of 4. Carter just fits right in! He's such a content little guy. He definitely will let me know when he's hungry or needs a diaper change but other than that, he's content just being held or sitting in his swing.

He is a big fan of bath time. Maybe that isn't evident with this picture! It was the only G rated bath pic I had :) Ella was really excited to help me give him a bath the first time but since then seems fine to let me take care of that job. We did have a slight heart attack moment when she was "helping" me give him a bath-she tried to clean him with a steel wool brush. Luckily I caught her in time!

Ella has been doing great with Carter. I really haven't seen any jealousy towards him at all which is SUCH an answer to prayer. She does get a little impatient with me if she wants me to help her with something while I'm nursing him and she has to wait. But other than that, she seems to have really adjusted to having him around!

I am enjoying this newborn phase so much more this time around. He is so cuddly and loves to just nurse and be held. I am looking forward to him getting a little bigger so I can start

going out more with him and Ella together. Right now I feel a little confined to the house, but I know that will get better!

Potty Training update

Hello! Didn't want to leave anyone hanging. We just finished day #11 of "potty training". Ella is doing awesome!! Seriously cannot believe how well it's going. After 3 days, she was accident free for the most part. Our only problem times were in the car (she had an accident in her pull up on the way to Aunt Rachel's just because she told me she had to go but there was no where for me to stop and let her go), and she also would go #2 in her diaper during naptime. But, on Day #8, she finally did go #2 in the potty! I knew all day that she had to go, she kept telling me her tummy hurt. Around 7:30pm, she still hadn't gone so I finally just made her sit on the potty and told her I would come back in a few minutes. She started crying after about 30 seconds saying "Mommy, I can't do it!" But, then she did! Since then, she doesn't seem to be scared anymore and has been fine. She has had a few accidents in the car (wearing a pull up) but they are getting fewer. She also has no problem going in public-I just bring her handy little seat cover everywhere we go! She seems to be holding it for longer and going less times during the day. We're still a long way from wearing panties during her nap or at night, but I'm so happy with how well she's doing. I'm loving not changing or buying diapers!!

Potty Training Day, apparently

Potty training has been on my mind since Ella turned 2. We tried potty training a few weeks after she turned 2 (I wanted to try out the 3 day method), but after about 4 hours I decided she just wasn't quite ready. She would scream every time she had to sit on the potty. So I gave up and decided to hold off. She's now 2 and 5 months. She's told us she has to go off and on for the past month or so but usually asks to put her diaper back on after an hour or less. My goal was to have her potty trained by the time the baby comes in June.

This morning she asked to go potty first thing after she woke up. I was surprised when she actually went. I put panties on her and was shocked when she told me she had to go again about 20 minutes later! And she went! She's now been up for about 7 hours and only had once accident while I was in the shower. She was so disappointed! And to make it worse, somehow she peed on her blanket which made her even more upset! So-blanket is now in the dryer, hopefully dry by her nap time! I thought this pic was really funny. She insisted on putting on her hat and gloves (I think she thought I would have to take her outside if she was wearing those!), and kept them on for awhile. Silly girl.

A little of this and a little of that

Hello! I've been meaning to update for awhile now-for anyone who's been wondering what we've been up to!

Rusty and I had a fun Valentines Day in Cincy! We went to a Jim Brickman concert and to dinner. I don't know why we even bother going to nice/fancy places to eat anymore. Every time we go, we end up wishing we had gone somewhere more "regular" (and cheaper). We were sitting by a window that overlooked The Ram and we kept wishing we had gone there! Regardless, it was nice to have time together! Here's a pic of the place we went.

Here's the Valentines wreath I made! When I say "I", I actualy mean Rusty and Rachel cut out the felt for me (a much bigger task than I thought it would be) and I rolled them up and glued them on the wreath. It was fun to be crafty, wish I had more time for it.

The rest of this post is random, but just stuff that's been going on the past few weeks! Ella's been very into making faces lately-here is her "scary face".

I am wishing I could freeze time right now! Ella is so fun right now. Some funny stories about her lately...

I gave Ella a bunch of my old jewlery to play with and then gave her a bag to put it in, except she refused to put any of it in the bag. She told me that she had "bones" in her bag. At first I thought she said "bows" but then she said "No Mommy, BONES!" I asked whose bones they were and she said "Rachel's!" So I looked in the bag and a bunch of bobby pins were in the bag. I held one up and said "Is this a bone?" "YES!" haha-I guess bobby pins are called bones!

Yesterday morning she was playing in her kitchen "cooking", when a loud airplane flew over our house. She says "Airplane-BE QUIET! I'm cooking in here!" :)

I have shielded her from Dora for as long as possible (for my own sanity), but she has finally gotten pretty into it (combination of the Dora exhibit at the Childrens Museum and watching Dora at grandams). So I finally got her a Dora doll and now everything that we do with Ella, we have to do with Dora. If Ella gets a kiss, Dora gets a kiss. Dora rides in the car with us and looks out the window, etc.

She is starting to understand more and more that a baby is coming and she's gonna be a big sister! She'll randomly come kiss my belly or want to talk to baby brother. Sometimes she'll just shout out "I'm gonna be a big sister!" It's very sweet although I know she has no idea of what's to come!

Ella LOVES to sing. Her favorites are ABC's, Twinkle Twinkle, My Girl, Jesus Loves Me. We also have a fun kids CD that we listen to in the car and she always asks to listen to her "new song" which is a silly song about mangos and bananas.

We've been working a lot on letters and numbers. She can count consistenly to 15 and sometimes will get to 20 but not usually. She can identify about half of her letters but those are pretty iffy; for numbers she can identify numbers 0-10. Her princess Leap Frog laptop ($1 garage sale find!) helped a lot with her letters.

Potty training really needs to happen soon! I don't want 2 kids in diapers. I've been trying to follow Ella's lead a little bit-I don't want to make this a stressful experience for her, but at the same time, I don't want to wait forever! She seems to lose interest after about an hour and will ask me to put her diaper back on, then throws a fit if I won't do it. Then she refuses to sit on the potty. Not really sure what to do at this point!

As far as my pregnancy goes-I am 24 weeks right now but feel like I am about as big as I was at 35 weeks with Ella! I said that to Rusty tonight and he didn't say anything so I have to assume he agrees with me! The pregnancy is going well though. I've been having some braxton hicks contractions here and there but my dr. said it was nothing to worry about. We have absolutely nothing done to prepare for this baby and I've been freaking out lately for some reason that he will come early!

Tonight Rusty and I went out for my birthday dinner. I realized I have pretty much no pictures of me from this pregnancy so we took a few before we left...

This is the beginning of a series of pictures where we tried to get a good family pic of all 3 of us smiling and looking at the camera. Not easy with a 2 year old!

Sorry for the randomness of this post!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SARAH!!!

I love you and miss you so much!! Thank you for being such a wonderful sister and friend!

Some favorite pics :)

Recipe

I often get in a cooking rut, so I love when people post recipes they like. So...here's a recipe I made last week that was a hit with everyone in my house! Ella took a bite and said "Daddy try it. It's delicious!" That is high praise-she is hard to please!!

This is a variation of "hobo packets" with hamburger and potato. I just used sausage instead and it worked great!

1 potato per person
1 package sausage (I used the Eckridge skinless smoked sausage-fully cooked)
raw carrots
salt & pepper

Chop potatoes and carrots into chunks (I peeled the skin off Rusty's and Ella's potato first but left mine on). Cut sausage into slices.

Rip off one large sheet of foil. Place a few dabs of butter in bottom, top with potatoes, then salt and pepper. Put carrots on potatoes, then place sausage on top of carrots. Make 1 packet per person.

Wrap packet up tight, but try to leave a little room for air. Place packets on large baking sheet (mine leaked a little). Place in 375 degree oven for about 50-60 minutes.

I actually did mine in a 375 oven for about 40 minutes and then cranked it up to 400 degrees and cooked another 15 minutes or so and it was perfect. I also didn't have carrots so I just cooked veggies seperate in the microwave.

This is really yummy and clean up is easy! The sausage makes the potatoes really yummy and flavorful. I was pretty liberal with the butter too so that probably didn't hurt either :)

Its a....

...BOY!! Probably everyone who reads this blog already knows that, but thought I'd post it anyways!! Here are a few pics from our ultrasound

His cute little profile!

And...the money shot. He definitely wasn't shy!


We are so so excited! Even more than being excited about having a boy, we're just happy that everything looked great and he is looks healthy!

We came home to tell Ella and she seemed to not care at all :) Rachel came home from work and had bought me a little onsie that said "Little Brother". I was holding it later and Ella said "hey, that's for my little brother!" So, I guess she understand a little!

Winner!

Last month I won something on a blog giveaway! I see blog giveaways all the time but rarely enter them. One blog I read pretty frequently is The Macs blog. They have an amazing (and sad) story and God has really used them. They are so humble. They had a giveaway in December for a $50 gift card to DaySpring-I entered and I won! So I wanted to give some recognition to The Macs blog since I won from them, and also to DaySpring! I had always thought DaySpring only did cards and stationary but they had a ton of stuff and great prices! Here is everything I got for $50:

A Calendar Set-it came with a full sized calendar, a smaller desk sized calendar and a purse dayplanner.

I got a mug for my mom for her birthday:

A child-sized apron for Ella:

A mug for Rusty for Christmas:

This Christmas serving platter that says "Jesus is the Gift":

I also got an advent calendar for next Christmas that I forgot to take a picture of.

:)

Thoughts and Ramblings

As I started thinking about 2011 and some goals I wanted to set for myself and my family, I was a little overwhelmed at how many things I came up with. Looking back over the list, they all boiled down to one thing-spending more time with God. By myself and as a family. I came across 2 blog entries recently that I thought I would share. I came across this blog over a year ago and follow up from time to time because I'm always inspired! I love how purposeful this girl is with her children.

One thing I've been recently convicted with is praying for Ella (and this new baby). I feel like I should be praying daily for Ella but there are times when I can't remember the last time I just sat down and prayed for her (I hate to admit). So when I came across this idea, I had to share it. Here's a link for an awesome idea-a prayer journal for your children. I really want to try this! I think it will help me better relate to Ella and be more patient with her. As her mother, I am called to pray for her and will be held accountable before God on how I raise her.

Another great idea this same girl had was creating a morning routine. We have a very loose morning routine, I don't like it. I feel like I'm constantly on Ella's schedule, especially lately. I feel like there has been a very definite change in Ella's behavior lately-she has become very defiante and is constantly testing boundaries. I think having a set schedule every morning would really help. Here's a link for this one. I find this a little overwhelming, but very inspiring. I'm not exactly sure how we would implement this since a lot of play dates, outings, etc. take place in the morning for us. Plus Ella wake up around 5:30 and I'm barley coherent at that time of day! But I'm sure I could do something more that what I'm doing now. I love that this incorporates bible time and chores-neither of which are things we do on a regular basis.

These are both BIG steps for me and are a big time commitment. But as I looked back on 2010, I was asking myself "what area of my life have I grown in?" I really couldn't come up with anything. I had not been in the word more, fallen more in love with Christ, or grown as a wife or mother. What did I do in 2010? I was not purposeful. So...these are just a few of the areas I would like to grow in for 2011. Being a mama is a priveledge and I want to honor God in how I am raising these children that He has blessed me with.

One thing Rusty and I have started doing as a family is family devotion time before Ella's bath time. We've only done it a few times but hope to do it every night except Wednesday and Thursday when we have Awana and Life Group. But even after just doing it the one time, Ella remembered it and was excited about doing it the next time. She knew where to get the bible (we just use her children's bible), and that she needed to go sit on the couch. We're still working on not letting her bring any toys (tonight she wanted to bring her farm animals with her), but it's a work in progress. We also have a short prayer time afterwards. She still hasn't said her first prayer by herself, but I will ask her who she wants to pray for and then I will pray. I try to get her to repeat prayers but so far she hasn't wanted to. Tonight when we asked who she wanted to pray for, she said "Aunt Lori"-one of Rusty's sisters. So, we prayed for Aunt Lori!

I'm excited to see how God will work this year in our family!

Happy New Year :)

Happy New Year! Hard to believe the holiday season is over-well not officially over for us since we haven't done Christmas with Rusty's side of the family yet-that will be next weekend. Thankfully it's not at my house so the de-Christmasing has begun! I was already clearing out the Christmas decor the day after Christmas. The only thing left is my Christmas tree which is hopefully coming down later today! It doesn't help that it's been warm here-it was almost 60 degrees yesterday! It put me in the spring cleaning mood so I was going nuts cleaning and organizing yesterday!

Our Christmas was great! Chris & Sarah came from TX and stayed Weds-Sun with us. It was hard to see them leave. Ella just LOVED them. We were worried about how she'd do since they left in August, but it was like no time had passed! When we saw them at the airport, she immediately went to Aunt "Sawah" and rode the escalators with her. She was just in her element the whole time they were here.

Christmas morning was fun. Ella loved all her presents-here she is with the easel that daddy bought her

...and her tickle monster hands. She likes to put these on and chase us around the house.

This pic is a little blurry, but this is Ella in her Christmas dress in front of the tree. She was pretty darn cute if I do say so myself!

Before the "heat wave" came in, we had a ton of snow. Remeber Ella last year in the snow?? Well this year was a different story. She loved it and didn't want to come in! She was so funny though-we had a sled for her but it had just been sitting in our garage so it had gotten a little dirty and there was a tiny little dead gnat in it. We wiped it out but she just couldn't get over the fact that there had been a dead bug in it. So the entire time we were pulling her on it, she wanted to get out because she didn't want to sit on a bug. Girly girl!

Our other big news (which probably everyone already knows) is that Ella is in her big girl bed! Her crib converts to a day bed/toddler bed thing, so it wasn't a huge transition. We started out by putting a safety rail up, but since it really wasn't supposed to go with this particular bed, it came up really high. We weren't sure she realized she could get out. We wanted to teach her to stay in bed even though she could get out herself. So yesterday we took off the rail. It makes me nervous because she could fall out, but I guess that's just something she needs to learn too. If she does fall out its a very short fall to the floor and we have it lined with a ton of pillows so it wouldn't hurt. So far so good though! She's stayed in her bed all night long and hasn't fallen out! I'm still not sure she's even thought of getting out. When she wakes up, she just calls for me and when I come to get her she's standing up in bed waiting for me. So we'll see if the realization of her freedom kicks in any time soon :)

Here's a video of her seeing her big girl bed for the first time...

I'm excited for 2011! This will be an exciting year for us, obviously with the addition to our family in June! My pregnancy is going pretty well so far. Over Christmas, I did have a little scare with some spotting. Since our miscarriage last year occured on Christmas Day, it made me more worried than I might have been otherwise. But thankfully when I went to the Dr. when they opened, they said everything was fine. I just overdid it a little over Christmas. We find out Jan 20th if Ella will have a little brother or little sister! Ella has said over and over that it is a girl, but I'm feeling more boy this time around so we'll see who's right! I admit I'm hoping a little more for a boy just to have 1 of each but of course I'll be so happy either way! Ella is starting to understand more and more about the baby. She'll kiss my tummy or sometimes if she's in not so nice of a mood she'll "crush" the baby, pressing her hands on my stomach. Hopefully that won't be something she does to the baby!!

Wishing you all a blessed New Year!