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!