Happy 4 month birthday sweet Ella!

Ella turned 4 months old yesterday! I cannot believe how big she is getting and how much she is changing! My sister Sarah left for Bangladesh 2 weeks ago and I'm curious what she'll say about Ella when she sees her after not seeing her for a few weeks! I feel like she's grown a lot. She's officially out of all her 0-3 month clothes now and she's even outgrown a few 3-6 month outfits just because of how long she is! Her official 4 month check-up isn't until Feb 5th so I won't have any stats until then! But here are a few pics taken on her 4 month birthday.

Ella is doing so many new things, it seems like she learns something new every day! She's rolled over from belly to back but only once. I'm starting to wonder if I imagined it since she hasn't done it again and I didn't get it on video! She's starting to love bath time much more also. She's always liked her bath but now she splashes and kicks her feet like crazy! Just in the past few days she's started reaching for things. She also really likes her saucer and jumparoo. She usually sits in her jumparoo once a day and watches her Baby Einstein DVD while I eat breakfast! She's such a good girl!

This pic was taken on Sunday after church. This is a 3-6 month dress but you can see its already too short! This is just the first time she's worn it and it may be the last :(

Lissa, do you recognize the tights she's wearing?? They go so well with this outfit!

Seriously, what did I blog about before Ella was born? :)

Last Saturday night we celebrated my good friend Laura's birthday. Happy birthday Laura! :) I love all the sweet ladies in this picture. I realized it was the first time I'd gone out with the girls since Ella was born!

Today Ella and I are stuck at home having a snow day together! I was hoping Rusty would get to stay home from work but no such luck. We got about 12 inches of snow here! I heard on TV earlier that it's the 13th biggest snow storm we've had in Indy and the most school closings that station has ever reported! I had hoped to go out today but after peeking out my window this morning I decided against that pretty quick! So, we're just having a fun day indoors, playing, blogging and watching movies.

Last night we gave Ella rice cereal to celebrate her 4 month birthday! You can watch the video and decide if she liked it or not!

Pray for Sarah!

My sister Sarah left today for a short term missions trip to Bangladesh! She'll be gone until Jan 31st so if you think of it, please say a prayer for her! The trip was already off to an almost bumpy start since we woke up to quite a big of snow and its been snowing HARD all day. Thankfully her flight from Indy to DC left on time but they have several layovers so I'm praying that all those leave on time as well!
And, since I know you all really just read my blog for pictures of Ella, here's your fix. :)

The Incident

So this past week was a big week for us! I went back to work Monday and it went pretty well. Of course I worried about Ella Bella all day and called my MIL several tmes to check on her, but she did great and didn't seem to really be phased by the change! Tuesday went ever better for her than Monday and then I got to spend the rest of the week with her! I think this is going to work out well. The biggest problem for me is with being at home, sometimes I have a hard time staying focused but all in all, it went fine and I was suprised at how quickly I got back into the flow of work.

Wednesday I worked out for the first time in who knows how long. Rusty and I got a membership at the Y finally, I'd been wanting to for awhile. So, my friend Laura came over and we loaded Ella up and went to work out. I just grabbed a few things (diaper and wipes) for Ella as we walked out the door thinking, We'll just be there an hour, how much will she really need? So, we headed out, Ella was all bundled up and ready to go...

Well, an hour or so later, we arrived back at the house, Ella not looking quite as chipper. Notice she isn't wearing the same thing as when we left the house...

Poor girl! She had a major explosion right after we dropped her off at the childcare and, bad mommy, I hadn't brought any change of clothes! I was mildly scolded by the childcare ladies for not being more prepared. Oops! The only thing they could find was an 18 month onsie and a tattered old blanket! She was pretty tuckered out by the time we got home.

Friday my friend Jill came over with her adorable baby Levi, who her and her husband recently adopted from Ethiopia! He is SUCH a cutie and I'm sure him and Ella will be great friends! He kept trying to hold her hand. So sweet!!

Just checking each other out. Can't wait to see them grow up together!

We have so many babies in our church right now, I'm so glad! It'll be so fun to see our kids grow up together and one day when they're all in youth group together we can show them all these pics of when they played together as babies! I think that will be so cool :)

This week was also Ella's first week of sitting in her big girl high chair! The jury's still out on whether she likes it or not. Its been about 50/50 with her being happy in it. I think once she starts to play with toys more she'll like it. Right now I think she's just bored when she sits in it. She's SO close to reaching for things and playing with toys but isn't quite there yet.

Well, I guess that's it for now! We had a belated Christmas celebration with my in-law's today...I'll have to post pics of Ella with her cousins (who she met for the first time today!) in my next post!

GO COLTS!!!

Here's hoping the Colts win their big game tonight!! We're all watching, and Ella is even wearing her Colt's gear for good luck :)

Ella and Daddy watching the game
A big smile for Manning :)

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!