6 and 7

Well, Ella's 7 months old today! It's so cliche to say, but I can't believe how the time has flown. I was planning on doing a 6 month post, but time got away from me. At her six month check up she measured small, but the Dr. says it's fine because she's proportionate and has chub in all the right places, she's just meant to be more petite.Happy waking up from her nap

She now sits and plays on her own for quite awhile. She'll tip over and roll to her tummy and scoot backwards. She spits and talks and squeals. She loves watching her daddy and playing with him, it's so cute to see them together. She's been cutting a bottom tooth for awhile now, but it keeps going into hiding. She gives big, wet, open-mouth kisses, and I love every single one I get-a wet cheek means you're loved around here. We love every little sound she makes. She loves applesauce, and just about any other mushy food we've given her. We were at Leatherby's a couple weeks ago, and though I wasn't planning on giving her ice cream, she kept opening her mouth every time I'd take a bite and I couldn't leave her sweet little face hanging so she got her first taste of ice cream and absolutely LOVED it. If I ever tried to take a bite instead of giving her some, she'd get pretty angry and let me know how she felt. Jer couldn't stop laughing. That bite's not for you, it's for me, see?

This past Sunday at dinner at Jer's parents, we set all the babies down to take some pics, I stole this one off of my sister-in-law's blog.Kai (3 weeks older than Ella), Ella and Oliver (7 months older than Ella)
It's going to be fun watching them all grow up together!

As for us 'grown-ups', we're plugging along. Nothing new going on with us, just work and playing with the babe. We were called as primary teachers in our new ward, so that's been interesting. We teach the 8-9 year olds, they can be sweet, but also very difficult.
I bought a bunch of tulle to make tutus, so if you want one, let me know.

Some day I'll get pictures on the walls, and some day we'll have some kind of yard besides dirt and rocks, but for now we're just trying to get through the day to day; we're both pretty exhausted from work by the end of the day. We're feeling like those boring old adults we used to make fun of. I tell Jer, "we're not old and boring, we're just responsible adults".

5 months

Ella's 5 months old today, I can't believe it. She's growing so fast!
She sticks her feet in her mouth, 'shares' my food with me (so far she likes Peach & Blueberry yogurt, rice cereal, and Orange Julius). She smiles so big that she scrunches her little nose and forehead up, she giggles and squeals and wiggles all over the place. She's rolled from back to tummy and tummy to back (but hasn't in a little while). She loves all the attention she can get, though she has a hard time being completely surrounded (by all her adoring cousins). Every body loves her. She's such a beautiful baby!

In other news, Jer's just finishing up training in his new job, and will probably be getting a promotion in a few weeks. I don't understand all the details, but he'd be one of the people who the workers go to for answers/help. I'm pretty proud of him. He also started back to school at UVU in hopes of finishing his Bachelor's degree, it will be a busy next few years around here.

We also moved into our beautiful house this past weekend. I'm still in disbelief that we're in our house with a GARAGE and a BASEMENT and a yard! We're mostly unpacked (thanks to my awesomely helpful mom), but I haven't decorated yet. Give me some time, it hasn't even been a week yet! The adjustment has been pretty smooth for Ella, too. I was worried she'd have a hard time, but she's been perfectly fine!
This has been the craziest/busiest year/summer of my life, I swear! But it's been great!

Picture update

Here are a few shots from Ella's blessing. She's wearing the dress I was blessed in so it's pretty old (as far as clothes go) but she looked SO adorable in it.

Our cute little family

With both sets of grandparents

With her step-great-grandma Thorne

In home news, it's moving right along pretty fast, it's freaking me out. Mostly I'm nervous about the yard and how to get things planned out so we can get it started as soon as we move in so it won't be a muddy mess when spring rolls around. I know we need to at least get grass in, but where do I want shrubs and trees and flowers and a little food garden, not to mention a play area? I've never had to do anything like this before and I'm freaked!
I'll post pics of the house once we get them loaded into the computer, until then I can give you an idea of how it's looking. It's all framed, exterior walls are up, the roof is on, the windows are in, the ac and furnace are installed, and garage floor is poured. I'm excited to see how much they get done this coming week!

Hobby Blog

Since other people have started blogs about their hobbies, I decided to start one about mine...looking for great bakeries and trying out the goodies.
The Bakery Hopper's Blog
If anyone wants to join me, let me know!

What's been happening...

Ella's blessing was beautiful, Jer did an awesome job and made me cry, along with an old roommate who came, and possibly some other people. My younger cousin gave a hilarious testimony, which luckily I was in the mother's room for so that everyone in the congregation couldn't stare at me while they were laughing. We are so lucky to have had so much support and so many family and friends come for Ella's special day.
Jer made this video for the luncheon after the blessing, it makes me cry when I watch it and relive all the feelings of how we came to this point. You'll probably want to pause the music player at the bottom of the page to hear the music and sound of the video. Enjoy!
Some of the pictures from Ella's photoshoots are in the video, and I have to credit the great photographers: Chase Lester Photography and Erin Wood Photography, click on their names to check out their blogs and work.

Ella's 3 months old today and getting bigger and bigger, I can hardly believe how fast time has gone. She's a little wiggler, sometimes when I go in to feed her or check on her, she's turned herself 45 degrees in her crib, this morning she had turned and scooted so that her legs were sticking out of the slats in the side (we don't have a bumper because I've heard they can be hazardous). She grabs her toys on her floor gym and chatters away. Lately she's been discovering her tongue and playing with it. It's so fun to watch her learn new things. She's been sleeping pretty well for the last month too, averaging about 6 hrs at night, sometimes even 9 hrs if I'm lucky.
Working is still hard, but luckily I can work in the morning now when she does most of her sleeping, although I am pretty exhausted in the afternoon, so I don't know how much fun poor Ella has with me.

In home news, the hole has been dug and the foundation has been started, it's pretty exciting to watch it go up. We met the neighbors across the street and they seem super nice, so that makes me less nervous about moving.
So far we're having a great summer and we hope you all are having a great one too!

Busy busy busy

Wow, I haven't updated in a long time, but then I have been pretty busy enjoying our little angel.
I started back working when she was 6 weeks old, boy was that harder than I thought it would be. Because of issues with beyond my control, I ended up having to work at night (4-10), right in the window when she's most awake and interactive, along with bedtime. It was SO hard and made me so sad every night, not to mention the extra stress it caused. Luckily I've been able to work my regular shift again this week, and it has made life for all of us better, and we're all much happier too!We are lucky enough to have a couple of photographer friends who took some adorable pics of Ella, sadly I don't know where they are all on the computer, I'll have to find them later and post more. Ella is 2 months old today! I can't believe it, she's growing so fast! She smiles and coos at us, as well as bats at her floor gym toys. She even talks in her sleep just like her daddy. She's a pro at pouting, but she's had that down since birth. She's perfect in every way and we couldn't feel more blessed. I still cry sometimes when I look at her because I feel so lucky to have her in my life. We'll be blessing her June 6th (our last Sunday in our current ward :( ) Which leads me to my next bit of news, if you haven't heard yet, we're moving. We sold the condo and have had it appraised and inspected, now all we have to do is close (next week!!!). We've been trying to go through our stuff and get some of it packed up, we're hoping to get a lot done Memorial Day too. I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed though, I look around and just wonder how it's going to get done along with everything else (taking care of the baby, working, laundry, etc). We'll be moving in with Jer's parents until our house it built (which should be started as soon as we close on the condo!). Just about everything is off the walls-it's kinda creepy in here now and doesn't feel like home anymore, it's weird.
Well, I think that's about it for now, I probably won't be updating for awhile again with everything coming up.
YAY for summer!

She's here!

Ella was born Friday, March 26, 2010 at 2:31 p.m. She weighed 7 lbs. 9 oz. and was 19 1/2 inches long. She has hair, it's a little shaggy in the back even, though it's lighter than we expected-more light brown, but at times it almost looks auburnish. We can't be happier that she's finally here, although this last week has been extremely surreal.
I'm guessing people will want to hear the story, so here it is:
On Friday morning at about 3:10, I woke up with a majorly painful stomach cramp that went away after maybe 10 seconds. I'd had contractions the day before, but nothing too strong or worth watching the clock for, but about 7 minutes later I got another contraction, and then 7 min. after that I got another one and they were lasting longer. I couldn’t sleep through them, so I decided to get up and work. I figured that if these were real labor pains, and since it’s my first baby, that I wouldn’t need to worry about going to the hospital for another 7 or more hours. Boy was I wrong. In the space of working 40 minutes, my contractions quickly got closer and closer together, when they were fluctuating around 4 and 5 min. apart. I woke Jer up and told him we needed to go to the hospital. He didn’t really believe me and didn’t really want to get up, I can’t blame him though, I wasn’t really sure if we should go or not either since we didn’t know if they’d just say it was false labor and send us home, although the contractions felt pretty dang real to me.
We got to the hospital around 5:45 (my contractions were fluctuating between 2 and 4 min apart at that point) where they put me in a room for observation. I wouldn’t be admitted as a patient until it was confirmed that I was in active labor, but luckily my water sort of broke while I was laying there contracting, so they had to keep me after that. They started my I.V. and Jer and I tried to rest while we could. It was the strangest feeling knowing we'd have a baby by late afternoon, especially since we actually had plans for that weekend since we were just expecting to have her on the 30th-oh well, having our baby topped anything else we could have done.They started me on pitocin to help labor progress more steadily, and I stuck it out without the epidural until about 10:45, by that time I was dying every time the contractions would come and didn't think it was worth it to endure the pain just to be 'tough'. (I don't understand how the breathing technique you learn is supposed to help, it did nothing to calm me down when the contractions came-I guess it's just supposed to put your mind on something else?)
The Dr. came in and checked me every so often, along with the nurses. I was slowly progressing, and the Dr. said we'd probably have the baby around 4 or 5. Another time he checked me he said that I'd probably be pushing for 1 or 2 hrs, so I was extra relieved to have the epidural to try to get at least a little rest before the hard work started. At almost 2 p.m. I started feeling like something was changing, so I told the nurse, and right before she was going to check me, the Dr. came in to see my progress. To our surprise he said that I was fully dilated and ready to push. Jer and I looked at each other thinking the same thing...."already?". The Dr. left to get changed, and the nurses got things set up so I could start pushing. I was surprised they had me pushing when the Dr. wasn't there, but my nurse reassured me that he'd be back in time to 'catch her'. Jer even helped the nurse while I was pushing. The Dr. came back and helped Ella come into the world after only about 25 minutes of me pushing. I couldn't believe she was finally here, but I also was having a hard time believing she was ours, she had such a round head! She was much bigger than any of us thought she'd be (by nearly a lb.) the Dr. even asked where I had been hiding her. She also had a bigger head than my body could handle, so I had to get 3rd degree stitches (the scale goes to 4), but she's perfect and amazing and healthy, and that's all that matters (as long as I can still take care of her in my condition too). I love her so much that I cry when I think about it and how grateful I am to finally have her. She really is our little miracle baby, our little angel. Jer has been amazing, he's such a good daddy and does so much to help me out with her. He'll hate that I'm typing this, but he's so cute with her, we're so lucky to have him.She sleeps like crazy, but not so much at night, which has made it a little hard to deal with life, but we're adjusting. I know I should sleep when she sleeps, but it's hard to not just pass the time staring at her, she's such a marvel. She nurses pretty well for the most part, it's just hard to keep her awake and keep her mouth open wide enough when she does (if anyone has any suggestions they'd like to share, I'm open to new things to try; I feel like I've tried just about everything I've read).Thanks to everyone for the support and love, we've been well taken care of, and Ella is definitely adored and spoiled.


On another note, Jer's still looking for a job, so if anyone has any leads, they'd be much appreciated (he's looking for something to do with customer service/support, possibly marketing or something like that).