Ellen's 7 Month Photos

I am very fortunate to have a close friend that is good at taking photos and loves to take them! Just hours before going into labor, Wendy took these pictures of Ellen and me. Thankfully we decided that she'd just give me the disk instead of editing them herself, although I'm sure she would have edited them better than me. I intended to add music to this, but days are flying by and I've yet to do it, so here is the slide show without the music...

Ellen - 7 Months Old

Thank you Wendy!

Baby Ellen's First Time Swinging

This face gets a million kisses a day!

Can they get any sweeter?

Meeting Dr. V...

... for the first time that he can remember.

One of the heroes of our family is Dr. V., the doctor that delivered Lucas. After 22 hours of tough labor, he walked in and told Jeff, "I'll get him out", in a very soothing, matter-of-fact voice. It may have been okay without him, but to us he saved the day and was the first person to ever hold our little baby boy.

When Ellen was born he peeked in on us, but we were asleep, so he called us at home a few days later to make sure that we were okay.

I was very proud to introduce my babies to him this week. Lucas told him about the Curious George episode where he goes to the doctor and Ellen smiled at him so much that he asked if he could take her home : )

Proud Big Brother and Adoring Little Sister

Buds from school...

Cane, Nicholas, Lucas, Parker and Lincoln

That darn mail...

Tonight I was holding Lucas in my arms while Jeff told us the story of the three little pigs...

Jeff: "And he huffed and puffed and blew the house down!"

Lucas: "Noooo, don't do that daddy. You will wake Ellen up!" (he must hear that a lot)

When the story was over...

Lucas: "I saw that story on the t.v.d. We have to watch it after later."

Jeff: "Really, you've seen that story before? Where did it go?"

Lucas: "The mail took it. It take Wall-e too."

Poor Lucas doesn't understand how wonderful it is that you can rent movies with the click of a button these days and have them magically arrive the next day. His 3 yr old mind just thinks that the mail takes his movies!

7 Months Old

Our angel baby is 7 months old today. I need someone to pinch me because I can hardly believe that we have a 7 month old. Closer to one year than newborn. It seems like 5 min ago that I was timing my contractions and planning for her arrival. I still feel like every day with Ellen is a gift. She is such a sweet, sweet baby that makes us feel so special when she smiles at us.

At 7 months old Ellen is getting ready to move. If we put a toy just out of her reach she will scoot, lunge, reach, grunt and wiggle until she gets her hands on it. She is figuring out that it works best when she gets up on all fours because she can lunge toward the object, although lately she's been losing ground by moving backwards.

She is showing tiny signs of separation anxiety by sometimes crying when we walk out of the room. She will still go to anyone and responds to them as if they are an old friend, which makes them happy. I hope that she keeps this personality trait.

Lucas is still her hero. Her face lights up when she sees him and she still giggles around him the most. It will be fun to see how they interact when she can keep up with him.

Ellen still really doesn't take a bottle. She will gum it and take a few sips, but nothing substantial. She is eating some oatmeal, apples and bananas, so if we leave her with her nanny then this holds her over until mommy gets home with the good stuff. She doesn't seem that crazy about solid foods, but we offer them about once a day. And for the record, we have seen no sleep improvement from starting solids.

We are completely amazed by this because it's so different from our experience with Lucas, but for Ellen's first nap we can put her in the crib, insert her pacifier, and put her bunny in her arms and she will go to sleep on her own! Wow! It's like magic. She does it more often than not for her second nap, but needs a little more snuggling with mommy when she goes down at night.

She still makes her bird noises, which are high screeches of delight. She also throws in some babbling - da, da, da, and bah, bah, bah.

In the past month she has shown signs of a temper... and it is really cute! She gets so mad when she wants something and can't have it. For example, if Lucas has a chip and won't give it to her (we won't let him) she screams! I'm talking open mouth, red face and tears. And she holds a grudge - if we give what she wants to her (not the chip example), she doesn't care. She screams and screams. It's nice to be able to say she's cute even when she screams : )

We love our little bird so much. I can't believe that we are so lucky to have been chosen as her parents. I am thankful for every moment with her.

A vist with Blane and Karis

cute little outfits

"Karis, wait for me!"

Clean Baby

Long Lost Buddies

We had dinner with Charles and family on Friday night for the first time in weeks. The boys picked up where they left off playing chase, giggling and then falling to the floor : )

Milestone Reached

One minute she was on her belly and the next minute she had pushed up into this position on her own. It's a little more independence for the bird. She's moving a little fast though... tonight in her crib she sat up and then grabbed onto the railing and pulled up a little bit so that she was peering over the edge at me. Guess it's time to lower the crib... yikes... stop growing up!

It won't be like this for long...

So the bird has lost the memo about how babies should sleep through the night. She must have received it before she was born because she was such a great sleeper at first! Actually, I know what has happened. She has learned that she wants her mommy at night and that if she cries she will get what she wants.

Last night Jeff and I treated ourselves to staying up late (11:30) and watching the season finale of Lost. It took me until midnight to get to sleep and then Ellen woke up at 12:03. I got her back to sleep, was back in bed at 12:18, and then she woke up again 20 min later. I always lose count on nights like this, but I think she woke up 2-3 more times before she woke up at 5:30. We snoozed a little until 6:00 and then she was all smiley and wanted to play... so I dumped her on Jeff and got another 1/2 hour of sleep. When I woke up I was a little grouchy and considered calling in sick to work (doesn't 5.5 hours of multiple interruptions of sleep qualify as sick?), but felt better once I got up and got moving.

I said before Ellen was born that I'd not put up with no sleep for another 3 years - our second baby was going to have to learn how to sleep at a young age. Then two things happened - I fell madly in love with her when she was born and Lucas started talking. I still lay down with Lucas every night until he falls asleep. If I get up before he's fallen asleep he says, "Mommy, don't go yet." or "Mommy, please hold me some more." or "Mommy, please stay here for 2 more minutes." What a sweet boy.

I am sure that if Ellen could talk she would say something like this when she wakes up at night, "Mommy, where are you? You were here when I went to sleep. Please come back and hold me. I love you so much and just want to be close to you." This is what I tell myself, at least. Another thing I tell myself is that it won't be like this for long. Lucas is 3 now and my heart aches when I think about the moments that I want to remember but have faded away already. He still needs me so much, but probably a little less each day as he becomes more independent. I can't believe that Ellen is almost 7 months old. She will be walking before we know it and so when she wakes me up tonight for the 3rd time I will just push the grouchy thoughts aside and be thankful that she needs me and that I can make her feel safe, happy and loved in a matter of seconds...

And she looks so darn cute in these new pj's that it's not that hard : )

Two Lucas Converations

To me as I was arriving home from the gym...

Lucas: "Mommy, what's that?"
Me: "It's my Gatorade that I used in spin class."

a few minutes passed...

Lucas: "Mommy, I want some of that alligator and pretzels!" (GATORade and alliGATOR - hehe)

*

Scene: Lucas had a dirty pull-up. Jeff and I did rock/paper/scissors to see who was going to help him put on a clean pull-up. We tied the first two rounds and then Jeff beat me on the third one. I always beat him at rock/paper/scissors so when he beat me I clapped my hands together and said, "damn!"

Lucas: "Mommy, Daddy, what are you doing? What's this?" as he slaps his hands together..."smack, smack, smack, damn!"

Oops!

A trip to J-Town!

We visited my hometown of Jonesboro, Georgia this weekend and it was AWESOME! My grandmother (Mom) is the only one that still lives in Jonesboro. A few weeks ago I realized that if we didn't make extra effort to see her that Ellen would be walking before they met, so we booked a trip. At first I was just going to take Ellen because she flies for free, but then I thought that would be silly since Lucas needs to see his family too. We decided to leave dada at home to take care of Tyson... and get a much deserved break from his daddy duties. I imagined just the three of us hanging out with Mom, with Jenn and the kids coming up during the day. It quickly, however, snowballed into a huge family reunion. We're so lucky that everyone could work their schedules around our visit. It was like Christmas, but without the stress of gifts and big dinners. Lucas had the time of his life. He squeezed every little bit of fun that he could this weekend! So here we go... the story of our trip highlighted with pictures...

It was Ellen's first flight! And actually it was the first flight that Lucas was old enough to understand. He was SO excited. He must have asked me 100 times between the time Jeff dropped us off and the time that we actually took off when we were going to "get on the hairplane and go high up in da sky."

This is what Mom's house looked like most of the wknd... toys everywhere!

I was on edge on Friday because of all the sugar that Lucas was consuming! I hated to be such a party pooper, but I feared that he'd hit a wall around midnight and I'd be the one that paid for it. I mean we all know that Lucas already acts like he drinks coffee all day - he doesn't need any extra energy! That being said, I was a dummy and forgot to pack any snacks for a plane ride, so Lucas consumed the following on our flight: sucker that I found at the bottom of my diaper bag, two plane ginger cookies, and a ginger ale. Once we got to Mom's Ty showed him where the push-ups were and I'm sure he had at least three that day. At one point I was not around him and my mama told me this story: Lucas was in the kitchen and heard somebody else ask for a coke, so he went up to Mom and asked her for a coke. She didn't know that he had never had a coke, so she poured him a cold one. My mama said that when he took a sip his eyes got wide and he said, "HMMM, that's good! May I have more peas?" Oh my goodness. Luckily he burned off all of the sugar with all of the playing and it wasn't a big deal... and the sugar novelty had worn of by Saturday and it was much more of a balanced diet day. I know, I know, I need to loosen up...

The boys love to ride in Pop's motorized wheelchair thingy. Jenn took them for a lot of spins around the block this weekend...

The best thing about this trip was that my family got to meet Ellen and I got to meet Mary! Here are the girls meeting each other for the first time... my fair skinned tiny bird and Jenn's tanned little squishy...

Only moments after being introduced they were "fighting" over Mary's bottle : )

My dad LOVES his five grandchildren. He becomes like a big kid when they are around. And I swear that Lucas and him are cut from the same mold. Lucas is a tinkerer just like him and is always busy messing around with something - just like my dad. In this picture Ty and Lucas were attacking him and then getting tickled by him...

Everyone got their fill of babies this weekend! I hardly held my baby all weekend...

Jenn also got a break, but here she is taking some "time-in" with Mary...

Ellen is a little mooch and has been reaching for our food for weeks. We're giving her oatmeal every day, but just tried these teething cookies for the first time this wknd. We didn't have any baby chairs at Mom's, so they rigged this little one for her : )

I love seeing my brother! I talk to Jenn every day, but only to Bryan once a week and for a shorter amount of time. He got to meet Ellen for the first time and spend time with Lucas. He is also great with those boys - they enjoyed him so much this wknd!

I think my dad would have held these babies all wknd...

Ty and Lucas picked up right from where they left off almost a year ago. They are life long buddies... I love seeing them together!

And here is the main reason for our trip! It was so wonderful to spend so much time with Mom. Now it's her turn to visit us..

Jenn has a ridiculous game that she and Ty call "bouncy-bouncy". She throws them up in the air and holds them by their calves. Of course Lucas loved it and wanted to play it all wknd...

Lucas also got to see his other cousin Wesley this wknd. Lucas thought he was the coolest and copied his every move! If Wesley folded his arms then so did Lucas - haha - that's flattery at it's best. Here are the two turkeys on Friday night - exhausted.

And here they are bright and early the next day, helping me to crack eggs...

On each of the three days Lucas did a lot of water work. The boys would play in the hose for a while, then take a bath, then play in the lake, and then do it all over again. Lucas was in heaven!

On Saturday, a little bonding with Uncle Bryan...

... including the Lady Bird...

... and even Miss Mary.

So the boys were all taking a bath, minding their own business, when Grandpa decided to play a game where he would fill up a cup of water from the sink and say, "Here comes the hot water" and then splash them with ice cold water - they loved it.

On Saturday night we grilled out on the patio. The weather was perfect. Here are Grandma and Grandpa with Ellen...

Mom with Missy...

And two of the turkeys with their popsicles...

Pictured here are Bryan, Angela, Mom, Grandpa, Tya and Lucas. I can't believe I didn't get a better picture of Angela with Ellen or Lucas... (sigh).