Two Months!

I can hardly believe that today we went to Ella's 2 month appointment. Today she is exactly 8 weeks old. At 4:45 this morning Ella woke me up to eat. When I put her down and returned to bed it was 5:15 and I thought about the fact that 8 weeks ago at that time I was in an OR having a C-section and we were 9 minutes from hearing her first cries and seeing her chubby cheeks for the first time. 8 weeks have gone by far too fast. I know that I will say that many more times through out her life. She will be changing faster then I want, walking sooner then I know and speaking in full sentences in what seems like no time. I am trying to savor each moment with her even moments that happen at 3:30 am because I know this time is short.

While we waited in the lobby Ella hung out in Daddy's lap look cute and adorable.

We had to take Ella's pretty pink dress off to weigh her. This is the dress that Ben and I bought her right after we found out that Ella was Ella.

Ella now weights 12 pounds and 6 ounces! 95th percentile in weight.

We were just hanging out waiting for Dr. Heid to come in. While we waited we found out that Ella is now 23.5 inches long putting her in the 90th percentile in height.

Here she is just before getting her shots. She was not happy after the shots so we didn't take any pictures of her.

Our hands

Recently we have found our hands. They are good friends that give us comfort. Unfortunately, they do not always cooperate and so we keep working on gaining control of them. Maybe someday we will have enough control so we can suck our thumb!

Oktoberfest

Last Friday we took Ella to her first fall festival, Oktoberfest in Mt. Angle, OR. A year ago when Ben and I went for the first time we imagined what it would be like to bring our kids to this festival. At the time we hoped that we would have a baby this year but had no idea that it would be Ella we would take to the festival.

We had a great time at Oktoberfest with friends from our church. We were all very excited to eat our way through the festival. The amount of food we all consumed that day was amazing. We had sausages, marionberry sundaes, funnel cakes, mashed potatoes, fondue, fried mushrooms and zucchini, pirogies, and more. We did not leave hungry! The festival has lots of authentic Bavarian music too. Ben especially liked the accordion players. There was one player that went onto the tables. It was a great day. One that will be repeated in the future.

Just a day in the park

Today Ben had a music gig at the Beaverton Market. While we were there we ran into someone famous and got our picture with him.

Waking up is hard to do...

I love it when I have to wake Ella up from a nap. She does not wake up bright eyed and ready to go. She must stretch and stretch and stretch before she is fully awake. Her little body bends in all directions and she grunts and makes all these wonderful waking up sounds. I want to remember this about her forever so that when she still does this in 15 years I can tell her she has done it since she was born. It is not often that I have to wake Ella up. She is usually doing the waking.

P.S. Note the pig on the onesie. This is a special onesie that we got as a gift. It is a bacon onesie. It was given because Grandpa Whitney raises pigs and we get to enjoy all the meat that he gives us. Be looking for a picture of Ella with grandpa and hopefully some pigs from the pigpen.

First Day of School

Today was the first day of school at Hockinson High School where I am a social studies teacher. It was strange to wake up this morning and think that my collegues were headed to work and students were headed to classes and I was going to go to Target with Ben and Ella and to a doctor's appointment. I am so thankful that God has allowed me this time at home. I have 5 more months before my first day of school. At that point Ella will be over 6 months old and we will have our routine down pretty well. It will be hard to go back to work, but I have to remind myself that I am only going back part-time and that at 12:15 everyday I will leave and get my girl. Until my first day of school I will thankfully spend my time getting to know my daughter more and learning more and more what it takes to be a good mom. I am sure the up coming stages of her life will provided more and greater challenges as she develops and becomes more aware of the things around her. At the moment though, I am taking it one day at a time and learning what needs to be learned for that day. She is growing and changing so fast that it hard to take note of all the changes. It is only when I look at pictures from a few weeks ago that I see just how much she has changed. I wonder what she will be doing in 5 months when I return to work.

Fun Times with Ella

With all the stress of having a newborn, Ben and I have lost it some. We have taken to crying with Ella when she cries. Just kidding. We are doing great and so is she. We were trying to get some family pictures using the timer on the camera and Ella was crying. We decided it would be fun imitate her and this is what the camera caught. :)

Two weekends ago Hudson needed to get some energy out so Ben, Ella, Sarah, and I took him to the river so he could swim. Ella went in the Baby Bjorn with me and Sarah and Ben played with Hudson. We were successful in exhausting Hudson for at least that day. He is asking for another day at the river.

Ben is working at introducing Ella to music and his love of the Rhodes early. A few weeks ago Ben was playing music at a coffee house downtown Vancouver and I needed him to hold Ella for a moment. He just keep playing and Ella keep sleeping. She is a good baby.

Everyone says Ella looks like Ben. All she needs are black glasses like his and the look will be complete. While Ella was sleeping we tried putting Ben's glasses up to her face. Obviously Ben's face is bigger then Ella's.

Ella is working her neck muscles during some tummy time on her soft blanket. She found the blanket so soft she thought she would just keep her head on the blanket.

After a bath Ella's hair is all soft and crazy. All I have to do is run my hands through her hair and she gets this crazy hairdo. It is a lot of fun and stays all day. Below Ella is showing you all her Popeye look.

Later that night Ella's hair was still crazy. :)