Ellie Sarah

Saturday, October 29
3:57 pm
18.5"
8 lbs 5 oz

After the most intense hour of my life (5 cm to born in only one hour-no time for an epidural)
our little Ellie made her long-awaited appearance.

She is beautiful and very sweet.
She has her days and nights mixed up.  (sleeps five hour stretches through the day, eats every 45 minutes at night. And I'm not exaggerating.)
She's a pro at nursing.
When she cries, it's a very polite "wah"  and then a long pause while she waits to see if we've heard her before she tries another sweet "wah."
She's deliciously chubby, and we just can't keep ourselves from kissing those cheeks all day long.

She has her brother's hairline...poor girl.

She's perfect.  We'll keep her. 

we're still waiting

for our baby girl to decide to arrive,

but we're making the best of it!

meanwhile...

 

The hospital bags are packed in the car, 

we've been keeping the house spotless in case we have to head to the hospital without prepping the house for showings,

which means we've been doing way too much eating out for my taste,

and we've been able to spend the past four days just hanging out, doing as many fun things with Nicholas as we can before his baby sister is born.

Last night we got a chance to go out with some friends to visit a pumpkin patch.

 Nicholas had the time of his life, running wildly between the rows of pumpkins,

picking up sticks and "marching" with them,

and pointing out all his favorite pumpkins--the uglier and bumpier the better for our boy.

This black pumpkin, for example, was one of his very favorites.

Just carrying around a pumpkin, and a baby girl that really should decide to get here soon!

Nicholas got a little tired of the picture taking idea.  

I have a feeling he is going to be just like his dad (and his dad's brothers for that matter) when it comes to taking pictures.

We were snapping to get their attention and Nicholas tried to help us by snapping at his friend.

 After we purchased our pumpkins, we went to their house to paint them, carve them, 

eat delicious (and perfectly warm) chocolate chip pumpkin cookies,

and enjoy butterscotch steamed milk.

It was the perfect last evening before the baby comes (hint, hint baby girl!)

our house

We cheated a little-this first picture is from last summer, you know, when we had water.  Our grass is semi-green right now, but this picture just looked better with the flowers and everything.

 

Has never been this clean and organized.
It's for sale.

Do you want it?

a day in the life

 Very very soon  (yesterday my midwife checked me--I'm already dilated to a 5 1/2--now we play the waiting game) 

very soon my daily routine with Nicholas is going to be very different.

I don't want to forget how life goes right now.

7:30 am.  Wake up, knock on the door and call for Mommy or Daddy until they come let me out.  I still haven't learned how to open doors, and Mommy is very happy about that.

7:35 am.  Say a chipper "good morning!" to my parents as they lay in bed, then I have to let them know that I want to go "upstairs" (downstairs) and "Watch Ponyo!"

7:37 am. Mom can't take my repetition any longer, she asks if I'm okay with watching something, anything other than Ponyo, and we jump out of bed and go downstairs, with my blanket spread perfectly flat across mom's front ("open it!") so I can lay my head on it while she carries me down. She tries to make me walk down the stairs myself, but I beg her to let me "hug a mommy!" until she gives in.

"My see it!"  When Mom is getting food ready I pull the chair over so I can see what she's doing on the counter.

7:40 am.  Mom starts my breakfast of cereal.  If it's Marshmallow Matey's I'll proceed to eat five more bowls of it.  She turns on a show, and Daddy gets ready for work.

8:10 am.  We say prayers, I wave goodbye to Daddy as he leaves and make sure to tell him "I love you bunches!"  

8:15 am.  I watch one more show (with more cereal please!) while Mom showers.

 

  

9:00 am.  When my show finishes, I wait for Mom to finish getting ready and I "sleep" on the stairs, stretching my legs way out.  I do this a lot.

 

 

 9:00-9:25 am.  Mom waits for me to come and get dressed while I run around and act silly. 

 

 9:27 am.  Once I'm dressed, I ask Mom if I can "please pig on my head?"  (watch youtube videos of the Laurie Berkner band--they have a song called Pig on Her Head.)

  Mom does her computer work while I watch videos on youtube.

 10:15 am.  I help Mom with a few chores and then she gets to work organizing the kitchen cupboards while I come up with various ways to keep myself entertained.

Singing songs with my music toy and the car charger for Dad's phone.

"Mowing the lawn" with the swiffer mop, enjoying a sucker, and using the spray bottle to help "clean" the patio furniture.

Taking apart a stack of post-it notes when Mom is busy with the kitchen drawers.

12:30 pm.  Mom and I get in the car and go eat lunch with Dad at his work. After we park the car, we walk towards the building and I start to shout "Hi Daddy!" before I can even see him.  When I see him around the corner I run to him and then I chatter away to him the whole time we're there.

 1:45 pm- 5 pm.  I fall asleep in the car on the way home and take a nice long nap.  Some days I don't take a nap at all anymore, but the days that I do I still sleep for a long time.

5:00 pm.  I wake up to find that Daddy's already home!  We have to work on the house a little bit more because we are trying to get it ready to be sold.

6:30 pm.  We sit down at the table together and eat dinner. I don't want to eat the casserole Mom made, so I eat noodles with pasta sauce.

 7:30-8:00 pm.  We start my bedtime with reading books with Daddy, then I take a bath.

 8:00-8:30 pm. Daddy and I get really silly while Mom is trying to get my pajamas on.  I finally get dressed, we read out of my picture scripture book, say a prayer, and then Mom sings songs to me before I fall asleep.

I tell Mommy and Daddy how much I love them, and they leave, making sure to leave the door "like this!" open just a crack.

the nursery

We worked so hard to get the baby's room to this point,

and well,

she probably won't ever sleep in it before we move.

Hey, now we'll know exactly how we want to set up her room when we get to our new place, right?

And really, getting her room done has helped everything seem more real, and more exciting.  I love to come in here, especially at night, and just sit in the rocking chair and imagine how nice it is going to be to have my baby girl here with us.

I bought paper doilies from the craft store and painted them with watercolors to make the garland. I wanted to do something with her name to go above her bed also, 

but since we hadn't decided on a name until just last week,

and now that we're leaving the house, 

that's going to have to wait until we're in Utah.

just me and my boy

 This whole moving-having a baby-changing careers thing is craziness.
Poor Kent. My attitude about the move hasn't been very positive so far; he probably feels like there's just no pleasing me.

So I stayed up late Saturday night, sitting in the dark until well past midnight,
just thinking,
trying to figure out what I am feeling and why.


And I came to this conclusion:
I want to move to Utah.  I always have.  I want to be that close to family, more than anything!  (And honestly, being this close to Kent's family instead would have made me just as happy. I'm just glad that being close to one family also equals being clos-er to the other.)

But, I don't want to move now.  I don't want to leave my friends. I don't want to leave my house.  It makes my heart hurt.  

I wanted to have this baby, and then settle in and have the holidays here in our own home for the first time, just enjoying being a family.  I wanted my friends to be able to watch my baby girl grow and change.  I wanted to watch their kids grow and change.

It just hurts to leave.
But this would be hard no matter when we decided to move.  So the timing, maybe it isn't so bad after all.

All that thinking has helped.  I'm focusing on the positive now, and that helps me to be the happy wife and mother that Kent and Nicholas deserve, and make the most of these next two months.

There really isn't much time left that it will be just me and my favorite little boy at home.
So I'm setting aside my to-do list every so often and simply being here, just me and Nicholas, laying on the couch reading books and building wobbly wooden block towers.