Visitors.

Ellie had a busy day yesterday, meeting lots of new friends. Bob and Nancy were in town so they dropped by to say hi, and two of my best girlfriends made the trek down from LA to finally meet our little lady. She was on her best behavior all day, other than having a huge poop while being held by Nancy (thankfully, all of her poo blowout got on me instead of Nancy) and some minor fussing. We are finding that she naps better in her swing lately. Of course, this will probably only work for another few days and then she will inform us that she HATES her swing and HOW DARE we put her in it for any reason, even if she is dead asleep when we plunk her down.

Lauren has a lovely, fancy SLR camera and she took a ton of pictures, including some that capture Ellie's amazing new smiling ability. It's so nice that some of her awake hours now involve her looking at us, grinning like a loon and cooing. It absolutely melts my heart.

I mean, seriously:

How can you not adore this little face?

In further excellent examples of parenting, here is Tim doing his baby balancing trick. Check out the head control on that kid!

Lastly, here we are having a family meeting. About how stinking cute Ellie is.

Baby's First Thanksgiving!

We had a good one, though I must admit, the last few days with Ellie have been super rough. She has been very fussy, really bitey while nursing and just all around difficult. It makes me feel all around crazy, but such is having a newborn, I suppose. Thankfully, when she stops fussing, she has the cutest little face and the most kissable cheeks.

Seriously. Who is the cutest when she's bright eyed and bushy tailed and not fussing?

Here she is in her first Thanksgiving outfit. I thought about trying to get one where she's not crying, but let's be true to life. This is what she looks like most of the time when she's awake and not being fed.

And here's what she looks like when she's been napping on my chest for two hours.



Did I mention that we jumped on the trampoline at Cathy and Evan's house? Yeah, Grandma did not think it was as funny as I did. Sorry for Tim's shoddy camera work.

More Babies and Cats.

Surprisingly, of the Thiel cats, Chuckie is the one who is most tolerant of Elizabeth. I think because while mom was holding him, he was more concerned about whether or not I was going to touch him. He knows he loves me, he just likes to pretend he doesn't. BUT HE DOES, DAMMIT, HE DOES! And for those of you keeping score at home, Charles Ruckles will be 17 this spring. Can you believe it? He may outlive Sparky in terms of longevity. And will torture mom every day while doing it, with his stupidity and his stomach issues.

Ellie and I had a super rough day. I am pretty sure that she disagreed with my choice of a burrito for dinner last night. Beans are not the musical fruit when eaten through breastmilk, apparently. At least, I am hoping that Baja Fresh was the culprit and that there's a reason for her crying for about 8 hours straight today (in between farting and pooping. And then farting some more.) Poor little lady is sleeping now, and I have my fingers crossed for an okay night tonight.

I took the opportunity to download some new books onto my Nook. The last time I read a page was sitting in the nonstress test recliner on October 19th. The lending period for all of the books I had stored expired, so now I am attempting some new light fiction, since I can manage my Nook with one hand. I hope the combination of TV and sleep deprivation haven't totally rotted my brain. I foresee myself doing a lot of sounding words out though.

Couple of Pictures

I had really hoped to rely on Lulu as an extra pair of hands, since she raised four kittens on her own, before she was even a year of age. However, she mostly sleeps on the job. She is not getting paid for those hours!

Grams came over yesterday and I got to run to Target without the baby, which was nice. But then later Ellie and I went on a walk to the local park and around our neighborhood, and that was super nice. She is cleverly disguised as a bear, inside her Ergo carrier.

Last night after a feeding I was bouncing her on my legs, singing one of my ridiculous made up songs, and Ellie looked me square in the face and gave me a HUGE grin and cooed. She did it a couple of times over a fifteen minute period. I know it could just be gas, but you know what? I'm counting it as her first smile. It's a nice reward for all of the hours of sleep deprivation and nursing. The cutest toothless grin ever!

Too Cool for School.

"Oh my gosh mommy, you are SO EMBARRASSING!"

Also, please note that she wore this outfit in the hospital and I had to fold the sleeves back about 15 inches to get her hands out. My tinykins is growing up!

One Month!

We got Ellie gussied up and celebrated a little.

Dress!

Dress plus lurking cat!

CUPCAKES!

Happy one month birthday, little lady. We love you!

It's been a tough but a good month. I feel like we're starting to hit our stride and come out of the hormonal, sleep deprived fog. My csection is fully healed up and I don't have to take goof balls anymore. Feeding the baby is getting easier, and I'm figuring out how to get myself fed and dressed during her naps. I am incredibly proud of the fact that I have in fact showered every day of her life (except for the first day in the hospital, but that's because they wouldn't let me!) Mostly I am proud of how she's growing big and healthy and full of charm!

Fancy Girl!

Another good night of sleep! It may be short lived, but for now, I feel like Tim and I have an actual handle on Ellie's nighttime routine. I do the last feeding, he takes her for her hour of fussing while I go to sleep, and then once she's out, he goes to sleep too. I am getting 8 hours of sleep in pretty good chunks (last night five hours, followed by an hour, and then two more hours before 8am) and Tim sleeps from 11ish until 7. I am still sleeping in the nursery with her in the bassinet next to me, but it works for us. I can easily reach over and bump her white noise machine when it stops, and it helps that I can just open one eye a slit when trying to determine if she's making noise because she's actually fussing, or if she's just being a loud sleeper. Don't worry though, we are planning on moving her to her crib, and I will sleep in our big bed once again (especially since we just bought new fancy pants sheets on sale!)

Last night Ellie got to hang out with her Grandma and Grandpa, who like the lifesavers they are, once again brought Tim and I's lazy asses some delicious dinner. Ellie is looking forward to going out to Yorba Linda for a visit on Saturday too - maybe we will let her go through bird food at the ducks on the lake! Only if she behaves though.

Today the Ellerina and I went over to mom and dad's to back mom up in case the blinds guy came to measure after she needed to leave to pick up Sara. Instead, the blinds guy and I arrived at the same time. It meant that we were all able to pick Sara up and Auntie Sara and Ellie got in a little time together while driving back to the house.

It's amazing how fast the weeks have passed - can you believe that Elizabeth will be a month old tomorrow? Me neither. You know what that means - only 11 more months of nursing (haha...) It has been the toughest, most amazing month of my life, and it's true that it's hard to remember what life was like before. Even looking at pregnancy pictures - it's weird to me that Ellie used to live inside me. She is so different and more spectacular than I ever thought she'd be back when she was just my Baby Sequins (secretly though, she was always Jelly Bean to me.) I love her more than I ever thought possible, and seeing Tim as her sweet daddy makes me love him more every day too.

Enough mush. Today Grams gave Ellie her first ring. Here she is rocking it in her carseat, shortly before we headed out to pick up Sara.

Look at her! She's already a young lady!


This video is not TERRIBLY interesting, but it's cute. At first when watching it I thought Tim must have made it while I was asleep, but then I realized I'm on the couch next to him, telling him at one point that Ellie is not hungry, because she'd just spent an hour eating. Sleep deprivation, it'll get you. Please enjoy some baby noises, and Tim making fun of his offspring.