That's our Girl!

I can see a little of both of us in her. Now the hair is all Ella!! I'm convinced the old wife's tale about heartburn is true.

A Visit from Great-Uncle Tom

On Monday, my mom's brother (my uncle) Tom came down for a visit with my mom. He lives in Illinois and is a trucker, but hasn't stopped in for a visit at our house for 31 years! This weekend he decided to hop on his motorcycle and drive out to see my mom and meet the newest family member. Apparently he gloated to several other family members that he was going to get to hold Ella before them.

Sean took a shine to Uncle Tom, they are two peas in a pod- onery to the core! Aidan was disappointed that they drove to our house in Nana's car instead of on Uncle Tom's Harley. Ella was nice enough to not cry or poop while he held her. :)

Hope he doesn't mind me posting this photo, I thought that the other family members out of state would enjoy seeing it!

A few thoughts about Yesterday

1. Why didn't I just ask Doug to take Aidan to school while I stayed home with E and changed Sean's diaper? He could of just picked us up after the drop off. Duh!

2. Forgot to mention I found my keys.... at the bottom of Ella's car seat. Couldn't of been too comfy for her to sit on them. How in the world did I miss that when I buckled her in?

3. I think postpartem mommy brain is 3x worse than pregnancy mommy brain. I'm scattered in my thinking. My mood swings are beyond nutty. I don't even want to be around me!

3 weeks with E, 1 week into Kindergarten

The days fly by fast! Aidan has been going to Kindergarten for a week now and we are still working on our adjustment to this busy schedule.

This morning was a time management failure. I got Sean, Ella and myself ready in record time. Then I sat down to nurse Ella and nag Aidan to get dressed. He drug his feet so bad that he didn't get his clothes completely on until 8:13 (mind you, school starts at 8:15.) Doug was rushing around getting himself ready for work and made the observation that our bathroom clock is 10 mins slow. Doh! That helps explain some tardiness!

In the meantime, Sean took his morning "coffee" break in his clean diaper. *sigh*

First things first, we had to get Aidan to school asap! We all jumped in the van and I realized I couldn't find my keys anywhere. Doug ran back in the house for his. I was so flustered about being late, that I hit the gas on the van too hard and charged down our driveway (in reverse) too fast- causing it to bottom out and knock the spare tire off the bottom of the van. Cripes!! Doug hopped out again and checked for damage/moved the tire out of the way. I'm near tears...

Get Aidan to school (LATE!) and drove back home to change Sean's pants. Back in the car, drop Doug off at work. Ella begins screaming from the rear seat and cries all the way to Sean's school (about 6 mins.) Get Sean out of his car seat & give him his backpack. Take Ella out of her car seat to calm her down (she's bright red.) Take them into school. Ella and I stop by the office to drop off some paperwork, she's sleeping now. I get her back in her car seat and then we run out to Office Max to buy a new mouse. Sean chewed thru the cord on our old one.

Ella snoozed during the whole errand and all the way home. I got home, tidied the house, hooked up the new mouse, surfed, took a shower. Before I knew it, time to get Sean from preschool. Ella slept the whole way there, then cried all the way to the office where I picked up Doug for lunch. So I took them both into the office, changed her diaper, nursed her and then we loaded up in the van again.

Sean and Ella are now napping, after lunch, and I need to fold laundry. Would rather nap myself!

hi ya!

Back to School

What a big day for Aidan, his first day of kindergarten! He's been looking foward to today all summer, but last night got very nervous about it. He asked to sleep with momma and Ella and let me tell you, I wanted to say yes so I could hold on to my "little" boy one last time. Everyone got up and at it early today, for the first time ever we actually got out the door BEFORE the time we were supposed to be there. Aidan looked so grown up in his school uniform. I helped him fasten the shorts button and belt and showed him how to tuck in his shirt. I told him the teacher would help him with his pants until he can do it himself.


As soon as Sean saw Aidan dressed, he was ready to get dressed, too. He has gotten so much better at not fighting me on changes. He was excited about getting on his backpack until he felt how heavy it was with school supplies. Ha ha ha


We drove to Aidan's school and Doug went in with him to drop him off as I circled the block. I don't think i could of handled dropping him off. Doug said he looked so sad and scared, but wasn't crying. Aidan's teacher gave him a warm welcome, so hopefully he will settle in there soon.

Next we took Sean to school. Doug came with me because I wasn't sure I could carry the school supplies, baby and Sean. Luckily, Sean hoped out of the van, put his backpack on and trotted to the door like an old pro! No fussing AT ALL! We followed him in and he went straight to the cubbies to hang up his backpack. He was proud to show Miss R his baby sister, then got busy playing with the toys. His dear friend Amelia is in his class again and she gave him a big hug. She also became a big sister this summer, her baby sister is 9 weeks old. We chatted to the other parents and teacher a bit, then headed back to the van to take Doug to work.

Ella and I had to go to her 2 week well baby visit this morning, so Ella had a special outing today too. She weighs 7 lbs 13 oz and is 20 1/4 inches tall, so she's growing great. Yesterday her cord fell off and I noticed today that her bely button looked a bit odd. It has this bubble looking center. The Dr explained what it was, but I didn't catch the name, and she cauterized it with these matchstick looking things. She mentioned that one of her daughters had the same thing. Ella has had a gooey eye the last couple of days also, so the Dr is giving us an antibiotic cream to use to clear that up.

Our Dr is due any day now with her forth child and it's been nice to share this pregnancy with her. We talked about Ella's cloth diaper and she mentioned that she plans on getting BumGenius diapers to use on her new baby once she is a couple months old. Rock on!

Oh, and for your baby fix, here are a couple of pics of E from this weekend.

Napping with Sean:


First Sunday at church:

Eleanor Update, 4 days old

Yay! I am a happy momma now! Ella is gaining weight AND her bili levels are down! She was 6 lbs 7 oz when we left the hospital and today she is up to 6 lbs 11 oz. Not a huge gain, but it's in the right direction. Oh and before her bili level was 11.5 and today it was 9.1, so no worries there! I can't believe this little girl has done the absolute opposite of what the dr's expected due to our isoimmunity issues. My baby rocks!

We celebrated the end of meconium poops yesterday by starting in on our cloth diaper stash. Here's the first fitted and cover we tried on, as well as a close up of her sweet face. I took the first one right after her bath (she isn't too fond of that process yet) so she was grumpy for a second.

The Super Fast Birth of Eleanor Ruby

Well, less than two hours from my last post, we became a family of five!

My water broke at 8 am, contractions started around 8:30 am, we arrived at the hospital at 9:40 am and at 10:03 am Eleanor Ruby was born! My doctor made it two minutes before Ella came out. No drugs, other than most of a bag of antibiotics for the group B strep bacteria. It was such an exciting birth and I am so blessed with our beautiful new daughter. She is very healthy and nursing wonderfully. We have to spend 48 hrs at the hospital to keep an eye on her due to the brief exposure to GBS, but our stay has gone very well.

Eleanor is our biggest baby, weighing in atr 7 lbs, 1 oz and 20" long.

A few photos of our new family!

Water Just Broke!!!

OMG! I can't believe it actually broke by itself! No hard contractions yet, but I am GBS+ so we will have to head to the hospital sooner than later.

See ya with a baby soon!!!