Two Months!

We had Ella's two month baby well check this morning, as well as her first immunizations.  It went as expected.  The doctor and nurse always say its much harder on mommy, but I swear if you heard her cry you wouldn't think so.  She had three shots and one immunization that comes in drink form.  She took the drink down like a champ.  She was looking at me while drinking it with this look on her face, like, hmmmm this is different.  She let out a big cry (with tears!) right when she was poked with the first shot and her cry got louder and louder with each shot.  (Remember, this is the baby the nurses in the hospital said they had never heard a baby cry so loudly!)  I fed her right after to calm her down, but she was still whimpering.  I'm glad I made the decision not to take Ava with me to Ella's appointment though, I'm pretty sure she would have been traumatized by the whole ordeal!  We spent the day snuggling.  Ella was pretty pooped out after shots and has been sleeping for a majority of the day.

The first thing nurse Lynette said at Ella's appointment was, "boy, Ella looks just like her sister!"  When Dr. Huwe came in the room she was looking Ella over and talking to her and said, "You are so beautiful, you should be on the cover of a magazine!"  I'd have to agree!

At two months, Ella weighs in at 13 lbs, 12 oz (93%) and 23" (73%), which is remarkably close to Ava's length and weight at the same age.  However, I noticed the percentiles have changed, so I'm guessing babies/kids have gotten bigger in the last three years.  Her head size was close to the 50th percentile.

At two months, Ella:

• can smile in response to my smile.
• can keep head steady when being held upright.
• can lift head pretty well when on stomach, although she doesn't like tummy time.
• follows Ava with her eyes with everything Ava does!
• really pays attention to her mobile.  
• has really started to enjoy bath time.  She loves getting her hair washed.

Ella is currently wearing size 1 diaper.  I've also moved her adjustable cloth diapers to one size bigger that what she was previously wearing.  Ella is wearing size 0-3 month or 3 month clothes.  

Ella's eyes seem to be changing from dark grey-blue in color, to blue.  Does one of us carry a blue gene and we're going to have a little blue-eyed princess?  Time will tell.  Out of curriosity, I did ask her pediatrician today when the eyes will normally change.  She said by 6 months of age they eye tone is set (blue, brown, green, etc) however, they can still get lighter or darker from there.  Which explains why my eyes have gotten lighter brown the older I've gotten.

Showing off her battle wounds.  Notice the bandaids.

Back to work

I started back to work this week.  As much as I love my job, I knew I would have a hard time with it so I chose to ease back into it and go back at 8 weeks and start working two-three half days for four more weeks.  I know it will be even harder when I go back to my regular hours October 8th.  Grammy Cindy is coming down each of those days to babysit, so that Ella didn't have to start daycare quite yet either.  I'm definitely ready to start making money again, but I sure miss my girls!

Beautiful Ballerina

Ava started dance this week!  Even though she showed much interest and enthusiasm for taking dance, I was still slightly worried about leaving her there.  We have been taking Kindermusik classes since she was a year old and those are parent-child classes, so the idea of just dropping her off made me worried.  She was a little  shy at first, but then the teacher took her hand and she was fine.  Of course, I know she'll end up being the teacher's little pet because that's exactly how she is at daycare!

Ava was so excited to get her dance outfit on and couldn't stop smiling.  She looked at herself in the mirror with such pride, saying, "I look pretty fancy.  I look like a ballerina!"  After the class she kept telling me thank you and how much fun she had.  What a sweetheart!  We are so blessed!

True Love

A quick story (so I can always remember it):

I normally let Ava watch cartoons in my room while I take a shower and get ready and put Ella in her bouncy seat in the bathroom with me.  Today, Ava decided to sit in the bathroom as well and entertain Ella for me.  She left the bathroom a few times while I was in the shower, telling me, "I be right back, I gotta get something."  I was wondering what the heck she was doing.  When I got out of the shower, she had Ella covered in three blankets.  She then told me, "I got her a blankie, her toes were cold.  I put her binky back in and I got a booger out of her nose!"  This is what true love is.

A picture is worth a thousand words...

Friday night fun!

We had the pleasure of watching Baby Kai on Friday evening while Tyson and Rachel went out for dinner with some friends.  Ava has really warmed up to him over the last week.  Don't get me wrong, she has always said she loves him and "baby Kai's cute", etc, but she wasn't as affectionate to him as she is to Ella.  Understandable, I guess.  I mean, she sees Ella everyday, pretty much all day.  She usually only gets to see baby Kai once or twice a week.  And let's face it, baby Kai is much more active that Ella.  He moves around and wiggles a lot more and I think that freaks her out a little.  On the other hand, he is oh-so-smiley and that she loves!  Well, Friday evening she decided she wanted to hold baby Kai!

I love watching them play together.  Ava is so good about sharing and handing him toys and is just in awe of everything she does.  He also loves watching baby Ella.  I have to say, I just love being an aunt as much as I love being a mommy.  As I sat there, snuggling him Friday evening I couldn't help but think how much I love this little boy just as much as I love my own little girls.  And thankfully, he likes to snuggle!

Labor-Free weekend

We spent Labor Day weekend a little differently this year.  I think ever since we've been married we have gone somewhere over Labor Day weekend, the past three years being Omaha.  It ended up being Darren's Saturday to work, so instead of hurrying and going on a mini-vacation when he got off work on Saturday afternoon we decided to stay close (really close) to home. 

Baby Kai being cute.  Slobbering on Ava's blankie.  

Ava asked to hold Ella so we also put Kai next to her.  She always freaks out when he's too close.  

 We spent Friday evening over at the Burton's house eating pizza and just hanging out.  Baby Kai was showing off his new sitting up skills.  Ava always loves going over there and dragging all the toys out of Kai's room.


We also decided to spend some time at Darren's parents so we headed there after Darren got off work on Saturday.  Darren had been wanting to have a campout with Ava (in a tent) on his parent's farm all summer.

I wasn't sure how Ava would do sleeping in a tent, but she was so excited!  Once Darren got the tent all set up, we could barely get her out of there!  She kept saying, "This is gonna be so much fun!"  She was wound up and I don't think he said she fell asleep until after 10:30, which made for a very tired little girl the next day!

Grammy and Ava

Setting up the tent.  

Babywearing!  Ella loves being outside.

Ava wanted to have a tea party in the tent.

Picnic outside.  She had 1 1/2 hot dogs!  With the bun!

Chilling in her car seat while we ate.

Darren gave her her own flashlight to use.  She was so excited!

Love!

Such hard work being so cute!

Grammy and the girls!

We spent the rest of the weekend hanging out at home and playing at the park!  We also made a trip to Lowe's on Monday.  I'm dreaming of new shelving in my closet!  Hopefully, we'll get working on that soon!