My new mommy do

Several people told me I would cut my hair after having a baby, and it turns out...they were right! Plus its summer and its hot and it was just the perfect time for a change! Even better, I cut 10 inches and was able to donate it for a good cause! Two of my nieces (Bailey & McKenna) have donated their hair and they were an inspiration to me! :)

Ahhhh....it feels so great and lightweight!

Visit with friends and family...

Yesterday we went by the Brown's to visit and see their new wood floors. This was the first time that Ella and Addison have been together when they were BOTH awake. Like always, Megan and I had so much fun taking their pictures. They were falling all over each other but were SO cute. Megan and I are having so much fun raising little girls together, and they are only 6 weeks old! We have so many good times ahead. For those of you who don't know...Megan is one of my best friends here in SA and her daughter is only 6 days younger than Ella! We couldn't have planned it any better!! And although we did talk about having kids together, I promise this was not planned! :)

After visiting with the Brown's, we went by the Stanley's for a family BBQ and Ella got to see ALL of her San Antonio cousins. We got the first picture of all 5 of the grandkids....they are dressed in their NY t-shirts that Kim and McKenna brought home from their vacation.

And to finish off our long day, Ella slept through the night last night!!! :) She's been sleeping great, and often has 5-6 hour stretches at night, but she still wakes up once in the middle of the night to eat..usually around 3:30am. Last night she ate at 9:45pm, went to sleep at 10:00pm, and then I woke up at 6:00 am to realize that she was still sleeping! I finally woke her up at 6:15am to feed her, but she would have been happy to keep sleeping! She is our little angel baby! She also had her first bottle today. She ate breastmilk, but I wanted to introduce the bottle since she'll be starting day care in a few weeks. Daddy got to feed it to her while I was at the gym and he loved it! It was very special for him to get to feed her and she did awesome.

Happy baby.

Ella is starting to squeal and almost laugh outloud! You can't hear it but you can see it in these pictures. We had so much fun this morning talking and laughing together! She's my little sweetie. Michael was out of town last night, so it was our first night alone, but she did great, as always, and woke up very happy!

The best smiles are so hard to capture on camera, but I think I did pretty good with these!

Pictures, pictures, pictures!

There are too many pictures to choose from, so I'm posting several! Ella is smiling like crazy and is most happy when she wakes up from a long nap, or when she's on her changing table. She makes SO many funny facial expressions, I'm constantly grabbing the camera trying to capture each one and then of course, she sees the camera and makes a totally different face! She is so much fun.

She had her first overnight trip this weekend. Friday night we drove to Austin and spent the night at my sister's house. She did great and was happy to see her cousins, Bailey and Hutson and of course Aunt Erin and Uncle Matt. We took her to IKEA and a few other places in Austin. Of course, she slept right through everything! Now that she's getting older we're getting more comfortable taking her places. It's a lot of fun to get out with her!

In the last picture, you can see that she has a fistful of her own hair. Luckily she wasn't pulling it this time, but she has done that several times. She'll start screaming out of nowhere and I realize she's pulling her own hair!

She's still eating well and gaining weight like crazy as you can see in her chubby cheeks and double chin! :)

My girly girl.

Little girls are so much fun!! This week Ella received her first tea set from our good friends Sue & Dave. It's pink ceramic with white polka dots and its so tiny! I can see many tea parties in our future and I can't wait. And today our good friend and neighbor, Elizabeth, brought Ella several pink hairbows. These are the first ones she has ever had and they look adorable!!! Of course she had to wear one tonight, especially since we were going out to have dinner with friends.

Lots of celebrating!

This weekend was full of celebrations in our family! Saturday Michael and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary, Ella's 1 month birthday and today we got to celebrate his first Father's day! We had a great weekend full of relaxing, watching golf, and lots of quality family time. We count our blessings every day for such a wonderful marriage and now such a healthy, beautiful baby girl. We couldn't ask for anything more!!!

This morning Michael went to the gym which gave Ella and I plenty of time to get her dressed in her cute "daddy" t-shirt and to get his gifts together. He was so surprised and excited when he got home to see us!











Here are a couple of pictures from yesterday. We took Ella to an early dinner at El Jarro for our anniversary. This was the first time we've been out to dinner since she was born and she did great. She slept right through it of course!

Smiles.

This week my mom was in town to spend the week with Ella and I. We loved having her here! Ella has been doing so many new things this week...the best is that she has started smiling at us! She smiled once at me late last week, but with my mom here she smiled several times at her and the smiles are more and more each day. It just warms your heart when you are talking to her and she smiles back! She is also trying to talk...you see her little tongue moving as she is trying so hard and then every now and then a little "coo" will come out. The other thing I've noticed this week is that her eyesight is much further than before, or at least she seems to notice a lot more. She'll stare at me from across the room...maybe she can't fully see me, but she always seems to know where I am. She is constantly looking around every room in the house trying to see everything! It's so fun to watch her take in the world around her as she learns something new every day.

Here are a few smiles that Mimi and I were able to catch during one of her many "photo sessions".

random photos....

Here are a few recent photos...I'll write and update more later!

3 weeks!

I'm having trouble uploading pictures for some reason, so I'll keep working on it because I know pictures are what most of you want to see!

Yesterday Ella was 3 weeks old! The time is going by fast but she's still tiny and so snuggable! Her and I ventured out of the house yesterday to have lunch with Michael and he was able to show her off at his office. Her and I then went to the lactation center because I wanted to check her weight. She was 8 lbs. 5 ozs. so she's already gained 1 pound since birth. She's doing great! She even slept for a 5 hour stretch last night and then 4 hours after that. Both times I still had to wake her up to feed her so she would have slept longer if I let her. It's definitely nice to have the extra bit of uninterrupted sleep! We'll see if she keeps it up! I never thought I would wake up my child...but now we do it all the time. :) It will be nice when we can start letting her sleep through the night!

Check back soon for pictures!

Pretty in green.

Ella is getting big enough now for some of her 0-3 month outfits and she's absolutely adorable! She's been wearing nothing but white or pink onesies, but today we ventured out to one of her green outfits that she received before we new she was a little girl and we love how she looks in the little pants! This is an outfit from her granny and we just love it! Of course we had to post her picture for you all to see! :)

She's really starting to use her leg muscles as she pushes herself out of your lap and will straighten them out to stand for a few seconds when you are holding her.