The Day in the Life of..

March 31, 2012


I thought I would take this chance to write out what our days are like around here. I know that she will grow up all too fast and I want to be able to remember these times.


She is still waking quite a bit at night right now. She is teething still and I do not do sleep training while she is teething. 


Wake up around 8ish and nurse Ella, then I lay here back down for maybe another hour of sleep. I know that I am very lucky that she sleeps this late and I am sure that it will change as she gets a bit older.. But I am enjoying it for now. 


Around 9:45 we go to the kitchen for breakfast. Ella is eating cheerios like a champ so I put a handful of them on her highchair tray to eat while I prepare her cereal. She usually has Earth's Best Organic Wheat Rice Cereal with a fruit mixed in. This morning she had apple blueberry puree mixed in. 


I feed her her cereal and then let her finish off her cheerios while I prepare my breakfast. Then I take her to her play area where we play and I eat my breakfast.


Around 11 she goes down for her first nap. She is napping for 1 1/2 hours right now, and I love it.


While she is napping I try to clean up a bit. Also, I try to get some laundry done and get my lunch prepared, if i'm lucky. 


When she's up from her nap I take her to the kitchen to feed her her lunch. We usually finish whatever fruit we had with breakfast. Then I eat my lunch while she plays in her highchair or in her play area. She is doing a lot of exploring these days. She rolls around looking for shoes to chew on or whatever else she can get her hands on. The only thing that I can think to compare it to is a new puppy trying to get into everything. 


After lunch is when we run errands, if we have any. This is the best time to get out of the house because she is rested and fed. Otherwise, I may have a cranky baby in the car. And, that's not fun.. 


Fun things that we do out of the house include; story time at the library, splashing in the baby pool outside, going for a walk, & swinging on her swing. I also take her to the park to swing on occasion and after she is over swinging we take a walk over to the pond and look at the turtles and ducks, if there are any. Unfortunately, there are not a whole lot of things to do in our town, especially on a budget. But, the blueberry farm opens in June and I am looking forward to making a few trips out there to pick some fresh blueberries. I so wish that we lived closer to a Zoo. I would love to have a season pass to one and go often but that doesn't seem to be the case anytime soon. 


After errands get done and we are home it is usually time for nap #2, so I nurse her and then she's down. This nap is a little more spontaneous than nap #1. It can be anywhere from 30 min. - 1 hour. While she naps I usually watch a little TV, blog, or catch up on Facebook. 


After we are up from nap #2, we play some more with toys and wait for Brandon to get home. 


Once Brandon is home, he usually helps with Ella while I get dinner ready. We eat dinner together and feed Ella a veggie or fruit. After dinner we have relaxation time. During this time we may play together as a family or do our own separate thing for a little bit. I love it when it's nice outside and we go out back and chat while we push Ella on her swing. He is one amazing man, and I love chatting with him about anything and everything. Plus, I have a lot to say after a long day of only have an 8 month old to talk to.. 


After our down time, it's bath time around 7 o'clock. We let her linger in the tub(supervised by both of us) a little longer so she can splash around and then I get her in her jammies. Some days we read a bedtime story, depending on how ready she is for bed. I nurse her and then put her to bed. After kisses from mommy and daddy of course!

After Ella is in bed, it is finally time for me and Brandon to have our time together. We watch TV or a movie together and make a snack. Right now we are eating a lot of cantaloupe and pineapple as our snack. But we also eat a lot of popcorn. 


Anyways, after a long day, it's time for bed.


I am loving this time with just one baby and I am truly cherishing every moment with Brandon and Ella. I am a very blessed woman and I love my life. I do look forward to having more babies with Brandon, though..

Sippy Cups and Finger Foods

March 30, 2012


  I am beyond proud of Ella, she has started actually drinking from her sippy cups and she has started eating her cheerios by herself as well. I knew she was close to eating finger foods but I did not think she would start drinking from her sippy anytime soon. It's a very nice surprise! 


  Brandon got out of school early today and spent the afternoon running errands with us. It was very nice to have him home again today. We went to the movie store and got the next disk of Castle. We have been watching this series for a few weeks now. We are really liking it but we're almost out of disks so we will have to find another TV show to watch soon. After the movie store we went to get some groceries at Brookshire's. I did not like shopping there at all and will stick to Walmart for grocery shopping. Way more options and less expensive. Not to mention that Brookshire's is freezing cold and I can not stand it.


  We also stopped by the convenient store and bought our first lottery ticket. We never buy these but hey, the jackpot is 640 MILLION!!! Makes me think of what we would buy if we ever won a large amount of money... But for now we will have to stick to earning our money:P


  I will be looking for opportunities to continue working on the dress that I am making for Ella. It is meant for the summer so I hope that I can get it done by then! It's just hard to find time with all that happens in my day.. 


Until next time...

Easter Pictures

  Since Brandon was home today, we decided to get some Easter and Bluebonnet pictures of Ella. They turned out way better than I ever expected. I think all women think that their baby is just the darn cutest and I am no exception! Here are a few:

She loved playing with those plastic Easter eggs! I am very pleased with how the pictures turned out. I have not had any professional pictures of Ella done yet because it is not in the budget, so I just do them myself.


I love days when Brandon is home from school. Even though I usually don't get much of anything done! He is very good at distracting me! For dinner we made pizza, cookies, and cut up a cantaloupe. It was very good. 


I am more than halfway through the semester now and am finding it hard to stay motivated to get things done. I can't wait for summer. 


Brandon graduates July 31st from nursing school and we are getting very excited for that. We are hoping he can get a job at the hospital here in our town. He is driving over an hour one way to get to his school and hates it. I don't blame him. This summer is going to be terrible. It gets up to 110 degrees here and he has no air conditioning in his car:(. So a job here in town would be ideal. 


I have already started thinking about Ella's 1st birthday party and not even until August! We're doing Minnie Mouse themed and I bet it's going to be really cute. 


Have a blessed week!

March 25, 2012

 Today was Ella's first day in the Church Nursery. We haven't gone to church in a few months because she has had separation anxiety and going was just not feasible. I really didn't think she would last the whole time without the nursery beeper going off. But she did!! She did wonderful, I was so proud of my little baby. She has never been in any sort of daycare, even my mother in law has watched her for no more than a couple of hours. I think she really enjoyed playing with the other babies. 


 Well the service was also wonderful. I always enjoy attending Ridgecrest Baptist Church. The congregation is always so uplifting! I am so glad that I will get to go to Church again. I am fairly new to this Church and will hopefully eventually become a member. 


 "This is the day that the Lord hath made, let us rejoice and be glad in it!" Pslam 118:24

Beautiful Day

March 24, 2012

Today was a gorgeous day! I started the morning with the yucky allergies that I have been experiencing the last few days but it got better. We got ready this morning and went garage selling. It was so fun! I only took $5 and only spent $3.50. I bought Ella a Taggies toy similar to this one: 

$1!

I also got a pair of Children's Place jeans for Ella for $1 and an Oshkosh B'Gosh sun hat and some Robeez infant shoes similar to these:

$1!

Driving around looking for sales with Ella was way fun! Then we had the usual Saturday lunch with hubby at Chick Fil A. It was such a clear beautiful day today. God is so good!

Tomorrow I am going to attempt to put Ella in the Church Nursery for the first time. I am excited/nervous.. I hope she does alright, her separation anxiety has been letting up this last month. If it doesn't go good we will try again another time, but here's to hoping!

Here's to hoping we have another beautiful day tomorrow!

Shout joyfully to God...How awesome are your works. Psalm 6:1,3

First Post

March 22, 2012

Ella's Stats this Week:

Weight: 15.4 lbs as of her Dr's appt. on Tuesday.

Height: 25 3/4 in.

Food: Still nursing wonderfully, eating lots of applesauce, pears, and squash. Also, some Plum Organics Puffs and Mum Mum's.

Likes: Eating, Swinging on her new dolphin swing, playing with toys with mommy, bath time, and Daddy!

Dislikes: Green Beans, strangers, and being in her carseat too long

Teeth: Her third tooth(upper left) popped in a couple of days ago.

Words: No words yet, lots of babbling and "singing" 

Movement: No crawling yet, I am not sure if she will crawl. She is rolling tons though. She is definitely mobile!

Cousin Neveah(In the Bumbo) and Ella

  In other news, cousin Neveah and Aunt Stephanie came to visit yesterday! We went to story time at the library(first time) and we loved it! We will hopefully go often. Ella was one of the youngest babies there but I really didn't mind. She loves to watch and babble to the other babies and children. 

  Since we have been getting tons of rain(!) lately the bluebonnets are starting to bloom. This is one of the prettiest times of the year to me, and hopefully we will be going to take some cute pics in the bluebonnets next week, weather permitting. 

Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see. (Hebrews 11:1 NLT)