1 Week Old

I can't believe that Ella's first week has already ended! She is still sleeping most of the time, but has started to have longer alert periods during the day. Fortunately, she is sleeping longer at night, too! So far, she is really a content little girl! Today, we celebrated by taking her on her first trip to the Village Market for a chicken pesto sandwich!

She is also a great snuggler!

Ella had her first stroller ride last night and loved it. She managed to stay awake for almost 2 blocks! Ben kept looking back at her while saying "Ella, back seat!". He also seems to like the new double stroller.

Aunt Kimmie took Ben to Toy's R Us and told him that he could pick out his birthday present. He wanted a huge bottle of bubbles that resembled a Tide bottle, but she helped steer him towards the tricycles instead. He was pretty happy with his "decision" when he took it out for a spin this morning!

It has been a rough couple of days for Ben. I think the reality of this new addition to the family is starting to sink in. We will have visitors for the next couple of weeks and then we will hopefully get settled back into a more normal routine. One day he will thank us for his little sister!

Settling In

We arrived home from the hospital on Wednesday and have spent the past few days getting used to being a family of 4. Actually, we are a cozy family of 6 right now since my mom and sister are here to help out. I have to admit that the transition to 2 kids is much easier when someone else is doing all of the cooking, cleaning, and laundry! Ben has been adjusting as well as can be expected. He has his breakdowns every now and then, but has been getting lots of extra attention from his Nana and Aunt Kimmie. They have also been able to watch Ella while we spend one on one time together. We even had the chance to go on a special mother/son ice cream date to Haagen Daaz last night! And today Ben and Carl spent the morning at the museum and the evening at the swimming pool. Ben woke last night at 4:00am and when Carl walked in he said "Rock baby Ben", so I think he is definitely aware of all of the attention Ella receives from me! Although he ignores her for most of the day, he does stop to give her kisses and fist bumps and will always let someone know when she is crying! He has also introduced her to all of his beloved Tide bottles and shown her how to wash clothes!

This is a picture of Ben smelling the beautiful flowers we received from Grandpa and Grandma Myers.Getting pictures of Ella with her eyes open is not an easy thing to do considering that she has her days and nights completely mixed up. She's not really all that fussy in the middle of the night, she's just a non-stop eater and completely awake and alert! This morning the reality of having 2 kids really hit me. After a rather sleepless night, I was trying to squeeze in a couple of hours before beginning my day. About an hour after I had fallen asleep, Carl came in our room carrying a screaming, hungry baby with Ben in tow blowing obnoxiously into a plastic flute while chanting "Momma, Momma!". Ella received a good report at her newborn well check yesterday. Dr K was impressed that she was already gaining the weight she lost in the first couple of days back and she ranked in the 97th percentile for height, weight, and head circumference! She is a little jaundiced, but we are just going to watch her for now and pray that she does not have to receive photo therapy like Ben did. She is a much better eater than Ben was and I think that her color is improving today. Aunt Kimmie and Ella have been reading lots of books together during her wakeful times. I hope that she's as happy when she's awake as she is while she's sleeping.

Quality snuggle time

Fun times with Nana and Aunt Kimmie include running through the sprinklers in the morning. . . .

playing London Bridges . . . . .

Duck, Duck Goose . . . . . And a new favorite - Hide and Seek! Ben likes to be both the hider and seeker!

Thanks for all of the sweet comments, emails, and cards. It has been so nice to hear from everyone! We are feeling truly blessed right now!

Ella Grace

Ella is here! She was born yesterday on June 22nd at 4:46 pm and measured 9 lbs., 9 oz. and 22.5'' long. Everyone is healthy, Ella is perfect, and Mom is doing as well as can be expected (she is perfect as well!).

This is how Ella looked before the makeup!

Aunties Myrna and Marcia stopped by home for a couple of hours to watch Ben so Nana could drop by the hospital to visit Ella. Our friends Rochelle and Jeff were able to visit as well. Ben visited the hospital this morning but never got close enough to Ella for a picture. He preferred to look at the ducks out the window!

We hope to come home tomorrow morning. Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers!

Weekend Celebrations

Today is Ben's 2nd birthday! We celebrated with a small group of friends last night with a Mickey Mouse party. They have been on-call for this party for the last couple of weeks since we didn't know when I was going to go into labor!

I know that Ben had a great time with all of this friends because he gave me a recap of his party when he woke up this morning. The first thing he said was "chocolate cake" and then proceeded to talk about blowing out his candles, eating cold ice cream, and listing off the names of those who were at the party!

Since Ben is still into doing laundry, we bought him a washer/dryer set off ebay for his birthday. He was very excited when he opened it this morning and spent the rest of the day "washing".

He opened more gifts this afternoon and was excited that he got to eat cake and blow out candles again this evening!

The best part of Ben's birthday was definitely the fact that Nana Bev was here to celebrate with him. We are so thankful for the miracle of God's protection over her when she was hit by a car last year on his 1st birthday!

Today was extra special since Ben was able to celebrate Father's Day with the World's Best Daddy! Happy Father's Day to our dads and grandpas back in IL. We love and miss you all!

Little Fish

Ben is turning into quite the little swimmer this summer. Since it has been in the mid 90's these past few weeks, we have spent most mornings at the pool. Ben has been working hard at swimming under water this week, and we were excited to show Carl his progress at the pool last night.

These pictures are of Ben swimming from the steps to me.

The next two pictures show Ben swimming from me to the side. We still need to work on having him pull his head up once he gets there!

Ben has also been spending a lot of time swimming with his ring on. He feels pretty independent moving around the pool all by himself. He can spin in circles . . . . .

Blow bubbles while kicking. . . . . .

And can swim the entire length of the pool. This makes for some amazing afternoon naps!!

We are still working on getting him to kick his feet more when he swims. He tends to push his bottom up in the air and then he kind of stays in one place!

Blowing more bubbles

Last night he also started swimming between Carl and me and then surprised us when he wanted to swim underneath a raft. He had been sitting on the pool float, pretending that it was a boat. He loved it when I would swim underneath of him because the bottom was mesh, so he could see me. When Carl asked if he wanted to try it, he said Yes! I was definitely a little skeptical, but Carl counted to three and then pushed him under the float. I caught him on the other side and he loved it! He took a breath, said MORE! and then dipped his head under water to do it again! It was fun to put on the goggles and watch him underwater because he had his eyes wide open and a huge grin on his face! He did this at least a dozen times in a row, but then I thought he needed a break. This morning I asked him what he did at the pool last night and he told me that he swam under the boat - and then followed it up with "eyes hurt". Now we just have to convince him to wear some goggles!