Finally . . .

So, before I post about life right now . . . I can hear the groans from all of you that you haven't yet seen Ellie on the blog. So without further ado - Eleanor Lorraine Wolf (3 months late, oops!)

Lauren and Ellie at the hospital minutes after birth


Matt and Ellie at an hour of life


Our hospital stay went very well!!! Ellie and I were well taken care of. It is nice to work with such wonderful people and be taken care of by them. One of my nurses was so protective of us and our alone time. She wouldn't even let my clinic nurses in to see me. It was so nice to be able to have some peace and quiet. This experience was much different than after Stephen. I was able to actually enjoy spending time with her. Not to mention being able to walk a few hours after having her, not a few days! The Lord was so wonderful to us during the whole experience.

My mom came to visit when Ellie was one week old. It was awesome to have the help and company for two weeks. Her stay encompassed my birthday as well. Having her here for that was just like when I was little - yummy carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. Nobody makes it as good as mom! While she was here we got to just enjoy each other.

Three generations


Here are a few pictures of our beautiful little girl:
Ellie in her fancy blanket


Lauren and Ellie at 5 weeks


Ellie is growing super fast. I can't believe how fast she is growing up. Her smiles light up my day. She is full of smiles for everyone. She does sleep very well, but has decided that 4 am is a time to snuggle. She eats for the first time of the day around 5am so I can get on a schedule for work to pump. She is happy once she gets snuggled into my left arm. Notice I said left, it doesn't work so well snuggling on the right side. I would say 2 nights a week she makes it through the night (9pm to 5am.) Yesterday, she reached for her first toy and got hold of it. She wouldn't let go for a long time. I was so proud! I continue to do loads and loads of laundry with her. She spits up all the time, I go through at least two shirts a day, numerous bibs, and outfits. She is smiley and happy through it all though.

In the course of enjoying our new addition, we continue to marvel at Stephen and all the new things he does on a daily basis. Right now his vocabulary is expanding by the second. Anything we say, he tried to repeat right away. It is so wonderful and fascinating. This weekend he has been using three word sentences, verbs in tense, and nouns like her, she, him, etc. I am continually in awe of how wonderful he is.

His favorite food is sushi. Tuna and salmon are favorites. He can eat almost an entire bento box at our favorite restaurant. He shares our tempura, sushi, california rolls, sashimi, edamame, and miso soup. Tonight we went out for Italian food, but we passed our sushi restaurant. He knows the way to the restaurant and where it is located. As we passed he got so excited about sushi - "Hooray, sushi, mommy!" Then I told him we weren't going to sushi, but to an italian restuarant. From the backseat, I got an "Oh." with the tone of severe diappointment, not excitement. We are blessed to have such an excellent eater on our hands. He will eat us out of house and home.

Stephen is also into music. In the car he routinely requests ABBA, Pat Benotar, Faith Hill, and the "Hallelujah" song from Shrek. He can sing the chorus from the Hallelujah song, some children's bible songs, and "I Love You Lord" and "Shout to the Lord." The last two songs are the songs Matt and I respectively sing to him at bedtime. He can sing Matt's song all the way through. It is incredible. Yesterday at church I took him to the nursery a little earlier than normal. He had a pouty, sad face on when he heard the music continuing and he wasn't in the service. It broke my heart. I think we have a little musician on our hands.

Here are some pictures of our little boy. The first is our first big injury. We were playing in the kitchen and he encountered the barstool. He got a pretty good cut. Nothing that a little dermabond, chocolate chip cookies, and the movie "Cars" could not fix. Fortunately, the cut is hiden in the eyebrow. He walked around saying "Boo-boo, eye!" for weeks.


Ah, potty training. Slowly, but surely, Here he is getting his treat for sitting on the potty.


Stephen enjoying the snow! He is now enjoying sledding down our driveway. It is so much fun to listen to him giggle when he does it.


Brothely love. He is so proctective of Eleanor (that is what he call his sister 100% of the time.) He lets me know when something is wrong - pacifier is out, she is spitting up, or sleeping.


Stephen goes to daycare with a lot of girls. Two of the girls are daughters of another ED physician and their mom is an OB (my OB!!). Stephen loves Sierra and Sedona. At Thanksgiving, I got them all lined up like the three little monkeys. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. They are so cute.


I will get some more recent pictures up on the blog later this week!