Santa Baby

Someone just couldn't wait until Christmas . . . and by "someone," I mean Brady; if you think grandmas are bad about playing dress up with babies, you should see this daddy. When we were shopping for the baby before she was born I had to restrain him from buying her Halloween costumes that were on display, reminding him that she wasn't coming until after Halloween. He was pretty insistent that she should have a Santa suit for her first Christmas, though. I have to admit, it was a good idea. Last Sunday we tried the outfit on her because we were worried it might not fit by Christmas. Turns out she had a little room to grow still, so she may be reprising the outfit this Friday. Here are the results of our photo shoot that night. (Oh, and I should also mention here that this is your Christmas card from us for anyone who is reading it.)

Here we have pre-sneezing Santa.


Cranky Santa is brokering a position on the "naughty" list.

I call this "Santa's Ennui"--I'm sorry, are we boring you, Santa?

"Santa in Repose."

Ah--daring!

"Beauty Sleep"--cuteness can be quite fatiguing.

And, finally, the money shot. A contented Santa.

Here are some shots of a few other things Ellie has been doing lately.

Lots of sleeping (as long as I'm not sleeping she seems to do this just fine--she is getting pretty good at sleeping at night now, though).

Staring at the ceiling fan--one of her very favorite activities.

And hiccuping. She does this A LOT. This video is a bit long--more than a full minute of hiccups; I am experimenting with compressing video files, so I wanted to see if this would work and still upload in a reasonable amount of time. It's fine if you don't watch the whole thing. I think my mom will replay it plenty of times anyway.

One Month

Hard to believe it's been over a month already. Our little Ellie doesn't seem quite so little anymore, tipping the scales at a whopping 9 pounds 3 ounces at her one month check up.

How many chins can you count? She's really filling out.

One of Ellie's feats of strength. She's been doing this since the day she was born. The nurses had to take a blood sample from her arm that day. When they tried to straighten her arm, Ellie refused and sat up when they pulled on her arms instead. Abs of steal. Her strength has earned her one of her many nicknames "Teeny Houdini"--she can break out of any swaddle or wrap we put her in. One time I had her in a wrap with velcro to hold it in place (we've even resorted to duct tape). She couldn't quite get the wrap open, but I noticed a tiny hand pulled in through her jammies and sneaking its way up through the neck to break loose.


She has a really strong neck too but is not too fond of tummy time yet. Here she's looking at the ceiling fan in our bedroom. For some reason she loves ceiling fans. Other quirks: she loves bouncing (when we hold her and bounce on the giant exercise ball). She likes to click her tongue. She is fluent in Ewok (we're pretty sure--she sounds like one anyway); we aren't sure what other alien languages she knows, though she has made some good attempts at Wookie as well.

She is a good sport. Part of the trouble of being a baby girl is that you end up being the subject for dress up for Mommy and Grandma from time to time. We have restrained ourselves a lot.

Favorite pastime with Daddy. Or rather, Daddy's favorite pastime with Ellie when he gets home from work.

See?

Apparently it's Mommy's favorite pastime too. Caught sleeping on the job. Oops.


Another highlight during this first month was getting to meet some family members.
Here she is with Aunt Jamie and cousins Katelyn and Collin. They were traveling through on their way to visit some other family for Thanksgiving. We were so glad to get to spend the day with them and wish they lived closer!

Katelyn was quite enamored with her 3-week-old baby cousin; the feeling was mutual, I'm sure.

Brady taught Katelyn his other favorite game to do with the baby. I'm still not sure how much the baby enjoys this one.

My dad came out Thanksgiving weekend to join Grandma, so Ellie got pretty spoiled with lots of adult attention. Turns out Grandpa is quite a good babysitter, and we sure put him to work! Ellie had a bit of a rough weekend and so we were all taking turns holding and walking/bouncing with her. Sadly, this is the only picture we got of her with Grandpa. Time seems to go so fast and we forget to get the photos when everything gets calmed down. But Ellie and Grandpa did have some good quality time together--she sure knows how to get the men in her family wrapped around her little finger, and Grandpa was more than willing to go along with this set up.

We are starting to feel like we are getting our bearings after having our world turned upside down a month ago. We never thought we'd be so interested in diapers, so excited to hear a burp, or so relieved to hear snoring. But we sure love our girl and can't get enough of her.