Senorita Cuteness Strikes again...

Ella's new leotard for the dancer.

She danced around the house in it spinning.

She liked it so much she had to wear it on our family walk.
Of course for the walk we put pants underneath it and a sweater on top,
but the skirt was still sticking out.

Ella in Fin's car seat.
She seems to like to show us that
she really isn't "too big" for the items
we keep using that line for.
The distractions we use in that moment
only mean that she goes back later to prove us wrong.
Thank goodness Graco makes strong swings and carseats!

This is Fin's normal reaction to all of Ella's antics.

So tomorrow (monday), is my first day of work since I PASSED the real estate exam on Friday. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be and took about an hour to finish. Not too shabby!
I can't believe it, but I am officially a real estate agent. I will let you all know how things work out as I figure out how to balance work and family. I know it will be a struggle to maintain that balance, but I look forward to the challenge. Fin and Ella will be spending the morning with Carrie so that I can get situated in the office. For now I am keeping my days short so that Fin gets plenty of mommy time, and we don't stress Ella with too many new changes as well. A few changes at a time, there is no need to rush into this, but it will be good to get the ball rolling!

Reason to Celebrate?

I take my real estate licensing exam this afternoon, so hopefully all will go well and we will have many reasons to celebrate this weekend!

Thank goodness Fin is going to give me a couple hours of sleep, which I am heading off to enjoy now. I hope to update tomorrow with some good news!

The Sound of Silence

Photo from our front door
towards neighbors house on Tuesday.

As we are still battling colds here, things have been pretty quiet and low key except some sniffles and coughing. Poor Fin has lost his little voice and his cries are really pathetic sounding right now. They waiver between the sounds of a cat whimpering and the raspy sound a rope makes when pulled against something. Hard to describe, but even harder to listen to as a parent. At least he is showing signs of improvement as well.

Family Photo

This is our most recent family photo. If only Fin didn't look like he were sleeping or about to sneeze! At least his new photos (in the new post listed before this) show marked improvement in the past 2 weeks with photo posing. We hope everyone has a great week! And we will try to stay on top of the blog this week as well.

Fin's Photoshoot

Fin's best "Blue Steel" look.
(An inside joke for those that have seen Zoolander!)

What a cutie! And check out that head control...

Fin had his first solo photoshoot this past Friday. He was so sleepy when we got there, but we woke up the grump and by the end he was posing like a pro. Here are the 2 free poses that we chose. So here ends our picture run until Ella's 2nd birthday. Enjoy our photo addiction!

Celebration!

Princess Ella playing with beads.
Because what party is complete without them?

Ella sq. helping the packing process for the Brindisis.

Grayson was left holding the mop, cleaning up their mess.

Layla was just sitting pretty, laughing at all the antics.

Ella, with her superior catlike reflexes,
was "chasing" the floating DVD symbol on the TV.
Yes people, she is entertained by a screensaver...

Earlier this week, before the colds set in, we went north to celebrate the acceptance of the house bid for our friends the Brindisis. Celeste and Grayson also joined in on the celebration. We let the girls play in the boxes for packing, and the younger siblings just looked on with mild confusion. We are so excited for Jenn, Danny, Eleanor, and Layla as they begin the next step in the house buying process, the inspection. Hope you all enjoy the pictures!

Big Kid at heart...

Mike and Ella played for a long time last night with Ella's stacking cardboard blocks. It was a great lesson in cause and effect and basic physics for Ella, and just a good time for daddy. Today Ella came down with a cold, that makes her little eyes look so heavy. I am hoping for an early bedtime all around tonight. We'll see if Fin agrees.

Ella's Dancing Ways

Ella has been dancing lately anytime she hears music (unless it is in front of a large audience). When we tried to capture it on camera last night, as mentioned in the yesterdays all written post, she noticed the camera and yelled out "cheese". Ah, cuteness.

Enjoy this and the 2 new videos in the previous post!

Fin's First Moments and His "reject" button

Video one is of Fin's first hours in the hospital. He was so calm even then. He is a sweet baby, and we were so proud to add him to the family. He was so little, squirmy, and sneezey. It kind of sounds like I am describing the cast off 8th dwarf, but most little newborns sneeze a lot. We have been trying to make an effort to get similar footage of Fin to what we had of Ella. For photos it was a heck of a lot easier to have photoshoots with one child, but having 2 children means that you nearly always have one that is in the mood for some form of photography.

Video two has a back ground story to it. My father had a chin cleft that was VERY prominent, and my mom used to tell a funny story about how when God was inspecting babies coming to earth he would poke the cheeks of the perfect babies, thus giving them dimples. When he came across a not so perfect baby, he would push on their chin and say reject...
She may not remember telling this story, in fact he may have been the first to tell it, but regardless of who originally told it, the story stuck with me. That said, we all loved my dad's reject button very much and it is a good story now that Griffin might have a slight chin cleft. We will have to see how his face develops as he loses the baby softness over the next few months and years. Right now, I just looking at him and his little smile makes mine wider!!!




Video 2 -top



Video 1-bottom

I am so ashamed!!!

While I realize that none of us are perfect, I do try my best to avoid easily avoidable mistakes. However my late night post last night had so many typos and grammatical errors that came from editing it poorly. I still am appalled at my where for wear. In my defense, I do think that came from editing a sentence fragment out and combining the sentences poorly, leaving a where that I read as wear. Ah what the brain does to reading in the wee hours.

Anyway, there will be no pictures tonight since I can't get our multimedia computer to turn on. I will look into that tomorrow, but for now, we are back to the written description of our days activities....

Fin ate, did some light sleeping, ate some, did some heavy sleeping, and had a couple of lovely tummy time sessions. I got some organization out of the way, wrote a few more thank you notes, played in the glorious sunshine with Ella, and did a little filing for the new career. Ella danced with her stuffed dog, ate perogies for the first time, fell asleep waiting for lunch, took a shower, and played with some vinyl window clings that she likes to stick to herself as much as the windows. We tried to get some video of her dancing with the dog (which I will post as soon as we get the computer working), but as soon as she saw the camera, she stopped and clearly said, "CHEESE!" Do you think we use cameras too often when one of her clearest words is cheese?

Fantastic Fin

I know I said in the last post that I was going to try to drag these out this week, but I couldn't wait on this update any longer though...


Fin flipped over on Friday!!!!

Now I realize that at 4 weeks this is more of a fluke than a real accomplishment, but I am still excited. First of all, he did it the "right" way (from front to back). He has been doing pushups building up those arm muscles for about 2 or so weeks now, but Friday one of his little arms collapsed under him and he rolled onto his back. He looked very surprised!!!

Ella flipped for the first time at 3 weeks, but did it the funny way from back to front because she was a squirmer that was really mad and got herself going enough to flip over. Just a recap for anyone who cares...

So that is the latest update on our amazing son.

Our incredible daughter is starting to sleep through the night again after all the turmoil of a new brother, visitors and a cold. We are all grateful and she has been a lot more like her old self now that she is getting more sleep. She has also started to speak more clearly and in full sentences. It is still very hard to understand her, and she mumbles like her father, but we are thrilled when we hear things like "That is a truck", or "I did it". Ah the simple pleasures of being a parent. Really it means more to me to hear Ella say mama (which she started doing today!!!) than winning any statue, even one as recognized as an Oscar. It melts my heart just to hear her utter my title or to ask for kisses.

I hope Halle Berry and any other new mom feels that way too sometime soon.

More photos from the Salernos' visit

Ella with Grandma S and Grandpa along the sculpture walk
on the Puget sound in Seattle.

Ella crawling through an exhibit at the Children's museum.

The last day of the Salernos' visit (last Monday for those keeping track), we were still having wonderful weather so we took a walk along the sculpture walk in Seattle. It was beautiful as always, and also like always smelled bad (it really does smell like a trash can, why is that?). We had a nice walk and then headed to the Seattle Center to the Children's Museum. Ella had been napping in her stroller, but I made her get up and play since I had purposely not taken her here before so that she could enjoy it with Grandma and Grandpa. Well I have to learn that when a child is tired, you let them sleep... She woke up great and really enjoyed it over all, but I was a little disappointed that she didn't seem to be as into it as I thought she would be. Part of it could have been that we didn't have time to explore the whole place, but she was really most entertained by the make believe section that had a store where she could "buy" groceries, a firetruck where she could "drive" the engine and wear the gear, and a pizza shop where she could learn the finer points of running her own corner restaurant. The camera battery ran out after the first photo at the museum, so I only have the one to commemorate the event. I will do better next time.

Later in the day things were a bit rough as she really needed to get a little more sleep. We had a friend watch Ella and Fin and the adults all went out for a goodbye dinner. It was lovely and we really enjoyed the weather, the company and the new experiences of the Salernos visit.

I have more info to post, but with all the nice weather this past week, we have been trying to get out and enjoy it. So I don't have as many pictures as normal, but more exciting tidbits that I will try to drag out over the week for those of you that check daily. So you hope for some rain for us, and I will get myself organized to update this more often!

Ella and Gizmo

At the park visit, we met a dog named Gizmo that Ella LOVED. Here are some of her playing with him. I think Ella and I both hope a dog is in our future (in a couple of years, I can't do puppy and newborn!)

The Salerno's visit Part 1

Grandpa helping on the slide.

Grandma S helping on the open bridge.

Ella kissing daddy through the bars.

Ella and Grandma smiling for the camera.

Ella ready to go down the big kid slide. They grow up so fast!!!

Ella playing with her ball.

Ella and Gma S coming out of the tunnel slide.

Our family leaving the park.
(Fin is strapped to Renate's front.)

The weather was so wonderful for the Salerno's visit we wanted to be out as much as possible. Saturday we went to the park near our house and played. It was fun for everyone, especially Ella. Fin just slept bundled against Renate the whole trip.

Typing one handed, while holding a baby is tricky. I had forgotten that! Blogs take longer if I don't wait for naps...

Fin Size Update

Who says babies don't smile?
Fin seems to be ahead of the curve...or have gas...

Fin may have started out smaller than Ella at birth, but he seems to be making up for it! Above are 2 photos:

1. Is of Fin today in the same sleeper as Ella in the second photo. Today Fin is 3 weeks old.

2. The photo of Ella asleep on Uncle Adam was taken when she was 5 weeks old. Amazing how quickly they grow!