Our Family

Our Family

Thursday, December 26, 2013

Month 8: The holidays

Well, we're fully moved into our new house. After coming home from our latest travels we walked into the house and I thought "man, is this really ours?" I guess you can say it still hasn't quite set in, but it also feels oddly normal. I don't really understand how both of those can exist, but they do. Ellie is changing so much. My sweet girl seems to have changed the most these past few weeks and even past few days. She is such a delight.

Her favorite thing to sag is bah bah bah In a high pitched voice. She really exentuates the mouth movements, puckering her upper lip and opening her mouth really wide. 

She learned to blow pretend bubbles after watching her nana chew her gum. 

She gives me beautifully sloppy open mouth kisses on my cheeks and greets me with wonderful hugs if I have been gone for a while.  

She laughs and squeals when rand and I smooch. I think he's the most thrilled about that one ;)

She treats her baby walker like a bumper car. She is such a hoot in it, motoring around everywhere, chasing Kia, and charging  at people. Watch out!

She is learning to walk and fall. I've noticed this has been the scariest development for me so far. Letting her learn to fall is so hard, I really want to encase her in bubble wrap so she never feels pain. So slowly I have been able to let her experience the joys of independence. Rand suggested we try a helmet. I said, what about her face. Then he suggested a face mask. Ha. 

She can say Momma! It's so incredibly sweet to have that name fall from her lips!

She recently got a pair of crocs so we both match. Hers are a lot purple and mine are purple. 

She really has taken an interest in reading books and enjoys flipping the pages.

We have been teaching her to sign but she hasn't really caught on. When she is full she moves her head to one side and won't open her mouth back up. 

We're teaching her to high five and she is staring to catch on! 

She loves holding your hand and speed walking to different parts of the room. 

She is starting to be able to focus on things and tasks for longer periods of time. She enjoys playing with her close pins and blocks, dumping them out of containers and putting them back in.

Her favorite foods are avacados and bananas, 

She enjoyed her first ice skating experience with us. We were in skates and she was in a sled and then... She fell asleep, staring up at the sky!

The holidays were wholesome. We enjoyed Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with Grandma and grandpa seay, uncle Bryn, and auntie Alys. Such sweet memories. games, food dipping, a fondue night, yummy food, communion, toasts, Christmas light watching, monsters university, and skating were just a few of the fun things we did. Our dear friends Whit and Kyle visited us for a short and very wholesome weekend too. 

A trip to my parents house in the twin cities capped everything off. We enjoyed shopping trips to ikea, trader joes, the mall of America, yummy meals prepared by my mom and our our favorite Chinese takeout and punch on New Year's Eve. such a sweet time with family. Especially my younger sister. What a sweet lady she is. My favorite part of the weekend was a quick escape one morning to dun bros where I spent some time journaling and reading.

It felt like a whirlwind of a holiday season. Moving, Christmas, friends, and family. I find myself still processing these past 4 weeks. My heart feels heavy grief over the time being over and return to normal life. Goodbyes are hard especially with those we love and I find my heart feeling heavy over the departures experienced this past month. I would never take any of the sweet memories of this past month back. There is such beauty with my heart coming alive to that grief. I finally get to taste the sweetness of true relationship with others. To be loved and to love. That is the source of this love sweet Jesus. 

 So I have allowed myself to sit in the pain of that grief today and letting the tears fall as they will.

 And I would do it again and again. 



Monday, December 2, 2013

Month 7. Teeth & Moving Day Around the Corner

I love this nugget more and more each day. Seriously, she blows me away.

Her bottom two teeth are coming in! No crazy stories to go along with it either.  They just sort of popped through.

She doesn't seem to like to be touched as often. She despises putting on clothes. She has started pushing your hand away if you try and touch her tummy or hair.

She fights sleep. Most days she takes two twenty minute naps. Sometime three, but honestly, I don't know how she's not more exhausted during the day!

Her new favorite food is a rice cake. She goes crazy over them. I started pureeing my own foods this month too and it has been fun.  Squash, pumpkin, banana, are just a few. 

She is learning to play differently with her toys. She's able to interact with them more purposefully. It's so exciting to watch this part of her change.

She hasn't quite figured out how to roll around and crawl, but she is starting to figure it out. Her world is getting bigger. 

Daddy likes to sing his good morning song to her when she wakes up. It goes:
"Good morning, Lou, how are you? I hope your doing well. We hope you slept real good and your ready for the day 'cause its morn-ing time!" 

Shes been waking up again more in the night. It will be refreshing to let her cry it out more often when her bedrooms neighboring  wall isn't the neighbors.

She likes to talk to herself more while she is playing. Sometimes it seems like she is saying hi or all done.

We're teaching her signs for words like milk, all done, more and change. Rand had been teaching her more and we thought she had caught on some, but most of the time she doesn't seem to notice.

After her early morning feeding, she has been coming into our room to snuggle with us while we wake up. Probably my favorite part of the day.

A friend of mine was soothing her the other day by having her sway back and fourth standing and she seems to really enjoy that. Now she's starting to add little steps to it, which is fun. 

She started pooping solid! In some sense it's a plus because it's not as messy, but MAN does it smell.

Her hair is starting to get a lot longer and thicker.  Today it was tussled and going all sorts of directions.  Were not sure if she is going to have wavier hair like her dad or not. 

She went the the a YMCAs child are for the first time while mommy worked out the other day. It was really exciting for both her and I!

I sort of realized how my image is so import to me and I have felt my sin carry over unto Ellie, with more of a weight being put on how she looks to...well you reading this blog, the people at Target, or my instagram followers.
Little things like, headbands, cute baby clothes, the latest and greatest stuff, often come from a place of image management and making sure that I come across in a hipster mom sort of mom way.
So, basically, I have noticed that operating inside me.
 Cute baby stuff, nope, not wrong at all, but I have started to sense that energy behind my instagram pictures and latest purchases.
It typically is accompanied by a sort of panicky feeling or not feeling okay if ___.
The longing in my heart is for her to know she is treasured just as she is because she is.
So, as Jesus has started showing me this, it has been neat to watch him lead my heart into his confidence and security of who I really am and watch that overflow unto how I interact, and well, dress Ellie. So there is some heart stuff for you. 

Were closing our house TOMORROW!
By Sunday night, we will be out of our apartment and in our own home. It feels crazy. It's been incredible to reflect on the process, together, Rand and I. It feels really neat to have accomplished such a feat as a team, leaning together, alongside each other? Asking for help, when needed, but allowing ourselves to sit in the process of being first time homebuyers together has allowed a new strength and confidence to emerge in our marriage, It's been messy. We've felt, well a lot of things ranging from obscenities to tears of happiness, but it's nearly here at the doorstep and were overjoyed!

I recently joined a fitness center and have truly been loving my me time of exercising and burning off steam. A membership gets you access to both choice fitness and the YMCA, but I am noticing I favor the Y more. The atmosphere seems a lot more relaxed and less showy. AND. The child care is free. I am eager to continue to find classes that I enjoy and enjoy fulfilling the movement my body seems to crave by the end of the day. Going to new classes can feel intimidating, but I find my heart more ready to enter that anxious feeling. It's neat to see Jesus teaching my heart to trust him.

We spent Thanksgiving in the cities with my parents and savored some time with extended family, playing games, and eating lots of yummy carbs.  My sister got back from Italy on Thanksgiving day and it was incredibly special to get to spend a lot of time with her. Another highlight was gettting to go to Trader Joes. Seriously, if they were only in Grand Forks...Ellie is a pretty good traveler and the trip there and back were wonderful. Hopefully someday soon we will be making the commute in a killer van. But seriously, I really want a van. Sliding doors would be heaven.

First thing that is going up in our house is the Christmas Tree and hopefully the next thing is a kitty. OUR HOUSE! Eek. 


Daddy's warby parker try ons :)

Meat Pie Party.

This face.

Family Time in Stillwater.

Bubble Vest. 

First Halloween.

Grandpa Time at Thanksgiving. 

Auntie Time.