Cherry Lover

Ella is a fruit girl - always has been. And here are a few pictures to document her love of this time of year... cherry season.

What a beautiful belly! Haha.

Pretty as a Picture

A local photographer here in town needed models for a dress/hat maker's portfolio. Eleanor was selected randomly from a pool of us who offered our little girls to smile for the camera while playing dress up. :) So, we had our mini photo session yesterday morning. Ella did wonderfully and Alissa already has a few shots posted on her website. Check them out at www.alissaferullophotography.com/blog. They are pretty cute!

Silliness

Pure silliness. Seth took this crazy picture of me, Ella demanded to see it and then she proceeded to "copy" me. Of course, once we got the camera turned on her, she wouldn't get her hands out of the way. But, here's the proof that we are slightly crazy around here on occassion. :)

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

From June 10:

Ruthie left the afternoon of Seth's B-Day. It was great to have a chance to celebrate a bit with her and then Eleanor and I made "Little Cakes" for our own celebration. I let Eleanor pick the type of cake and frosting... so Seth ended up with "pink cake" (strawberry) and "choc-lot" frosting. I attempted to save the girly, child-like flavors with fresh strawberries for the tops. At least they looked pretty! Seth took most of them to work the next day (where they were devoured) and his co-workers said they were wonderful and tasted like strawberry and chocolate milkshakes! Ha ha.

Happy Birthday, Seth! We love you lots and hope you have a great year!

Swimming Pool Fun

Grandma Tippin came to visit a couple of weeks ago and she bought Ella this fun wading pool. This collage documents Ella's first dip into the pool. Since then it's gotten a lot of additional use. :)

Gramma Tippin Came to Visit

Back in the first week of June, Gramma Tippin came to visit Eleanor. We had a blast! So much fun, in fact, that blogging certainly didn't get done. :) We went walking, took trips to the park, ate ice cream, talked, read books, went shopping, planted flowers... the list goes on. Thank you, Ruthie, for the visit - we enjoyed ourselves very much.

100 Days to Go

This month has flown by... really time has flown since about mid-May... and I feel like I've blinked and suddenly I'm heading into my 3rd trimester of this pregnancy! After posting this morning, I checked the blog and realized the ticker says there are only 100 days left for us to go! Right now that seems impossibly short. when it is 105 degrees and I'm even more largely pregnant I'm sure time will slow down again, but we have so many upcoming visitors, camping trips and vacation plans on our horizon the summer might just continue to blow on by.

So, happy 100 days (+ or - a few) of watery comfort, Baby! We are getting very excited to meet you!

More Sliding Fun

June has been peppered with gorgeous, 80 degree weather as well as rain, rain and thunderstorms. Eleanor has taken full advantage of each sunny, warm day and spends as much time outside as we will let her. When Mommy needs to get things done at home (and thus won't take her to the park, water fountain, swimming pool or to get ice cream - truly her favorite things right now) she settles for lots and lots of running in our yard, chasing London and using her new slide. Of course, she shares the slide with her special doll friends.

Potty Trained!

It's official! Eleanor is potty trained. We are SO proud of her and all the efforts she's put in. Since our trip to Seattle Ella hasn't had ANY poop accidents and has only had 2 other accidents - that's in 2 1/2 weeks! She is all about her new big girl undies that she gets to wear all the time and is a champ now at telling us when she has to go. (Yeah for no more timers!) She still wears a "Mickey diaper" at night, and it is still wet when she wakes up, but she keeps her underpants dry for naps and during the day. I'm relieved we are "finished" with this part of her training, but I'm also impressed at how well she took to this round of training.

Here is the big girl with some of her potty charts.

And her feet are sporting "dry pants" stickers.

We've since moved past needing reward charts and stickers, but she is still getting candy rewards. She gets 2 Skittles every time she successfully uses the potty and gets a Dum-Dum sucker each time she goes poop (thanks, Hannah, for the timer idea!). Soon we'll begin to faze these out as well.

24 Weeks

Gestational Age: 24 weeks, 2 days

Weight Gain: 8 lbs (again! eek!)

Blood Pressure: 102/63

Fetal Heartrate: 141 BPM

Last Friday we had our "big" prenatal appointment of this journey - our 24 week ultrasound. I was concerned about my weight gain this month, but I'm very happy that I'm feeling better, so I'm trying to focus on that rather than the weight itself. Also, I'm super pleased that my blood pressure has gone down again. I don't think anyone else was worried about it, but I was concerned that it just kept creeping up and up.

At this stage in pregnancy, I'm feeling big, tired and happy. I'm hoping I can get back into a really consistent exercise routine and can make some good adjustments to my diet. I'm excited to report that I haven't thrown up for a month! And, the acid reflux I was having such trouble with last month seems to be under control - if I'm careful about what I eat and when I eat it. I have had several headaches again recently, but I'm feeling pretty good about that, too. I'm still holding to my wheat/gluten-free, dairy-free diet, but I've done horribly with the sugar-free part. That is my biggest goal this next month - lay off the sweets. :)

This month marked the beginning of real maternity clothes, not exclusively, but mostly. I'm still struggling with maternity clothes feeling way too big, but regular clothes are definitely feeling too small now. This morning I pulled out the ol' rubber band for my regular jeans and wondered why I had forgotten that trick before now...

Having our ultrasound was wonderful and helped me return to a place of greater peace regarding this child. For some reason, I'm had a lot of fears surrounding this kiddo - probably because I've been so sick and therefore haven't felt like I've "enjoyed" Baby quite as much. I also realized I was having trouble conceptualizing this child because of my lack of quiet time during the day and my physical distress. It was a blessing to watch the ultrasound carefully and marvel at each vertebrae in the spine, the way Baby's brain is formed, all those perfect fingers and toes and that beautiful beating heart. Our OB did the ultrasound this time (instead of a ultrasound tech) and that was really fun, too. It was nice to have a lot of the measurements explained in detail and to have a lot of commentary on each body part. The only bummer of the day was that Baby was "hiding" so we didn't get a good picture of Baby's face. We could kind of see one eye, half a nose and part of a mouth. This also means we didn't get any good "photos" of the session since Baby is too big to have a body shot at this point and was not cooperating for a face shot or profile.

Baby is already comfortably positioned head down, facing my spine with Baby's spine lined up with my belly button. Before moving to this position, I was feeling a lot of really violent kicks, punches and bumps, but now things have quieted down a bit. I feel a lot of movement still, but it is usually down pretty low now and I imagine it is elbows and fingers.

Baby is measuring just bigger than average at this point. The ultrasound machine guessed 1 lb, 9 oz. In terms of leg length, head circumference, torso circumference, etc, Baby is measuring about a week ahead of our projected due date. Eleanor always measured a little bit ahead, too, so I assume I just grow them big. :) The interesting thing this time was our OB talked about the Baby being "bigger than average" rather than my due date being off. This actually makes way more sense to my brain now than our experience with Ella - when she measured big they kind of wondered if our dates were off or something - so we have no sense that Baby will come earlier than expected, I just have to be careful about my sugar intake so as not to end up with a 10 pounder!

So, I will leave you with this picture, taken right at 24 weeks. Seth and I got all dressed up and went out for a nice dinner for his birthday (thanks, Ruthie!).

When you hear strange "screaming"...

from upstairs...

this is what you just might find:

Yep. In the living room! I just don't quite know whether to praise the cat for being such a good "hunter" or cry for this cute little rabbit. Altogether, though, it was not what I wanted to find in my living room and we will quickly fix the hole in the screen door that allowed the ruckus to make its way inside!

Through Daddy's Eyes

Since Bethany is the primary contributor on this blog, she is able to share some of her wonderful motherly perspective. Every once in a while, though, it might be nice to share some of what Daddy sees:

Fixing her hew wagon

Snuggling with Mommy

Post shower warm cuddles with mommy

Being a total ham

And of course, playing in a field

On her way to go fishing on a Daddy & Daughter(s) Fishing Trip