The Rundown

I am so amazed at how fast time goes by!! Elsie will be 6 weeks old on Saturday and I'm not quite sure where all the time has gone. With Maia, David and I were always so excited for the next phase....the smiles, cooing, rolling over, eating real food, etc, etc. But this time around I have found myself not wanting Elsie to grow up, knowing that it just happens too fast!! And in trying to keep up with life, blogging has definitely taken the back-burner....sooooo here is the quick rundown on what we've been up to the past few weeks... I guess I'll start with Easter--on Saturday before Easter we had a little Easter Egg Hunt for Maia in our backyard. As you can see from the pictures, she absolutely LOVED it. If any of you know me very well, you know that Maia doesn't get candy hardly at all, so when she opened up the first egg and saw what was inside, she was completely elated...I think the picture does a good job of capturing her feelings!!
Then on Sunday, we did church and then got together with our good friends the Evan's, Shaw's and Shaheen's for a delicious Easter dinner and some fun games. I would post pictures of our fun night, but I think it's a little too after-the-fact and I don't want to get too overwhelming with my marathon posts! Anyway, here are the girls in their matching Easter dresses...not the best pictures, but what can you expect trying to get a newborn and a 2 year old to cooperate?!Then last week we some warm weather and decided to take Maia to the Zoo on Friday afternoon. We went with our friends, the Fox's, and had a great time there. Here is Sean with the kids...
And Elsie was a jewel (like she usually is:) and did this the entire time:
Saturday (the 18th) was mine and David's 6 year anniversary...I can't believe we've been married for 6 years!! Time really does go by too fast! We didn't get to do much because there was a baptism in our ward that David spoke at and then he had a ton of school work to do and was in the lab until about 1am. But that's okay, it doesn't change the way we feel about each other and we know that someday we will be able to celebrate our anniversaries in a killer way (exotic vacations, etc. right?) I am so thankful to be married to such a great man and feel like the luckiest gal in the world! He works so hard for our family and he loves his "3 girls" so much....speaking of which, I can't think of a sweeter thing than seeing a dad interact with his daughters. It is seriously one of the most precious things ever!
Okay, continuing on...somewhere in the mix of the last week or so, I took Elsie in for her 1 month check-up. Here are her stats:
Weight: 10 lbs. 9 oz. (up from her 8 lb. 6 oz. birth weight)
Length: 22 1/4 inches (up from her 21 inch birth length)
So she is definitely growing up and filling out. Her cheeks are getting bigger and bigger and her legs are getting more rolls on them--I love it! Here are a couple of recent pictures of her: (sorry about the red, kind of goopy eyes...she has still been struggling with clogged tear ducts and some days her eyes are so bad!)
She has started smiling and cooing at us in the last week...it is so cute and Maia loves it when she talks to her!
And of course I have to throw in a couple of cute pictures of Maia...she is getting so big too! This first one below has a funny story behind it...on Sunday when we were getting ready for church I told Maia I wanted to take her picture. She said "No, only Megan takes my picture!" and then was mad at me for trying and refused to smile at me. Pathetic that Megan really does take her pictures probably more than me lately!!

Then yesterday was Megan's birthday so the girlfriends got together to go to lunch. We were quite the site to see at the restaurant!! I have to remember that we are not in Utah anymore and people aren't used to seeing so many kids in one place. People kept asking us if we were part of a mom's group or what the big occasion was. They couldn't believe that we were just all friends with that many kids getting together to do lunch!
Last night we continued the party for Megan with a little American Idol and dessert at my house with more girlfriends (most of our husband's were once again in the lab working on projects...it really never ends!). Speaking of Idol...who's it going to be this year? I say Adam will take it, but you never know. He is super good, but super gay, so he kind of bugs.
Anyway, I guess that brings us to today where I am quite tired and ready for bed!! I really should try to keep up with the blog better so I don't have to do these enormously long posts, but don't count on it...garage sale season is coming up you know, so life is just going to get busier!

Our Little Family

I have been so excited to post these pictures!! My good friend Megan took our family pictures a week or so ago and they turned out soooo good!! I had such a hard time deciding which ones to order because there were just too many good ones to choose from. There is such a sweetness to having a newborn baby in the house and I think Megan captured that perfectly...hope you enjoy the pictures as much as we do!
Our growing family...it is so much fun being parents!! Some days are more challenging than others, but we can't imagine our life without our precious girls. I love this family picture!
Our little Elsie girl...
Cute Maia Sue...

I love this one of David and Elsie...she has such a cute little profile and it looks like she is just looking at him intently and you can just feel the love he has for her!

The sisters...so precious!
Momma and Elsie...
My sassy two year old...these pictures fit Maia PERFECTLY!! Especially how she was acting that day...she was not being the most cooperative and had a little bit of attitude going on.
So sweet...Elsie Grace
And just one more...

Time for an Update

I've definitely been needing to update my blog!! Things are going really well around here...I can't believe Elsie is already 2 1/2 weeks old!! The time has just flown by. So far, having two kids hasn't been what I expected (and I mean that in a good way!). I have more energy this time around than I did after I had Maia, which is surprising! Elsie is a sweet, content little baby (hopefully that won't change!) and so it makes me able to spend time with Maia and also get a few things done around the house....Maia is a good big sister and only has a few jealous moments once in a while. She has had a few more crying/tantrums than usual, but really has adjusted well. The weather has been warming up, so we have really been enjoying that--getting out for walks every day that we can! It definitely energizes me, boosts my spirits and just makes for a great day! And believe it or not, I have even ventured out with the two of them by myself. I took Maia to story time last week. Don't worry that it took about 2 hours to get all of us ready to go, but we made it and everything went really well. Maia had a great time and Elsie slept in her car seat the whole time.

I feel that I have been so blessed with how things are going! I am so thankful for a wonderful husband that lets me sleep when I need it, plays with Maia when she needs it, holds Elsie when she needs it, and just loves and supports all of his girls, even when I'm a little overtired and cranky! I am also grateful for wonderful friends who call to check up on me, bring dinner over, get the essential groceries for me at the store, etc. etc. I could really go on and on...I thought that not having family come out after I had Elsie was going to be the hardest thing ever, but I have realized that I have family all around me that love and support me! Thank you, thank you, thank you!! It means so much to me! And a special thank you to Bron and Megan for taking such good care of Maia while I was in the hospital. She had the time of her life and was really upset to wake up to David the day after Elsie was born...she kept crying and saying "not you Dad, I want Bron & Megan!" Poor David.

I have to confess that I haven't really taken any pictures of Elsie since we've come home from the hospital...she must be a second child right? I swear that we had probably taken at least 500 of Maia by the time she was 2 weeks old!! But I will get better I promise! And Megan did a family photo shoot last weekend so I'll have some really beautiful ones to post soon too. Anyway, here is a picture of what Elsie looks like on a typical day...swaddled in her blanket and fast asleep in her chair...poor girl doesn't get held all that much!
And here is a picture of the big and little sis...

And in other news, David had the opportunity of baptizing our landlord last weekend. It was a really neat experience. There is a pretty cool story behind her whole conversion, but I don't have the energy to get into it right now! Plus I think I hear two kids crying somewhere in the background...better go and check!