I dare you not to smile . . .

Smelling the roses

When I was pregnant with Ella I thought of her arrival in terms of the seasons, I had to get through fall and winter and then she would come in the spring. So obviously I was really looking forward to spring even more than I normally do. And of course it was the coldest, snowiest, grayest and most never-ending winter we have had since we've been in North Carolina. But it seemed like about the same week Ella was born, spring came fluttering in and it has been just beautiful since then. Could that be psychosomatic? Maybe.

But anyway look at our beautiful roses!


They have just exploded. I counted 14 buds on this bush. We tried to let Ella smell them. She wasn't impressed.


I'm sure it's hard to appreciate things like that when you are only 6 weeks old and gassy and being held away from Daddy's chest instead of against it. It's so exciting to think of all the things we can show her as she gets bigger, even as we lose the tiniest baby stuff.

Sick?

Is it sick that when Ella has a big blowout I can't help but think, Yay! New outfit! ?

Ella-phant

What a difference a day makes! We've been singing the hallelujah chorus this morning. First of all, miss Ellie slept from, get ready, 10:45 til 3:45 last night and then went right back to sleep with no fussing from 4 to 7:30 and then again from 7:50 to 10:30. It was wonderful. And when she woke up she was feeling like this:





Maybe she just needed some sleep too! : ) And now we are having tummy time, which we really need to do more often because it is more like face-plant time for poor Ella.

We'll keep working on it.

The other exciting thing that happened this morning is that while Ella was sleeping in luxuriously, I took all the 3-6 month clothes that I washed for the first time yesterday out of the dryer, and they fit! It's a whole new world for Ella (ok for me). Amazingly her newborn things are really getting too small already, especially with her huge cloth-diaper bottom. But all we really had for that stage was pink onesies. We are now looking forward to incorporating green, blue, more brown and some very exciting patterns into the works. Today we did stick to pink, but I love the elephant pattern. Today she is my little Ella-phant. Sorry, couldn't resist! Check out the spread:

Who's that pretty baby in the mirror?

Another cranky day for Ella. But she does really seem to perk up when she has something interesting to look at. I told you how she likes to look at the fabric on the walls in her room. She also loves to look out the window, and to go outside and look around. The mirror is fun too.

The many faces of Ella McCall

Still waiting on a smile picture. She has done a few that I am pretty sure were genuine. But not reliable yet. Wait 'til you see it--it's really cute. I do like the surprised face too.

Tiny hands

"Lucie the woman dog"

Today was Ella's one month checkup. She is doing great and in the 97% percentile for weight at 11 lbs 3 oz. Wow! She has also grown 2 inches since she was born for a new length of 23.75. Incredible. It almost seems like if we just laid her down we could watch her grow!

Other than that it was kind of one of those days. It started out with projectile poopie and Lucie having torn up the diaper pail. Then Ella was just grumpy all day, which made me grumpy. Also, I had to call and negotiate with the insurance company which was as enjoyable as you would expect.

However, there were a few bright spots. I got an e-mail from the veterinarian which made me laugh out loud. Paul put it in a pdf so I could show you:


Can you see that? They called her Lucie the Woman dog. Hahahaha! I don't think that's what it was supposed to say. But it gave me a whole new way to think about Lucie. : )

Finally, here is a picture of Ella's wonderful Daddy, who helped me out by soothing our little sweetheart when he came home, looking at her. I think he's in love.

Super swaddler!

Behold, adorable Ella-burrito. Five minutes before, she was a flailing, upset little wild lady. The swaddler is magic! Have you read the Happiest Baby on the Block? Dr. Karp is a smart man with his five S's for calming crying. Swaddling is the first S. So far, it is frequently all she needs. We are thankful for the wisdom and the swaddler-outfit thingy.

Sibling rivalry

Lucie has done very well with Ella after a brief adjustment period. At this point she is very interested, concerned when she cries but quiet and tolerant of the noise. She likes to sniff Ella when at the right level--in the swing or on our laps. But sometimes she gets a little jealous, like any big sister would, over all the fuss about Ella.

Tonight we were taking some very cute pictures. I'll put them in a sequence for you:









Lucie is very cute TOO, don't you think?

Strawberry shortcake

How cute is she? I wanted a picture of me holding her looking so cute too, so we did that.

Then Paul kept snapping away as I noticed our artistic pursuits would have to wait . . .


FIRE IN THE TOASTER!!!!

Don't worry, it turned out ok. Even the garlic bread survived.

The Moby Wrap

So today we got used to the Moby a little. I still love my Ergo carrier for walks and extended baby-wearing sessions. It has great support for Ella's poor little floppy neck and is very comfortable for both of us as Ella evidences by instantly becoming unconscious until she is removed. But it is a little hard to get into and out of and pretty bulky. Also a little hot with the infant insert in place. Here is Ella in the Ergo (note the cute booties--thanks Robyn!):



So here is Ella's initial take on the Moby:




But we kept practicing and I figured out a way to sneak her into it while she was peacefully sleeping on my shoulder, and I think it's going to work out:


I like this for several reasons. 1. There would be no way to sneak Ella into the Ergo while she was peacefully sleeping. It is way easier to get her in and out. 2. You can keep wearing the wrap when not in use and it looks kind of cool, or at least ok. So you don have to commit to long periods of wearing baby or not wearing. 3. Not so hot. (But still a little hot.)

In conclusion, I am thankful for both Ergo and Moby and see plenty of use for both in our lives. : )

Birthday-Tax Day

Today was Ella's one month birthday! And tax day! At first I couldn't decide whether to give her a pretty birthday outfit or have her wear this onesie which can really only be worn today without making poor Ella feel like she's being used. But then I thought, this beautiful baby can totally rock the tax deduction onesie and have it be a pretty birthday outfit all at the same time. Results below:Not the best smile, but hey maybe at 2 months. We had a nice birthday out on the town. We picked up Ella's birth certificate, a nice birthday activity I think. Then we went down to a store in Morrisville called the Diapering Doula. Very cool place with ALL KINDS of cloth diapering stuff and Moby wraps. I got a Moby wrap. And when Ella sizes up on diaps we will definitely head down there to check out all the options. There will be more about the Moby wrap in a future post perhaps. But the final activity was another trip to the library to return baby care books and pick up more baby care books. My life has definitely taken on a theme lately!

Baby Ella!

Yesterday baby Ella was 4 weeks old and tomorrow she will be one month. What a month! The time has flown!--except certain occasions in the middle of the night where we did the paci plug q2min for hours on end. But she is getting bigger and bigger and more and more human.

Last night we had one of those pacifier marathons while poor Ellie struggled with her ferocious tummy. We were all a bit irritated with the tummy by this morning, especially when it threatened to disrupt her breakfast too. But sweet Ella gave me such a special treat--while we were trying to re latch for the 12th time or so she looked up and took notice of the wreath-framed fabric I decorated her room with. She stared at it calmly for a few minutes, looking intently from one pattern to the next. Not quite a smile, but I think she really liked it! I was so happy that she wanted to look at something pretty I put up for her. Maybe we can be friends along with Mommy-Baby!

And, here she is sucking her thumb for the first time (I admit, I helped her find it--we've got to solve the nighttime paci problem). Isn't she cute?

Live*Lovely at the Designers Downtown Market

The Designer's Downtown Market was great! I had a really fun time setting up and seeing all my dresses get a day in the sun. I'm so thankful to Paul and my mom for all their help too. Paul made some awesome racks for the dresses to hang on and helped with other handyman stuff, and my mom did some last minute sewing for me and also did a great job as a saleslady with me in the booth. We had several sales and got to talk to a lot of people about future custom orders. It was super!

Designers Downtown Market

The Live Lovely Dress Shop will soon go live! I'm frantically getting ready for my first craft show. I'll have a booth at the Designers Downtown market this weekend and I'm having so much fun putting it all together. Once it's all over I'll post some pictures of everything. But I've already had one really nice fellow artist get in touch about ordering a dress after she saw me on the DDM website. Fun! I think it will be great to take all this sewing and posting and ordering to a more personal level. Wish me luck!

pretty designs

Look at the pretty design I had left over after cutting out my facings the other day. I love kind of circular, symmetric designs. This especially applies to pretty sunburst-y things like these gorgeous sparkly underpass decorations I saw when I was in DC last weekend. So pretty and perfect for the space.

Birthday dress!

So I put off making that other garden dress until tomorrow and instead made one for me, because . . . it's my birthday! I made a new pattern which I almost goofed up. Who'd have thunk you needed so much allowance for pin tucks? But I got it fixed well enough and I think I know how to change the pattern for the shop now. This will be the weekend dress I believe. What do you think of it?

A garden dress waiting to be born

Here's what I'll be working on tomorrow! Check my etsy shop for the finished product: livelovelydressshop.etsy.com

Anniversary no. 2

What a fun anniversary we had yesterday. I am so blessed to be with my fun, funny, sweet and super husband. Here are some snapshots of the day:


We picked strawberries at a berry farm a little ways out into the country. It was a gorgeous day!


Some of Paul's grandmother's doilies my mother-in-law sent us.


The front of the card my mom sent. So pretty and so true. It was a beautiful day!

Froggy

Look who Paul found living in the hole Lucie dug near the compost bin! Our back yard is so exciting these days. What was the name of that old kids magazine? My Big Backyard? Between the garden, the bridge over the creek(drainage easement), the compost bin, the raspberries ripening, and now the froggy, my backyard feels very big indeed even if it is technically kind of little.

Morning sewing

I am such a morning person. It's definitely the happiest and most productive time of the day for me. So I love it when I can start out doing something I really love. Today was a sewing day! Here's what greeted me after breakfast and a beautiful walk with Lucie.


The dress came out great too. I'll post it this evening sometime. But until then there's lots of lovely living to be done: fold clothes, grocery store, wash dishes including nasty tupperware that lay forgotten at work for waaay too long. It was nice to have such a sunny start to the day though!

the Live*Lovely Dress Shop

So I have a new hobby. I really have to give credit to Mike for inspiring me to pick a couple of hobbies to focus on this year. It was a great idea and has helped me know what to do when I have a little time on my hands. Thanks Mike! I picked piano and sewing. I have really been enjoying playing the piano. But I have gotten a little out of control with the sewing. I started doing some projects from a book I had, but there were no dresses in the book and that is what I had really wanted to make from the beginning. So I cut some of the pieces up and made some new pieces of my own and made a couple of dresses. They came out great! Then the wheels started turning in my head. A year or so ago I started dreaming of opening up a little boutique with cute, feminine and casual clothes for everyday life. I thought, and still think, that there is a lack of supply in that category. Everything is trying to be trendy, sexy, and flashy, which is ok in its place. But most of the time I think women are just trying to get their stuff done and feeling bad because you can't wear a sexy top to the grocery store, but you look a little shlumpy in a t-shirt and sweats. I wanted to sell clothes that filled that gap. But I sort of let the idea go when I realized that finding inventory for a store like that would be reaaaaally tough. Flash forward to me discovering I am able to sew cute and simple dresses myself. Tada . . . the live*lovely dress shop was born. Check it out at livelovelydressshop.etsy.com.

Spiffed-up kitchen

So I have probably mentioned to most people I know that I love to read design blogs. They are so inspiring! I think the best part of them is the lovely photography of creative people's homes in tip top shape. I like to imagine that when not staged they look a little more like mine and that with some professional photography mine could appear more beautiful like theirs, but anyway it is so fun to see things decorated so nicely. Does reading design blogs make me focus too much on possessions and appearances? Maybe. Probably. But I am so happy to read in the Bible about how God himself had specific design ideas for his temple and fashion ideas for the priestly robes. Now my home is not a national temple and I am not a priest, but I do like to think that since he dwells in me as a Christian, he can be glorified by a place (my place) becoming more beautiful. I also love to think that I can use the creativity he shares with me as his daughter by decorating my humble abode.

All that to say, Paul and I undertook a pretty big polishing up of our kitchen in the last few weeks. I love it now. Here are some before and after pictures:




Fun!

b b b b b bad

Today I am not at work and it's not night. Seems like an unlikely time to post if you go by the pattern of the rest of what I've put up. But the other day when I was talking about how I love reading my blogs, my friend Beth said "you should blog, Emily." I told her I didn't think I could put up much worth reading and that I didn't like being in the spotlight, but apparently that was a lie because here I am again.

I think what would help this be worth looking at is pictures. So let's try one.

This picture is super nerdy, but also, I think, fun. Paul and I had an incredibly nerdy and fun time on this thing in Roatan. Underneath the picture in our album it says "b b b b b bad" which Paul said made things even worse. But seriously, aren't we? We took this thing all over the island of Roatan visiting things like deserted beaches, roadside mango trees, touristy ziplines and an iguana farm. I loved it.

That was before our anniversary. Now we are lightyears (2 weeks) past our first year, and life is
good. And that is definitely worth blogging about, right? : )

Sunday Nap

Wow, it's been just about exactly a year since my last post. Something about fall that makes me want to be reflective and eloquent, I guess. In a years time I've had a lot to reflect on, too. But what I wanted to say today was that it's extremely qu*** (real as can be nursing superstition) on the unit, and I was sitting here reading and resting but feeling a little guilty about not doing my job. So I went around to check on my patients and all of them are peacefully sleeping! That has never happened to me before. In the hospital, you hope for healing, but it is really rare to get sleep. And for 5 people at once to be snoozing away in the middle of the day is just about unheard of. I realized, it is the sabbath. How wonderful. So I quietly came back and sat down here for my own rest. Praise God for giving some sick and sore people and their tired nurse some peace today.

White rice

Tonight, for dinner, I am eating white rice. And that's it. Just rice. And I don't mind. I'm actually looking forward to it. These are the kinds of things single people can eat. I don't think I would tolerate it if someone was cooking dinner for me and we were having white rice. I would be like, rice? with what? But since no one is asking me that, I don't have to worry about them. I can enjoy my white rice by itself in peace. My parents tell me that rice is the only food I would eat when I was a baby. So tonight I am returning to the tyrrany of infancy. It's all about me tonight folks. Me and rice. Mmmm.

Falling

Well, another day spent in the hospital. A shorter and cooler one. The older I get, the more it stresses me out that seasons are a metaphor for life and death. Do I really have to be reminded of this and check off another box in the allotted time for life chart ever three months? Maybe not. Maybe I should just not think about it like most people. Probably.

So today in the hospital, I took care of two men--hospital neighbors--who were both mentally retarded and had both come from their usual group residence because their brains had started bleeding. Wierd, huh? I thought so. I felt sorry for them. They were both old and had probably had hard lives already, so I wonder if this was almost a merciful end for them? Death. Hard.

Darn it we're back on fall again.