Why are hoods with ears so darn cute on babies?

Pretty in Pink

Flashback...

and a little more recent...

7 months

I'm a little late in posting this, but I can't even begin to describe how much fun 7 month old Ella is. She has hit an all-time smiley, laughing, giggly girl high lately. She's playful, an adjective that I wouldn't have used to describe her even 1 month ago. She's always been precious and adorable and precocious, but now I'm adding playful to the list. Things are actually hilarious to her these days--from a silly face, to Daddy's whiskers on her belly, to Kaiser just sitting there in fear that she'll pull on his ears--the world is full of fun for her. I am having the most fun watching her discover!

Her newest discovery is the ability to blow raspberries ON someone. She's now made those beautiful farting noises on my shoulder, neck, leg, arm, and I'm sure we're nowhere near done yet. She just laaaaughes at herself and thinks she's so amazing and of course, she waits for us to laugh with her.

I continue to pray that her sleeping improves--I think it is slowly doing so. She's still waking up every night, at least once, often twice. I've stopped nursing her until it's been at least 8 hours, so it's up to Hal to calm her down until then. Most nights she cries for about an hour at 3 AM, and it's hard. I don't know why she wakes up at 3 on the dot night after night. I don't like it; who would? But I'm determined to help her learn to sleep better. Napping is the same way. She's napping on her own for 2 naps a day now, but she'll only sleep for about 25-35 minutes at a time. She cries out the second nap. It's awful. It's what she's doing as I type this.

No one could have prepared me for the lack of sleep and the sleep trouble that a baby with colic has, even months after the colic has subsided. It makes me sad for her that she has such anxiety with sleep, but I'm hopeful that she will outgrow it. As for now, we're accepting that truly good sleep is still a long way off, but we are soooo thankful for funny, silly Ella. She's a hoot!

A few pics of playing in the yard...

Lots of Emotions and Lots of Travel

Ella and Nonna at week 1


Our original plans for Christmas were to have Christmas Eve at our house with my parents and brother and then have Christmas Day with Hal's family. Seemed pretty self-explanatory, and we were all looking forward to spending some quality time together for Ella's first Christmas.

Unfortunately, the day after my parents arrived (Tuesday), they had to drive back to Dallas to be with my grandmother, who had been very ill for a few months now. My brother and I got a call on Wednesday that she was not doing well, so we packed up in a hurry and headed to Dallas as well. Sadly, she passed away just a few minutes before we arrived.

From that point on, the holidays were a frenzy of travel, planning, changing plans, joy, and of course, grief. We ended up going to Big Spring the day after Christmas for her funeral, and then went straight to Albuquerque to spend some time together as a family. Hal, unfortunately, had to stay in Austin and work, but he did get a chance to see my folks and brother before we all left for West Texas.

Ella and I got back last night from New Mexico, and while we had a wonderful time being with my family, I also have a renewed feeling of gratefulness for Hal, our home, and our life together with Ella. She was my grandmother's only great-grandchild, and Nonna adored and loved her so much. Right after we arrived in Dallas, and right after she passed, my grandfather thanked me for Ella, saying that she was the best gift Nonna could have asked for. What a blessing our precious daughter is to us. And what a blessing she is to our families, too. I am humbled when I think about how much joy and love Ella has brought to all of us, and this Christmas, I thought mostly of my grandmother, and how it is my job to help Ella to know how loved she was by her Nonna.