Christmas (and the past month)

Hello again! It has been forever since I have posted. I know posts without pictures are no fun, so we haven't been posting since Ellie's pictures are all the same, we have also been very busy. It has been lots of work getting ready for all these holidays and going many places and being a new mom :) We have been very busy with shopping and preparing for the holidays. Ben's parents came to our house this year for Ellie's first Christmas and Ben and I loved our first year staying in our home and our bed for Christmas! Ellie had a great first Christmas and has been a wonderful addition to our family. She is on the verge of really smiling, she gives us grins now. She doesn't love tummy time, but it does help her neck and she is getting good at holding her head up. She also is stretching some of her crib sleeping out at night and giving us a good 5 hour stretch. She is great at sleeping and loves the car and running errands. She enjoys her bouncer and swing more everyday and is able to entertain herself for little stretches. Her focus is getting better and she loves looking around when she is awake. She has enjoyed having a few babysitters and has been wonderful for all of them. We are getting into a little routine and now with all of the holiday busyness behind us we can get into a routine with our little family of three. We are looking forward to Ben being home this week and hope to have lots of family time! Hope you enjoy the pictures. I went a little crazy with the stocking pictures, but they were so cute and I figured we could take Ellie's picture with it every year to see how she is growing!

Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We were so thankful and blessed to have little Ellie here to celebrate her first Thanksgiving and were overjoyed she had come two weeks early. We had a great time with family and great food. We also enjoyed cutting down our Christmas tree the Saturday after Thanksgiving with our great friends Andy and Katie. It was our 2nd year cutting our tree with them and has become a tradition with them just like carving pumpkins. Ellie had a great time and was absolutely wonderful. She even went out to dinner for the first time on the way home and was great in the restaurant and even slept while we all ate! She is getting bigger everyday and is a great eater. We tried a bottle for the first time a couple of days ago and she did great. It is also great for Ben to be able to help feed her and it gives me a little more sleep. We have also tried sleeping in our crib and that is not going as well. She got addicted to people holding her in her first 2 weeks of life, even while she slept, and she now does not like to sleep very much without being held at night. We are working through her withdrawal issues and will have to watch how much she gets held while sleeping. We are hoping this is short lived and she starts to enjoy her crib!