30, yuck

Enough said right? I turned 30 last week....I find it so hard to believe that I am no longer in my twenties. I still feel like I am in my twenties though which makes it even harder to believe that I am 30!!! It was a wonderful birthday though, my amazing husband got me fantastic jewelry, and took me out for dinner at one of the fanciest restaurants in town. It was a nice to get out just the two of us and have a date, it has been so long since we have done that. The only downfall of the night (besides turning 30) was that we had awful weather here, and the tornado sirens went off about 15 minutes before we were supposed to head off for dinner. I, being the storm hater that I am, freaked out and kept thinking that as a birthday present we were going to see a tornado. Luckily, we did not.

On to an Ella update.....she continues to roll onto her belly and cry everytime we put her in her crib. She still has not figured out how to roll over to her back again. So, we continue the nightly game of flipping her over for about an hour before she finally goes to sleep. She is sitting all by herself and would much rather be there than in any other position. When we play and she is on her belly, she makes a complete circle and scoots herself backwards off the blanket. She is chewing on EVERYTHING!! She already has her two bottom teeth, and I think that the uppers will be coming in soon. She loves the water and has been swimming in Grandma and Grandpa's pool several times this summer already. She is going to be 8 months in less than two weeks, I cannot believe that. I promise to get some updated pics and maybe even a video up here soon.

Is she sleeping? Nope.

So the past few days have been a bit tough in the sleep department for Ella. She has mastered rolling from back to belly, but can't get back over (which is frustrating since the rolled from belly to back months ago and it was back to belly that she couldn't do). So, we think she is sleeping after 20 min of quiet when all of a sudden she lets out a huge cry. Turns out, she's stuck on her belly. She's so tired that she can't hold her head up, nor can she roll back over, so she cries. We flip her back to her back, but then 5 minutes later we start all over again. Last night we did this for 3.5 hours!!! When I went in to check on her this morning, she was sleeping on her belly so she must have gotten so tired last night when she rolled that she just stayed there. It seems that each time we put her down now we are playing this game of flipping her over until she finally falls asleep. I don't know what I can do to help her realize that she can just roll herself back over, since she has done this several times before. I put her on her belly quite a bit during the day to get her to "practice" rolling to her back, but she doesn't do it. I have a feeling we are in for a few rough weeks.

A visit from AZ

My aunt, uncle and cousins came to visit us for the week last week and got to meet Ella for the first time. My Aunt Kris was able to come up for Ella's baptism, so this was her second visit with Ms. Ella. We spent a lot of time trying to figure out if my cousins and Ella are second cousins, or first cousins once removed.....I think we figured out that they are first cousins once removed, but who knows if we are really right on that!

Here's Ella with my aunt, Great Aunt Krissy!


Ella had so much fun with all the cousins, but spent a lot of time with cousin Anna, who helped Aunt Kelli watch her on Thursday while I was at work.


Hanging with Aunt Kelli. Aunt Kelli is moving out of state soon, so Ella is going to get as much Aunt Kelli time in as possible this summer!


All the girls, with the newest addition to this group of fabulous ladies.


A picture of all the cousins. We try to do this each year when they come to visit, but it is getting harder and harder to get everyone together with all the schedules we need to coordinate.


It was so fun to see them, and have them meet Ella. She was a bit overwhelmed at first, but at the end of the week was smiling and laughing with all of them. I will miss them so much, I wish I could see them again before next summer!

My little swimmer

We took Ella swimming and Grandma and Grandpa's house this past weekend. It was her first time in a pool, and she did so wonderful! We did a back float, a tummy float, some splashing and kicking. Every time we got her in the water up to her neck, she kicked her legs super hard like she was trying to keep her head above water, I was so proud of my little swimmer! We did put her head under once, and she didn't fuss at all, just blinked a lot trying to figure out what just happened. She seemed to love being in the pool, and kept staring into the water once we got her out. We are hoping to spend alot of time in the pool this summer since Grandma and Grandpa sold their house and with it, of course, the pool. Here are some pics from the big first swim.