Almost-4 Months Update

So after my ranting the other day, I realized that I haven't given you an honest-to-goodness update in quite a while.  So here we go ...

Ellie is going to be turning 4 months old soon, and she is changing so much every day!  After our Easter fun, we celebrated her dedication at church on April 14th.  In case you're not familiar with it, our denomination doesn't do infant baptism.  We believe that a person should make their own decision to be baptized.  Instead, we do a dedication, where the parents and the congregation take vows to raise the child in the church and to help them grow spiritually.  It's kind of a big deal.  So my parents and my sister came down for the day and I bought a new dress for myself and made Andy wear his nice shoes.

It was a beautiful service!  Ellie was very well behaved and didn't even spit up on herself or the pastor or ANYONE!  I was so proud.  After church and before bell choir practice, we squeezed in a few family photos to commemorate the occasion...

Grandpa, Mommy, Daddy, & Me

Daddy, Mommy, Grandma, Pappy, & Me

Auntie, Mommy, Daddy, & Me

Then we went out to lunch, which was so-so.  The food was GREAT, but there was an obnoxiously loud high school girls' soccer team at the table next to us.  Ugh.  Evidently everything was HI-larious, except for when Ellie would scream (because she was just TRYING to take a nap) and then we'd get dirty looks.  Darn kids.  Wow, I'm old.

I hereby apologize to all the moms that I irritated with my similar behavior in high school.  I had no idea.  I'm so sorry.

Then mom and sis and I did some shopping at our favorite thrift store (yay for new sneakers and a jacket that fits over my pudgy post-baby arms!) and then headed back to my house.  Everyone took turns reading with Ellie while she was in a good enough mood to tolerate it...

Auntie's going to be a writer someday - maybe she will write me a book?!

OH that crazy Petunia!  She's such a silly goose!

And then all the company had to leave and go back to their own corners of the state.  I wish everyone just lived here so we wouldn't have to make it such a big deal to get together.  OK, I really shouldn't complain because they are, at most, only an hour and a half away.  But still.  I wish they were closer.  Like right down the road.  Maybe someday...

Anyway, we have had some SUPER nice weather here lately and all of our flowers have bloomed!  It's our first spring in this house, so we weren't sure what to expect to pop up in the flower beds.  Boy were we surprised!  Here's a little tour...

The front of the house with the BEAUTIFUL cherry trees!

Cherry Tree

Closeup of Cherry Blossoms

Maple Tree next to the garage (and the POOL in the background!!)

Flower bed with the wishing well - a storm last weekend knocked all my flowers over :-(

Bleeding hearts in the wishing well flower bed

Daffodils and Purple Hyacinth by the wishing well.  LOVE Purple Hyacinth!

And that's that!  There are hostas on the other side of the house which will bloom later in the summer and daisy mums everywhere that will bloom this fall.  The previous homeowners didn't do a lot with the inside of the house, but they certainly took pride in the outside!  

We also bought Ellie a new toy this week.  She had not been making any progress toward reaching, grabbing, or even being interested in toys.  So I took the toy bar off of her pack 'n play and rigged it up over her changing table so she could actually reach the toys.  It was a total hit!  She loved it!  But I couldn't just leave it there like that.  So we invested in a toy gym with a piano at the bottom for her to kick.  Girl can kick.  Seriously, it can hurt.  The piano part flips up so that she can sit at it and play when she is older and can sit on her own.  Anyway, the day that it was delivered, I put it right together and let her play it.  She LOVES it! I'm hoping that it's strong enough to withstand all of her kicking because she just goes nuts on it.  There's a mirror that hangs down and she loves looking at herself and making faces.  Sometimes she will start to fuss and we think that she's getting tired of playing, but when we go to pick her up, she smiles at the fussy face she was making.  Crazy kid.  And she's discovered her tongue.  It is ALWAYS sticking out now.  And on Sunday evening, she was sticking out her tongue at herself in the mirror and let out a giggle.  We've heard some almost-giggles already, but this was an honest-to-goodness giggle.  It sounded like the fake ones that you hear on tv commercials.  But it honestly came out of her face!  And now she giggles pretty regularly.  It's pretty fun.  Although Andy can get downright annoying with the noises he makes trying to get her to do it.

So anyway, all that to say that sometimes, she will play so hard with this toy, that she just falls asleep.  Right there on the floor.  The kid who refuses to sleep unless she's being held.  I'm not complaining at all.  It just surprises me!  

I played myself out!

Ellie also had her two trial days at Sarah's house for babysitting this past week.  She did great!  According to Sarah, she didn't even really cry all that much and she napped in the swing!  When I picked her up, she was smiling and giggling at Sarah and the other girls.  So I officially accepted the job!  I'm going to be the new secretary at our church.  Not terribly glamorous, but a nice work environment with a lot of flexibility.  I think it'll be good.  I'm going in tomorrow to start 'training' and then I officially start on Wednesday next week!

And that's pretty much our update!  Ellie goes in for her 4 month check-up on May 6th, so after that we'll have an update on how much she weighs now.  My guess is a lot.  People still comment on how small she is, but to me she seems huge!  I guess it's just all perspective.  One last picture before we go, and it's one of my recent favorites.  I splurged and bought these adorable little sunglasses at Carter's the last time I was there.  One day the other week, it was over 80 degrees outside (and inside), so we went outside to try them out.  The result?  Cuteness overload!

Just soakin' up some rays with Dad!