A New Addition

Looking back at being the mother of one child, I realize the loneliness that comes with being a stay at home mom. I am happy I made the choice to stay home with my daughter and I am the lucky to have the opportunity. I know it may not be the right choice for everyone but it certainly has been the right one for me. Being a mom is hard work and it can take a lot of you. I love being there to savor the small moments as well as the larger milestones. That said some days seem to drag on forever. When Ellie came into our lives, my husband began taking classes to work on his master's degree along with working full time. My days began early and did not end until well after eleven. I began to gain appreciation for single parents. My husband's work/school routine ran a course of three years. Upon his graduation in May 2010, I was a couple months shy of delivering a baby brother for my precious firstborn.

Ellie Grace became a big sister to Luke Nicholas on June 26, 2010. He is the perfect puzzle piece to complete our family and he became the perfect graduation present for his daddy. It is nice to have my husband around more this time around. He is able to see more of those little moments along with the big ones. He is also more attentive this time around. Just as he has evolved as a parent so have I. With two little ones, my days fly by now. Gone are the days of staring at the clock wondering how it can possibly still be morning. Now it seems like eight hours disappear in the blink of an eye. After waking up, changing diapers, dressing the kiddos, dressing myself, feeding the kiddos, and feeding myself it is usually 10 or 11 o'clock in the morning. Thinking about the possible challenges of raising two instead of one would worry me. Now that it is my reality, I find it to be easier than I ever thought it would be. Ellie and Luke are my little angels. The Lord gave me easy babies and for that I continually count my blessings. I am enjoying my time as a mother of two. I love seeing the interactions between brother and sister. I hope this time in childhood will cement a lifelong bond between them. My sister and I have always been close. It is a special relationship that I hope my little ones will have when they are older as well. To this day my sister and I talk on daily basis and we can find entertainment in any situation. My heart is filled with love and life is amazing.

An Ellie update

Time is flying by crazy fast and it amazes me that our daughter will be turning 2 in less than three months. Today was a nice opportunity to stop and smell the roses and enjoy time together as a family. We are not always afforded many chances to fully enjoy a day together as a family so we take them whenever possible. The transition from infant to toddler is a beautiful process that continually amazes, challenges, and surprises me. Motherhood is the greatest gift that I could have ever been given and I take it for granted far too often.

Every day is an adventure and it is fun to see Ellie's personality unfold. She is in a very sweet stage right now although she has her trying times too. Ellie observes everything and she is having a little bit of a Monkey See, Monkey Do moment. Her favorite thing to do is to sit at her table in her playroom and talk on the phone. She says hello, jabbers, laughs, says mom, and then says bye. My mom noticed that she says bye exactly how I say bye when I am getting off the phone. Ellie has loved the phone for a long time. Daddy calls us every day from work and Ellie delights in talking to daddy or anyone else on the phone. She even loves to give kisses on the phone. Her other favorite thing to do is to play with her baby. She kisses baby, calls baby by name, changes baby's diaper, hugs baby, feeds baby, and takes baby everywhere. Playing with baby will be good practice for when we decide to add to the family. Ellie's vocabulary grows daily. Everywhere we go Ellie loves to point out the colors of all the things we say. She knows all her colors but she can only say red, blue, yellow, pink, grey, and purple. Today at the playground she kept saying red and blue over again describing the colors of the pretend cars. As I type she is naming her colors with Daddy. Car is another favorite word to say but another funny word she enjoys saying is fry.

Ellie loves fries. Fries are probably her absolute favorite food item and she loves to say the word fry. When we drive by a fast food establishment, she shouts, "Fry!" from her car seat. She is currently at the toddler stage where she only eats what she wants to eat whenever she wants to eat it- lots of fun! Of course she never misses an opportunity to eat fries- go figure. Ellie is an adorable toddler and she is quite curious, lovable, cranky, enthusiastic, sweet, contemplative, funny, stinky, and just darn cute. I try to savor each moment that I can because Monday quickly turns into Sunday and it always seems to be a new month. I'm so glad that I have been blessed to stay home with Ellie and to catch all these sweet moments.

Our New House

This morning we finally closed on our new house. After looking for houses for almost two years, we are finally the proud owners of a three bedroom, two bathroom ranch in Crestwood. The third time is definitely a charm. Before Ellie was born, we almost closed on a cute, Victorian home in Webster Groves. From the moment I saw the house, I fell head over heels in love with it. The feature on the house that sealed the deal was the bay window. I have always loved bay windows and I was excited to possibly have one in my first home. The pictures online of the house were straight out of a fairytale and they certainly did not foreshadow what was to come of the house. When we went to visit the house, the pictures ended up being quite deceiving as they often are with pictures of house for sale online. The house was like a construction zone and the owner was doing a lot of work during the visit. I still loved the house so we decided to go ahead and make an offer. Inspections invevitably turned up problems that were deal breakers for us so we closed the door on the house. We took a break from our house hunt to welcome Ellie into the world and we continued living in our townhouse. As we enjoyed her first year of life, our lease renewal began creeping up on us. We decided to take another stab at finding a house and we quickly found some promising homes to visit. After a few weekends of looking, we found another house we wanted to make home. Just as we began to write an offer, a deal breaker ended another deal for us and we started over at square one. I did some more research online and found five more houses to look at. Three or four houses in, we found our home. Inspections went well and although the appraisal caused some concern towards the end, we finally made it to the finish line. We signed a million papers this morning and we were handed the keys to our new home. We cannot wait to finish the moving process so that we can put the finishing touches on our first home and settle in our neighborhood.

Closing One Chapter, Beginning Another

It has been a hectic month in our household as Lasz has been working unfortunate hours at work due to some unforseen testing on old products. He has been sleeping during the day while Ellie and I continue on with our normal routine. The house appraisal has caused a few bumps in finalizing all the details on closing our new house. We are dealing with the bumps and anxiously awaiting the arrival of September 12th. We have finally begun packing and are beginning to see that we are going to need a lot more boxes to complete this task. Needless to say we will be a lot happier when the move is done and we are in the new house. The move and the temporary new work schedule are not the only things making our month crazy.

Ellie Grace will be turning one on August 31st. We have been planning the birthday party with the generous help of our good friend, Erin. Who knew all the work and details that go into planning the birthday party of a one year old. Crazy! Luckily we have checked off invitations, presents, cake, location, cookies, and decorations. It is still crazy to think about a whole year passing with our precious baby girl. Each day that passes brings a new learned skill or another amazing addition to her bubbly personality. It seems like just the other day she was sleeping the whole day away and now she is laughing, dancing, climbing up stairs, eating real food, say mama and dada, and so much more. Ellie has been such an incredible addition to our family and we count our blessings daily.