First Trip to Church

September 13th 2009 - NorthRidge Church finally comes to Saline via a satellite location.
Mom and Ella dress casual/cute for the grand opening of this exciting event, and make the 9:15am service. I (Mom) was nervous for the fact that I was leaving my Sweet Pea for the first time with Daycare..... just to inform you, Ella is a bit of a Momaholic. She is at the stage now that even when I am standing in front of her and hand her off she will cry. Hopefully it is only a stage! My nerves cleared when I got to the room for babies, saw she was the only baby attending, and there were four ladies to play with her, plus a million toys.
I am happy to report that she did great in daycare and look forward to next Sunday's service!

My Mom is HOT!

Grandma Gayle got Ella this shirt when we went out to Colorado to visit her. As you might imagine, Kate loves it! I have a feeling I am going to see Ella in this shirt a lot in the next several weeks. I say the next several weeks because Ella is growing so fast she is quickly turning all her shirts into mid-drifts. Until then Ella will proudly support how hot her mom really is and dad will smile because they are both mine!

Doctor, Doctor Give me the News

Ella had her 4 month physical on September 1st, and although she had just been to the doctor's office two weeks before for a reflux check-up, Ella knew this visit was different.
As Eric and I sit patiently in the waiting room (which was extremely busy) with Ella bundled up in her car seat, we noticed an unusual look on our baby's face. Her eyes were as big as half dollars and moving from side to side as if she were trying to find an exit, a way out, an escape route of any kind. After what seemed like an eternity, Ella's name was finally called and we followed the nurse to the room. Ella was doing great.... until.... Daddy started to undress her for her weight, and height. Ella saw this as the perfect opportunity to test her lungs out, she started crying from this point through the rest of the appointment.

I swear she knew what this appointment was about!

The nurse weighed her in at 15.5 lbs, and 24.5 inches long. Then Ella's doctor (Dr. Waier) came in to answer any questions or concerns we had before the shots were given. After getting the DL on starting Ella on big girl food, (yes Eric and I will be feeding her baby cereal... FROM A SPOON!) the doctor left and in came the nurse again, with two shots and an oral.
Ella received her immunizations, Mommy fed her and all was good with the world again.

Steal my Kisses

Today we celebrate Ella turning 4 months old! She has really sped up time as we wave goodbye to Summer and hello to Fall. Over and over again parents would tell my pregnant wife and I to take lots of pictures because they grow so quickly. It now seems the more pictures we take the faster she grows! She is so much fun now that she can lift her head, follow me with her eyes, smile, pick some things up and talks to the TV during her Baby Einstein. Back to that smiling thing, I had no idea the things that I would do to get this girl to smile at me...... I have resurrected the human beat box, break dancing, funny faces and songs that she just makes me want to sing. One song seems to be sung more than any other, a song by Ben Harper called "Steal my Kisses". The other day Kate was holding her and I went to kiss them both goodbye as I left for work. As I got closer to Ella she turned her head at the last minute. I thought this must have been as accident so I pulled away and she looked back at me. As I went in again she turned her head AGAIN and then started smiling. I asked Kate what she was doing and Kate said that she had read that sometimes they will turn their head if they think you are invading their personal space!! She is 4 months old and already has personal space??!! I will continue to take all the kisses that she gives me and steal the rest!

First Flight

As the tiny strips of skin began to be pulled from her irritated cuticles, tiny spots of blood began to appear around. Falling under the classification of nervous habits, this would be my wife's. We still had two weeks before our plane was to lift off from the tarmac, but her endless concerns of flying with a 3 month old had already taken hold. This nervous energy was fueled by hours of web research and parental testimonials of travel gone wrong. The good news is that despite the anxiety we felt we where prepared. Little did we know........

As we lugged large amounts of luggage through the airport we emerged through check in, breezed through security, and found our seat with ease. Once we where settled I glanced over to see Kate resorting to her nervous habit, I grabbed her hands to hold them and then her leg began to bounce, the whole time Ella slept with nothing but peace. After the plane broke contact wit the earth things where calm...... for now.

Ella had just finished feeding and was now smiling at her father as she faded in and out of her milk comma. That is when Kate's face lit up as she shrieked "ohhh noooo!" Drink service had just passed and we sat with trays down, leaving little room to scratch your nose, let alone move freely. As Kate lifted Ella, I could tell by her face this was not good..not good at all! I leaned over to see a large pile of Ella's post digested breast milk between Kate's legs. Ella had EXPLODED and defied gravity to send it right out of the back of the diaper. So there we sit, on a sold out flight, Ella has poop on her, Kate has poop on her, we have a seat full of poop, AND we have no room due to tray tables full of beverages. As I began to chug random glasses of pop and water, Kate began the clean up process the best she could. To her credit, all her research had payed off, we where as prepared as a parent could be. In the end Ella had to be changed, Kate had to be changed, and a team of stewardesses help as the seat had to be changed and exited in a large plastic bag. The entire time Ella smiled with relief wondering what all the fuss was about.

The family landed safely into Denver where we met by Kate's mom. Once again Kate and I quickly faded into the background as Ella became the center of attention. While we where out there Ella got to swim for the first time and learned that if we threw her head and arms far enough forward she could actually sit up. Now if she could only figure out how to slow that momentum down and not fall face forward into the couch. The best part of my vacation was waking up with my daughter and knowing that I had the whole day to spend with the family. Of coarse Ella enjoyed being showed with love from the grandparents - Gary and Gayle.

Kate and I joked the other day that in Ella's short three months she has participated in more than I had at 18 years of age. She has road tripped to Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Colorado and the Northern tip of Michigan, she clocked a time of 44 minutes and 15 seconds as she went on to beat her mom by 1 second in a 5k road race, attended a Reds vs. STL Game and Rockies vs Cubs Game........ did I mention she is only three months old?!

July 4th in the South

The opportunity to proudly show off Ella to friends and family proved much stronger than our personal commitment to finally reduce our summer travel schedule. Kentucky bound at 3pm on a Thursday proved to be an unexpected pleasurable ride, I was prepared for the worst holiday traffic, but thankfully never found it. Once again as our car cleared the Kentucky border my wife began to squirm in her seat and begin to use the words from her childhood - "ya'all com'en over tonight?" she says into her tiny new phone. Ella remained unphased, only waking to tell us when she is hungry.

Kentucky is not technically my home, but it is as home as any place I have ever lived. Every time we pack the car up to head North it gets a little harder. Spirits remained high this time though becasue we where only heading an hour North to Cincy, where we would join Kate's Grandparents, Aunt Sherri and Dad for the Reds baseball game. First up..... gearing up Ella in here Cincinnati Reds gear and heading off to her first baseball game. She was so impressed with the 10 - 1 loss to the Cardinals that she slept through the ENTIRE game!

I spent the next couple of days watching one person walk into a room with my daughter and another walking out of the room with her. The perfect example: Sherri had walked into the kitchen holding Ella, but what she didn't know was that her brother Tom was silently following her. Following her as if he where a lion quietly stalking prey through the plains of Africa. The second Sherri needed two hands he swooped in to politely offer his assistance with Ella, he now had the prize in his possession.....it would be brief. In this family packed their is one wiser than all the rest..... Great Grandma Ruth, GG Ruth as she would rather be called. She moved into the kitchen from the laundry room to ask Tom about a load of laundry that needed to be done. Tom innocently entered the room, oblivious to the switch that was about to happen. You could see this set up a mile away ...... you know when you are at the movies watching a scary movie and the half dressed, dumb blonde ventures off into the dark to see what that noise was? Today that half dressed dumb blonde was Tom! See, he would need two hands to complete the innocent task that had been asked of him by GG Ruth........ poor guy, he never saw it coming!

I sat in the kitchen this entire time drinking my coffee and watching with curious eyes as it all unfolded. Seconds later GG Ruth turned the corner with Ella in arms and a satisfied smile. I was left thinking....... damn, she is GOOD!

Cherry Capital

We have resided in Southeast Michigan now for over two years. In that two years most of our free time has been spent with our car pointed south, as we attended the many events our friends and family created to entice our attendance. Though we would not change that for the world, Michiganders are amazed to find that we have never been North of Ann Arbor!

We consistently hear about the weekend retreats to Northern Michigan and how they are the only reason why any of us would consider living in Michigan. Pushing our chores off to the side we headed North. After about 4.5 hours no more land existed to support the roads we drove in on, we had arrived in Traverse City.

Traverse City is the Cherry Capital of the world and they prepared for a large cherry festival the week after we made our visit.
As my wife unpacked her sandals and short sleeve shirts it had become clear that she had merely nodded her head "yes" without fully comprehending my weather announcement a day earlier. Traverse City had a very unusual cold spell while we where visiting, 60 degrees was the high with clouds and good percentage of rain. Seems after we left the sun came out and temps where back in the mid 70's.

It really was a great little town and we look forward to finding another reason to head back up there with better weather on our side.