Carleton... past and future!

Most readers here probably know that my mom and I are both Carleton alumni. My mom has determined Maisie's and Ella's class years, too (2027 and 2030, respectively)!

I sent this picture to the alumni magazine today, but I figured I'd share it here for those who won't see it... also, so you can see both girls together.

Wow. I just looked at the picture again, and boy do I look tired! Well, it's accurate; I am really tired. I need to get better at the "sleep when the baby sleeps" thing.

Introducing Ella Ann!

A week later, I've got a minute to do a proper introduction!

This is our new little girl, Ella Ann! As you know from Aaron's previous post, she was born last Saturday, June 20 at 9:45 a.m. weighing 7 lbs 1 oz and 20" long. She was born via scheduled c-section - since I ended up delivering Maisie via c-section after a long, hard labor, this time we opted to skip the "long, hard labor" part and get right to the good part with the baby. We had a great team of docs and nurses at the hospital, and the invaluable presence of my good friend Caroline who was there as our support person during the surgery. I'm recovering much more quickly than I did with Maisie's birth. We've all been home since Monday.

Ella's a little smaller than Maisie was at birth, but she's working on catching up - she eats all the time! She lost a little weight right after birth, which is to be expected, but she's almost back up to her birth weight already, which is great!

She eats whenever she's not sleeping, I should say. I hate to write this in case we jinx it, but she's a pretty good sleeper, too, going up to 3 hours at a time at night. Yay! Isn't she a cute little sleeper?

Ella is also a real cuddlebug. She loves to be held and snuggled all the time, and her favorite place to sleep is on my chest.

Second favorite: sleeping on her grandma.

Ella has blue eyes of course, but we are pretty sure they'll stay that way, since Aaron, Maisie and I all have blue eyes too. She has a fine little head of hair, which appears to be a little darker and maybe curlier than Maisie's was when she was born. And, if you have ever seen Maisie's toes, you know Maisie has these crazy Jalonen toes - the second and third toes are joined by a little web of skin up to the first joint - that both my uncles apparently have. Ella has that too, but only on her left foot!

More later on how we're all adjusting and making the transition from family of 3 to family of 4 (short version: Maisie is awesome and adjusting really well), but for now - kisses from baby Ella!

Ellalicious?

Ella: born 9:45am, 7lbs 1oz, 20inches

The countdown is on...

38 weeks and one day down...

six days to go! I don't remember if I updated our delivery (c-section) date here, so now you know: next Saturday, June 20 is the day! I can. not. wait. I couldn't be more excited to meet our new little girl - and, to be honest, not to be pregnant any more!

These last few weeks have been slow for us - Aaron and I have been kind of hunkering down, getting ready for the new baby and not really doing too much or going much of anywhere. Consequently, we don't have a lot of pictures to post, or interesting things to blog about...


Maisie is going through a major princess phase right now, which you may have figured out from her deep love of her princess skirt. Here, she is wearing a beautiful princess hat. Doesn't she make a lovely princess?

Fortunately, other people are doing interesting things for us to write about. Yesterday our friend Emi turned 1! We celebrated with her by swimming and then having cupcakes (which Maisie calls "pupcakes") at Lake Nokomis (or, as Maisie says, "Komis Lake").

Obligatory hilarious first birthday cake picture:

I love this picture because Emi looks SO SERIOUS as she sits in her cake. I also love that she's holding a fork - maybe purely decorative, given that she's clearly been using her hands to eat! Anyway, this picture cracks me up.

We had a good time swimming in the lake, even though the water was pretty cold. It was a beautiful day, and there were lots of people there, including many little kids who stared open-mouthed at my belly, which amused me. Only one child actually asked me "You got a baby in your tummy?" Hee.

Random cute picture of Maisie from this morning:

The way Maisie's speech is developing is so interesting. She has trouble with sounds in compound words that she can say just fine on their own. She can say "cup" and "cake" just fine, but together it's always "pupcake." My favorite though is "swim" and "suit" - no problem separately, but when combined, form "swimpoop." Much hilarity ensues every time we talk about going to the pool. Daddy, you got your swimpoop?

Memorial Day

Catching up on some pictures here... on Memorial Day, our friends Jason and Rebecca (and their daughter Sophia) hosted a barbecue. At Sophia's insistence, they put up their tent in the backyard for the kids to play in.

It was a huge hit! Maisie, Sophia, and the other kids there had a blast running in, around, and through the tent.

As you can see, Maisie wore her rainbow dress and her princess skirt to the barbecue. It's so cute - when she sees this picture (it's currently the wallpaper on our desktop computer at home) she always says "I love my rainbow dress! I love my princess skirt!" and then asks to go back to "Fia's party" to play in the tent some more.