Happy new year!

Belated happy new year, but the wishes are no less sincere for being late :) We had a lovely winter holiday season, and I hope all of you did too!

Maisie's Finnish dance group performed at a Joulu (Finnish Christmas) event sponsored by FACA, the Finnish American Cultural Activities group.

Isn't she the cutest little tonttu?

She even picked up some Aarikka Christmasy earrings at the bazaar!

On Christmas Eve, we celebrated the holiday over at Auntie Laura's house... I can't believe how tall Dylan is!

I swear, Ella is in the picture, hiding behind her new pillow pet!

On New Year's Eve, we hosted Dylan and Maisie's BFF Ophelia for a sleepover.

There was movie watching, popcorn eating, root beer float drinking... not much sleeping though!

So now we're through the holidays and into 2015! The girls are back at school, I'm settling in to my new job (I started a new position here at the bank in mid-November), and life continues on. The girls are already starting to plan their costumes for CONvergence this summer - Ella's going to be Beast Boy, and Maisie's going to be Raven, from Teen Titans Go!. Maisie's also going to go back to Salolampi for two weeks, and we're talking about getting a family vacation in again, since we had SUCH a great time in Chicago in October!

We're ready for a great 2015 and hope you are too! :)

Naptime

Ella hasn't been sleeping well lately. We aren't sure if it's due to a growth spurt, developmental something-or-other, or just regular kid wackiness. But whatever the cause, it means Aaron & I aren't sleeping well either.

Lucky Aaron and Ella get naps... while I get pictures of sweetly napping Ella.

Unfair! Mama needs a nap!

Getting ready for bed

The girls are watching Dinosaur Train, their last show of the day before bedtime.

Sent from my Windows Phone

Sleep!

Sleep is one of those things that new parents, or parents of young kids, can't stop talking about it. I think it's similar to how hungry people talk obsessively about food... the sleep-deprived are constantly talking about sleep, and their kids. Are they sleeping well? How long? What hours? What's your bedtime routine?

Maisie's always been a very independent sleeper. Even as a tiny baby, she slept best when she had her own space, whether that was in a bassinet, crib, or now her bed. She went through a brief phase when she moved to her big kid bed where she'd crawl into bed with us at night, but it passed quickly.

Ella, on the other hand, has always been a nighttime snuggler.

For the first few weeks of her life, she would only sleep if she was physically on me. I slept sitting up until we managed to get her to at least sleep next to us, not on us. She eventually moved from the bassinet to a crib in her room, and that was fine - until a few months ago.

At about 18 months, we found her trying to climb out of her crib. It wasn't unexpected - Maisie did the same thing - so we went off to Ikea and got them a bunk bed. Now that she's realized she can get out of bed, when she wakes in the night, she comes into bed with us.

There isn't anything inherently wrong with this - we aren't strictly opposed to cosleeping. It'd be just fine, if there were more actual sleeping involved. Instead, Ella's reverting to previous behavior where it's not enough to be next to someone - she wants to fall asleep on someone. And that someone is typically me.

Last night she woke up and instead of coming into our bed, sat in the hallway and screamed "Mama! Mama! Cuddle me! Cuddle me!" until I got out of bed, took her back into her room, and sat with her on my lap until she fell asleep. At that point I tried to go back to my bed, but noooooo... Ella instantly woke up and started yelling "Sleep here mama! Sleep here!" So I did. Not well, but I did sleep.

I know I shouldn't give in, but I'm so tired when it happens, and it just seems like the past of least resistance. Plus, Ella's screams wake Maisie up, who then joins in the scream-fest with "Ella! You're TOO LOUD! I can't sleep!!!" It'd be funny if it weren't 2:30 in the morning.

So anyone with advice on how to get a tired two year old to stay in her bed all night long, without interfering with Maisie's sleep too much - please tell me what to do! Of course, general sympathies and commiseration are welcome too.

Cell phone photos

Here are some assorted cell phone photos... enjoy!

Ella is a turkey, playing with her turkey.


Saying "cheese," and showing off teeth!


Sledding at Suomi-koulu's Laskiainen celebration.


Showing off new bangs.



Naptime!



(A tip of the hat to cousin Sully for the blog post idea!)

A quick update

An update on what we've been up to, since we last posted...

Ella's diet has been expanding. Her latest food, which she loves, is pasta with tomato sauce. Yum!

She likes to keep a finger or two in her mouth while she eats to help keep the food in there. Right now she only has two teeth - bottom front, they appeared together recently, which is ahead of Maisie, who had a single tooth on her first birthday. But pretty soon Ella will have more teeth, and having your fingers in your mouth while you eat won't be an option for her!

On Friday, Maisie's school was closed for parent-teacher conferences. (Maisie, by the way, is doing extremely well at her preschool. Her teachers enjoy her presence in the children's house, and find her bright and capable. Yay!) So I took the day off, and after our conference in the morning, we all went to the zoo.

We rented a double stroller, since Maisie sometimes likes to ride, and Ella gets heavy and squirmy after a bit. It was a great choice! Both the girls really seemed to enjoy riding together. I'm sure that will last, right?

And finally, because nothing's cuter than a sleeping baby...

except a sleeping baby with her butt up in the air!

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!

sleepy

A quick post: we had a busy, fun, BUSY! weekend with play dates, birthday parties, and lots of good times. But it didn't leave a lot of time for picture-taking and blogging.

Even naps got short shrift. Maisie didn't blink for the camera - she's fast asleep here. On Saturday we ran to Target to pick up a birthday present for our friend who turned 3. Even though she'd had a nap already, and Target is maybe 10 minutes away, by the time we got there she was completely asleep! We tried to wake her up but she wasn't having it, so Aaron carried her the whole time. She woke up when we got home, and was pretty confused. "Target?" "No sweetie, we already went to Target. We're home now." "Waah! Target!!"

Saturday celebrations

One thing I love about the Twin Cities is all the random little neighborhood festivals that spring up during the spring/summer/fall. Today we went to two of them!

We started out at Woofstock in the Linden Hills neighborhood of Minneapolis. As you can probably guess from the title, this is a celebration of all things doggy.
We're not huge dog people, as you probably could've guessed, but our friend Brian has adopted two retired racing greyhounds and is really active in that community, so we went to say hi to him and his boys, Boogie and Crash. (Boogie is the black one, and Crash is the brindle.) As you can see, Boogie was exhausted by all the goings-on. Fortunately Crash is kind enough to let Boogs rest his head on his back. They are such sweet dogs. If we were ever thinking about getting a dog, we'd seriously consider adopting a retired racer.

After Woofstock we headed home. It was naptime, but Maisie refused to sleep! So we strollered up to a random little neighborhood celebration not too far from our house. There was a bounce house for the kids, sidewalk sales, deals on cones at our favorite ice cream place, and even a really cool taiko drumming performance.


Too bad Maisie slept through it all! She even missed out on the ice cream, one of her favorite treats. She fell asleep about two blocks from home, slept through the whole walk (including the taiko drums), and woke up again when we were about halfway home.

Oh well, it's not a bad thing. Aaron and I enjoyed a nice walk, and Maisie definitely needed the sleep more than she needed the ice cream.

Sick day.

Maisie's daycare provider called me around 10:30 this morning, letting me know that Maisie had a fever of 101.7 and needed to go home.

I wasn't getting much done at work anyway... people were mostly just sitting around, talking about the bridge collapse. So I picked her up and brought her home.

Her fever has dropped under 100 thanks to a sure-fire combo of baby Tylenol, lots of naps, and lots of snuggles. I think she'll be back to her usual cheerful, busy self in no time. And maybe with some teeth to show for it!

Why we can't ever go anywhere.

We are often invited places in the evening, but we can never go unless we find child care. Even if the place and people are baby-friendly, it's just not going to happen, because Maisie is all about being early to bed (and sadly for us, early to rise).

I have been asked why we gave Maisie such an early bedtime. Ha ha ha! If it were up to us, she'd stay up a little later, and sleep past 6:00 a.m. Instead, this is what happens by 6:30 p.m. every evening.

She gets her bedtime bottle, and bam! Out like a light.

Even if we wanted to keep her up, I don't know how we'd do it. This baby is bound and determined to get her sleep.

(The nice thing is, though, that when we do find a babysitter, it's pretty easy work!)