Summer Dreams

Hi all-

Obviously it's been a while since I've taken the time to babble to you all. Ella Rose has joined us and is almost two months old. In fact, she's 8 weeks old today. Wow! I can't believe so much time has already passed nor can I believe that I have to head back to school in a little over a week.

Thankfully, though, school will be out for the summer by the time May is over. :) I can hardly wait for it to end so that I can be home with Ella full time again. It's just 3 or 4 weeks though that I'll have to go back to work. That's not too long, right? Or so I tell myself. But enough about work.

So in the meantime, I'm enjoying every moment with our little Ella Rose. And watching her enjoy each moment for the first time has been so amazing. So far we've taken her to her first Art Show, her first play, and experienced many other firsts with her. Such as her first trip to Walmart, her first Easter, her first meal outside of the home, etc...

In fact, just yesterday Ella began helping me in the yard!! Wooo hooo!! And while I was planting flowers she decided to roll almost off of her blanket. We also went to look at some professional pictures that we had taken of her. They were amazing!!!! I wish I could have brought all of them home, but alas we had to narrow our choices down. Needless to say I've been plotting ever since how to manage to buy all of the pictures that the photographer took of her.

Speaking of plotting though, all of my hard work and plotting to cloth diaper Ella paid off. And let me be one of the ones to tell you...it's NOT that hard. Everyone told me that it would be so difficult and so much more of a hassle to use cloth diapers and wipes...and perhaps there are methods that make it hard, but we aren't using one of those. And I *love* Ella's kissaluvs. Personally, I think she does too. After all, it has to be better to cloth across that little bottom than to have some paperlike chemical filled product. And I love it that we've not had to go to the store even once for diapers. YES!!!!

So I've begun to plot and plan for my next big project with Ella: Making her baby food. I can hardly wait. But there is plenty to do before we begin working on making baby food for Ella. In fact, Ella's first big road trip is coming up in about 3 weeks. Wow!! She'll be going to Mississippi with her cousins, Gran, Paw, and Me. Our cousin is getting married and Ella is going to get to meet her 3rd cousin Isabella who is a couple of months older than her.

Believe it or not Ella and I also have quite a few other plans for the summer. Obviously we are going to continue our flower and vegetable work in the yard, but we also want to start working on a scrapbook for her. I made one for Josh during our first year of our relationship and I want Ella to have one of the first year of her life with us too.

I am SO looking forward to taking Ella several places this summer. I can hardly wait to introduce her to friends up in North Ga. And we are both looking forward to spending some time with my Great Aunt and Ella's great-great Aunt our Nanny.

Finally, we are hopeful that we can go to the beach for the first time this summer. I suppose time will tell whether or not we get to do that...but it's possible. And thinking of the beach trip (oddly enough) makes me begin to think of autumn adventures. I can hardly wait to take Ella apple picking for the first time and so many other things.

I know it sounds cliche, but I can hardly remember what life was like before Ella arrived. The highlight of my day is often seeing her smile or listening to her babble. There's no better sound than the ones that come from my little sunshine. I do know that the house isn't as clean and that it takes a lot longer to accomplish chores and projects, but it's SO worth it. And I love motherhood more than I ever thought I would.

Josh and I love our little miracle so much and so do Abby and Rachel. We are so blessed. I look forward to babbling more in the near future. Hopefully, there won't be such a long break this time.