10 months old!

For Elinor’s 10-month birthday yesterday, Burke and I reorganized the kitchen cabinets to put all of the lightweight, indestructible things down below so that Elinor could play while we work in the kitchen.  She loves it!  She spends so much time every day taking things out (of the laundry basket, of her toy drawer, of Mommy’s sock drawer) and putting them back in.  She also loves turning the lights on and off, opening and closing doors, and playing with the telephone and the stereo buttons.  Her pointing that started last month has turned into pointing and saying “dat” (what’s that, we assume) and we spend most of our day telling her what things are.  We think she’s said a few words, like maybe duck and light, but they sound an awful lot like “dat” so who knows!  In the past few weeks Elinor started standing alone for moments at a time, but in the last few days, she’s been doing it much more confidently.  She stands while clapping and while reaching down to get a toy that’s fallen.  She’s getting more confident with her steps as well, and we don’t think it will be too long before she takes her first independent steps.  We won’t rush her though!!!  Keeping up with a crawling baby is enough for now!

We went to Ashland in mid-October with a big group of friends, most of whom brought young babies, and it was a wonderful trip.  Elinor went on her first hayride at the pumpkin patch on Sauvie Island, dressed as a bee for Halloween, and is loving her Music Together classes.  She goes to book babies at the library, on long walks with GrandJan, and over to Miney & Jake’s house to play.  She’s sleeping great, most of the time, except for that 4 AM morning on the day after Daylight Saving’s Time ended!

In other news, Burke finished his kayak and is planning on launching next weekend!  I am so proud of him for sticking to it and having such a beauty of a boat as a result.

Here is a link to photos taken this past month. Enjoy!

2 months old!

We just figured out how to post video to the blog and hope you enjoy this little video we shot of Elinor this morning! Make sure your speakers are on. The audio is great!

We’ve also posted more pictures to flickr so click here to access them.  Elinor is 2 months old today and is more fun every single day!

Elinor at 7 weeks

At 7 weeks, Elinor is all about her play mat and her mobile!  She is so much more independent and loves to lie down and look at black and white squiggles and circles all while kicking and squirming and smiling!  She is sleeping more at night and less during the daytime and loves sucking on her hands and rubbing on her face (we have to really watch those fingernails now!).  We can’t believe how much she changes every single day.  Happy 7 week birthday, Elinor!

Pictures from the past few weeks

A highlight of the past few weeks was a trip to GrandJan’s beach house in Oceanside.  We loved introducing Elinor to the Pacific Ocean.  Elinor was a great traveller!  A low point of the past few weeks was Burke’s return to work last week.  We had developed such a nice routine over the month that he was home, and now we are in the midst of establishing a new routine, which is hard for all of us!  Burke misses Elinor and I know Elinor misses her daddy too.  I took Elinor to the doctor this week just to get an interim weight, and she weighs nearly 10 pounds!  This is a weight gain of about 2 pounds in 3 weeks and shows that Elinor is nursing really well.  She is sleeping a little bit longer during the night (sometimes as long as 4-5 hours, if I’m lucky!) and since she is doing so well with gaining weight, I don’t have to worry that she’s not eating frequently enough.  I have posted more pictures on Flickr so click on this sentence to access them!  Bye for now!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

We promise to add a link to the past few weeks of pictures within the next few days!  We are all doing well and wish everyone a Happy Valentine’s Day!

Happy 3 week birthday, Elinor!

In honor of Elinor turning 3 weeks old today, her parents have FINALLY put some new pictures into an album to share with all of you.  We are trying out different photo sharing tools so today the pictures are on flickr.  Click here to access our favorite photos from the past two weeks.

Elinor has had a busy two weeks!  She:

• went birdwatching
• had her first bath
• smiled
• started talking more
• watched a historic inauguration
• met lots of new people
• got a library card
• went to her first lunch at a restaurant
• regained her birth weight plus plus!
• slept for an hour in Stefan’s swing by herself
• grew out of some clothes
• saw her first snow
• spent some quality time with grandparents
• went on her first walk (and second and third and fourth!)
• visited her mommy’s office

Burke and I are doing well and are so enjoying this time as a family.  I was pretty sick for several days with mastitis…not fun.  But I am on the mend.  We are starting to get just a little stir crazy so have planned at least one outing per day for the next several days…to GrandJan and GrandChuck’s house, to breakfast, to dinner with the Dusty Doggers, to Super Bowl parties!  The more we get out, the less overwhelming it seems.

Until we post again!

Love,

Julia, Burke and Elinor

pretty faces

Here are some of our favorite shots from the past few days.

funny faces and cute feet

Elinor’s first walk!

Today we went on our first walk!  It was a gorgeous, sunny day in Portland so we wanted to take advantage of it.  Sarah and Stefan (born 8/18/08) and Jen and Clare (born 11/30/08) came over and we walked in the neighborhood.  The daffodils are coming up and the winter daphne is about to bloom.  I love this time of year when there is such promise that spring will indeed come!  Elinor loved being in the Moby Wrap and slept the entire walk.  I’m very much looking forward to many more walks, especially in the next few days of nice weather.

Elinor is one week old!

We are having problems with the blog design at www.elinorstoll.com so we will keep posting here until we figure that out.

We can’t believe that Elinor will be a week old tomorrow!  We finally uploaded some pics from the hospital and from her first week of life.  Please check out this link.  We tried to document all of her visitors but some were in and out so quickly we couldn’t get their pictures.  There are still lots of people for her to meet…and we can’t wait for that.

The first week has been challenging but we made it through!  Today I turned a corner in how I am feeling both physically and emotionally.  It might be that good old sunshine shining in our windows, but whatever the case, it’s nice.

Elinor came home from the hospital with some neonatal jaundice due to a bit of head trauma during her birth.  We have had a couple of doctor’s appointments and we found out today that she will not need treatment.  Yay!

I am staying up with Elinor during the night and Burke is sleeping, so that during the day he can be more functional and do more of the household chores and I can nap.  So far this is working well but do notice all the pictures of Burke sleeping! 🙂  My lack of sleep might catch up with me at some point.

We are loving being parents to this beautiful little girl.  It’s hard to put into words all the emotions we’ve felt.  Such intense happiness and joy….