Scenes from Texas

Whew!!!!!!!!  What a trip!  From Dallas to Georgetown to Lufkin to Carthage to Longview and back to Dallas!  From grandparents to great-aunts and great-uncles and great-great uncles to cousins and second cousins and third cousins to friends!  Elinor was an absolute trooper.  Despite the change in scenery, different beds every night, and lack of sleep, she decided to roll from back to front AND front to back while she was in Texas!  She’s grabbing her toes, talking a bunch, and just more beautiful and fun and alert every day.  Here are a few pictures to help you appreciate what a great week we had and how many people Elinor got to meet.  We had such a wonderful time and are so thankful for the hospitality of our friends and family.

Elinor at 3 months

Elinor is 1/4 of a year old!  Here are a few pictures of the last couple of weeks.  Elinor has changed so much.  She is reaching and grabbing at toys (her very favorite toy is a bee).  She loves facing forward now, so she can see the world and all those exciting things going on in it.  She continues to love to talk and sing, especially when Miney and Jake sing The Ants Go Marching One by One to her.  Recently, she started blowing raspberries.  She met her Aunt Jennifer last weekend (they hit it off, of course!).  We leave for Texas on April 16.  We’ll be visiting Grandpa and Grandma Stoll in Dallas for a long weekend, and then Burke will fly back while my parents & I see family and friends in Austin, Lufkin, Carthage, and Longview.  We will post a whole bunch of pictures when we return!

Elinor at 10 Weeks

Here’s another video of Elinor we took yesterday while she was playing on her mat–hope you enjoy!  Elinor has found her hands and spends many minutes each day staring intently at them (and making herself cross-eyed!).  Elinor is sleeping from 5-7 hours at a stretch almost every night, which is great!  Hope you all have a great weekend.  We plan to take Elinor to the Portland Farmer’s Market opening day tomorrow–she will be spending a lot of time there this spring, summer, and fall!  We’ll take pictures!

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