Ellen's 5 Months

Ellen has continued to keep our life filled with love and laughter this month.  She is growing and changing right before our eyes!  How could we not just adore this face!

 

At her four month appointment she weighed in at 14lbs 13oz (63% percentile) and was 25 inches long (73% percentile).  She took her shots like a champ and even went to a 4th of July party the same night. 

This month Ellen continued to work on sleeping without her swaddle.  It has been a long transition but she has finally started sleeping and napping great!  Another development is that we have a schedule!  :)  Anyone that knows me well knows I am a girl that likes a schedule.  God gave me a little girl that didn't work into a schedule for a few months.  It has been good for me!  She is taking two long naps and one short cat nap in the evening.  She goes to bed around 8:00-8:30pm and is up at 7am.  She does have some unconventional sleeping positions in her crib but whatever works.

 

Ellen is on the roll.....literally!  She rolls from one side of the room to the other.  If she see something she wants she will roll to get it.  She wants to be on the move all the time.  She is starting to sit up but we don't trust her on her own yet but she is getting closer. 

Ellen has a very funny habit of sticking out her tongue.  She sticks it out but then leaves it out for long periods of time.  She will laugh, giggle and cry all with her tongue still hanging out.  It is so funny! 

Much of our day we spend reading books.  We read to Ellen before each nap and before bed.  She is still sleeping lots so that means lots of reading.  We of course read to her during her wake time as well.  Our favorite bedtime/nap books are I Love You Through and Through, My Mommy and Me, Prayer for a Child and My Very First Bible Stories. 

Here are a few other things Ellen has been up to this month!

Brian and Jaime came up for dinner and brought their twins.  How cute are these three!!??  It is so fun to have babies so close together! 

For the 4th of July we went down to Roca for the weekend.  Drew's whole family was in town and we had a blast.  We took Ellen to the Lincoln Zoo and it was so great.  She loved the penguins but did snooze through some of it.  She got lots of love all weekend! 

In Roca we found a baby picture of Ray (Drew's Dad) that confirms that Ellen does look like her Grandpa!

We started pushing for Doane College!  Doane sent this shirt to Ray and Marcia when TJ was born.

 

  

We had some awesome play dates!  I feel so blessed to have these ladies in my life.  It is so fun to experience this crazy season of life together!



 

We got to meet Dad for lunch on a beautiful summer day! 

 

Aunt Rita came to town and we got to spend a ton of time together!  It was wonderful!!

 

 

 

Krissy and Evangeline invited us over to swim!  Krissy's parents have a pool and it is magical!  It was Ellen's first time in a pool.  The girls got rock star treatment with warm pool water and of course warmed towels when they were done swimming.  Ellen loved the water and the girls had a ton of fun! 

 

 

Our journey group got together for a Stormchaser baseball game.  It was a perfect night to have all the kiddos out.  We put out blankets in the berm and had a great night together.  We didn't get a group picture but Ellen loved her first baseball game.

 

 

 

We celebrated cousin Eli's 3rd birthday together in Omaha.  He was so excited! 

 



 

We just love this sweet little face so much!



 

We can't wait for another month with our sweet little girl.  It's time to introduce her to Husker season!





Ellen's 4 Month

This month Ellen has been busy learning how to sleep.  We quickly learned that most babies need to be taught how to sleep and Ellen was no exception.  We had visions of our baby getting tired and us putting her down and her drifting off to sleep peacefully.  Not the case.  :) 

We do feel very blessed that Ellen has always been a great night sleeper.  She started sleeping through the night at 8 weeks.  Every now and then she will wake up in the night but for the most part her night sleep has never been an issue.

Her naps however are a completely different story.  She would wake up at 45 minutes on the nose into her 2 hour naps.  For a period of time we thought she was just a cat napper but quickly realized (via massive meltdowns) that she was actually not getting the restorative sleep she needed during the day.  So enters sleep training. 

For a week and a half our days were filled with me sitting in the nursery with her during naps soothing her back to sleep.  I know if we let her cry-it-out completely it wouldn't have taken so long but I have time right now and I just can't do it.  She was napping lots better.  She would still fight naps here and there but for the most part at 45 minutes she would wake up but could then put herself back to sleep.  Yeah!  We've never felt so accomplished until we had to stop swaddling her and start all over!  :) 

Just this week Ellen figured out how to roll from her back to her stomach.  Now we have trouble keeping her on her back.  She also learned how to roll onto her stomach while swaddled.  So we had to stop swaddling her to sleep.  This was/is a HUGE adjustment for Ellen.  It has disrupted our great sleep and nap patterns but we hope she will get used to it in the next week or so.  Here's to hoping! 

Another new development this month is she has learned that she can scream and grunt.  Not a sweet scream or even an I'm upset scream.  Just a ear piercing scream for no real reason.  She can crack us up!  She will let out the loudest scream and then look at us like "why did you do that??!!" 

Anything Ellen gets in her hands now goes directly to her mouth.  We have had to watch her closer.  When I wasn't paying attention she grabbed tissue paper from a present and was getting ready to eat it.  It is always a given... from hands.....directly to mouth! 

Here are a few other things Ellen has been up to this month.....

Ellen had her first trip to the zoo with Bethany, Josiah, and Amelia.  She LOVED the aquarium.  Next year we will have to get a zoo pass. 

 

We had Ellen's baby dedication at church.  All our friends and family came to celebrate.

 

Drew was out of town on work so Ellen and I had our first night alone. 

Since Drew was out of town Ellen came to cooking club with me but then decided to have a meltdown so we had to leave before I got to taste our yummy food.  Days later we started sleep training.  :)

Here she is with Vanessa at cooking club before her meltdown.   

Ellen got her first postcard from Grandma and Grandpa Henning while they were in Hawaii!

We celebrated Father's Day with the greatest new Dad around!  We are so lucky!

Ellen got to see Aunt Jackie one more time before she heads back for more rotations.  We won't get to see her again until January. :(

We had a wonderful dinner at our home with Jason, Bethany, Josiah, Jazzman and Don.  Drew and Jason grew up together and had lots of fun talking about "the good old days."

Ellen got to celebrate a baby BOY cousin coming in October.  It was Ellen's first gender reveal party!  We are so excited for Aunt Joy and Uncle Tyler.  Ellen wore a blue dress (our guess was boy) with a pink flower.  She needed to remain neutral.  :) 

 

It's a BOY!

 

Ellen got to go "swimming" at the Quarry with our journey group.  She touched her feet in the water and then slept the rest of the time. 

It has been another great month with our sweet baby Ellen!