Life lately...

Not much has changed lately around these parts, other than Ellie growing up, of course!

She's becoming quite the cutie! Well, she was already super cute, she's just getting even MORE super cute!

She's started to smile and we can make her happy by talking to her in silly voices, tapping her nose with her binky, or touching her cheeks.

She's the best thing that's ever happened to us, and she's just SO MUCH FUN!

Sadly, my fun with her is being cut back by about 30 hours/week. I'm returning to work tomorrow, and I am just not looking forward to it at all. I don't want to go back. It's not that I really really hated my job before (ok, maybe I DID really really hate my job), but the part that gets me is leaving little Ellie with someone while I have to work. I hate it. Thankfully, we found a great babysitter and we really like her, so that will make it a tiny bit easier.

I have to stop thinking about it, or else I'll just get more depressed that it's going to happen no matter how hard I try to make it not happen.

In other news, I think I found a few GREAT places for us to live in NY!! Hallelujah! I have tried for a very long time to find something that allows us to have a short-term lease, and I just couldn't. After going back through the apartment guide booklet for the Albany area, I stumbled across a complex that I had put an "X" through, signifying that it was too expensive.

After thinking about it more, and looking at the bullet points on this particular ad, I saw that it said, "Short-term furnished apartments available". So, I shot an email to the manager and found out that it will probably be a perfect fit! Hoorah! I'm still waiting to hear back about the availability of the units and we'll be in business!

I really have no more to say at the moment. It's past my bed-time and I need all the sleep I can get to deal with my bound to be rough day tomorrow.

I almost wish I wouldn't have tried to blog tonight because it's so random and bleh. Sorry for the disappointment!

Valentine's Day Fun

I have a sweetheart of a hubby. Valentine's morning, while I was still in bed, he presented me with flowers. :) It was very sweet, and very unexpected.

After I got up, he had left a bag from my favorite boutique sitting on the counter. Inside of it was a necklace and earring set.

I decided to get D a box of See's chocolates for V-Day because he LOOOOVES sweets. He's lucky it hasn't all caught up to him yet--hopefully it never does! ;)

We gave Ellie the CUTEST little book called "I Love you Through and Through." She seems to like to listen to us read it to her, but it will be fun when she really enjoys story time more.

Because I have one of the best friends ever, D and I got to go out for dinner Valentine's night. She ditched FHE to come babysit! (THANKS SO MUCH HILLARY!! We LOVE Hillary lots and lots!!) We chose to go to Applebee's and luckily we didn't have to wait for a million years to be seated! I should have chosen something else to eat--because what I got (Some kind of southwest lime chicken or something) wasn't the best--but hey, I enjoyed my time alone D and the break from my house.

Before we got back from dinner--we stopped at a Redbox to get the movie "You Again". We started watching it, and D decided it was "too much" and "too cheesy" for him. So we stopped watching it and watched a couple episodes of "Lie to Me" on instant view Netflix instead.

As always when watching ANYTHING after 10 p.m., I fell asleep on the couch. After the second episode was over, D woke me up and was going to carry me to bed until I refused and told him I could walk.

Overall, a very happy V-Day. :)

I LOVE my hubby, and I'm thankful that he makes me feel special all the time, and not just on V-Day.

I'll have to put pictures up another time, because I can't locate the cable for my camera right now...

Stay tuned!

One month old!

Today, Ellie turned one month old! Can you even believe it? I know I can't!!

She's grown up SO much in the past month and it's so crazy that it has gone by so fast! She's starting to smile for real when she's alert and awake but is still figuring it out. She is a very good and happy baby and only fusses if she needs to burp more or if I'm not quick enough to feed her.

She's super great at taking naps during the day, and is getting better at sleeping during the night. She usually sleeps 4-5 hours between feedings at night, with exception to her second night feeding where she decides that it's super awake time/fussy time. I can usually get her to calm down and fall asleep after 30-60 minutes of her laying on my chest, or her lying next to me. She just LOVES to be close to us. We're trying to keep her more awake during the day to help her sleep at night and usually it works pretty well.

Things she loves:

• Bath time--if she is fussy at night, we give her a bath and she calms right down. She's going to be a little water baby!
• Cuddling with mom or dad--she will settle right down if you just snuggle her up to your chest most times and I LOVE to snuggle with her.
• Sitting in her bouncy seat.
• Listening to mom or dad talk and sing.
• Being carried in the baby carrier while mom is trying to get things done around the house.

Things she doesn't really like:

• Tummy time--she usually fusses for the first little bit of tummy time, but once she is there for a bit she starts to enjoy it.
• Getting put in the car seat--she doesn't like the initial sitting in the car seat, but calms down once we're in the car.
• The swing--the swing we have right now is a small travel swing (we have a full-sized one, it's just in Roosevelt right now so who knows if she will like that one!?) I think the one we have scares her because it goes too fast even on the very lowest setting.

I'm happy to report that she weighs about 8 lbs 8 oz and is starting to get a little bit of chub on her little legs. She's still wearing newborn clothes, but the newborn onesies are starting to be too short. We've put her in a couple 0-3 outfits and they don't drown her so much anymore. We can also put socks on her little feet without them falling off because her ankles FINALLY have some chub on them! She still wears newborn size diapers still, but I'm sure she'll be in size 1 soon.

She's such a joy and I LOVE being home with her. Sadly I can't stay home with her forever, as I am returning to work in about 3 weeks. However, I will only be working for about 9 weeks after I go back! Hooray! Because our schedules don't mesh perfectly, we needed to hire someone to watch Ellie for about 9-10 hours a week. I am happy to say that we hired someone through care.com and I am pretty confident that she will be a good fit for us.

In other news, we are still waiting on security clearance for David's internship. KAPL (Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory) called David a while ago to let him know they have a new way of doing fingerprinting. It is digital and will shorten the wait time of the security clearance anywhere from 2-3 weeks. Here's the catch--the fingerprinting has to be done at one of their facilities. Uggh! So, David is flying to Idaho on the 10th to get fingerprints and flying back home on the 11th. Good thing they're paying for all of it!

We're staring to look for apartments in the Albany area, and I have NO idea what we're going to end up doing! Everything is kind of waiting on the clearance because David won't have a start/end date for the internship until the clearance goes through. Hopefully it's done soon and we'll know when we're leaving, coming back and where we'll be living!

That's about all that we're up to these days. We're still both adjusting to being parents and dealing with sleep deprivation and stress but we wouldn't trade it for anything in the world!

Enjoy the pictures from Ellie's first month of life!