Check-Up Time

Thankfully Ella has been a pretty darn healthy baby. Few colds but nothing major like our Owen (surgery at 6 weeks for pyloric stenososis..a little about that here).

Today was Ella’s well baby 1 year check up. Nana took Owen home…so it was just me and my girl for her appointment. Which is good…shots suck. Owen originally thought he was coming with us…to be the supportive brother that he is…and “hold his sisters hand to be brave for her”…cute right? He turns into the hulk during shot time…and his sister kinda follows in his footsteps (she’s crazy strong when in pain too!)

   

She's definitely growing!!!

Our regular pediatrician is out on maternity leave so we saw a different pediatrician today…and this doc has his patients get into gowns.  Is that not the most adorable thing you’ve ever seen or what?!?

She thought she looked pretty snazzy!

Nothing exciting to report. She checked out wonderfully. Healthy (minus she still has that cold lingering) She got 5 vaccines, a flu shot AND then a blood draw for anemia and lead. Everything routine! She was NOT a happy girl though…I felt so bad for her. We have to follow up with her cardiologist to make sure her little heart is still doing good (from her little VSD from when she was 2 weeks old.)

Look at those sad lil legs…3 shots each side. She’s gonna be sore in the morning.

Birthdays seem to always make Mama’s emotional. Surprisingly I’m not as sad as I thought I’d be…and maybe its because I know this isn’t my last baby (please God). But it DOES make sad thinking about Owen being Ella’s age. I get sad…it was an emotional year when Owen was a baby.  I love looking back and comparing…how much are my babies alike??

Owen on his first birthday (April 4th, 2010)….and Ella on her’s (January 30th, 2014)…

Both at their one year well baby check-ups

He was 22lbs 15oz (50th percentile) and 29.5 inches (55th percentile)
she is 18lbs 4.3oz (28th percentile) and 28.35 inches (23rd percentile)

They are different little people. Some may say they look alike…but man are they different from each other in many many ways. I’m so thankful for beautiful, healthy, happy children! Sometimes I feel like I don’t know what I did to deserve them.

From Belly to Baby

So the last 366 days literally seemed to flash before eyes (which it kinda did as I’ve been creating my Project 365 collage haha). But no seriously Ella’s first year FLEW by!

I feel like just yesterday I was trying to think of creative chalkboard belly pictures…

    

But no…these belly pics were a LONG time ago!!  haha

And a year ago today I was sad…hobbling to the NICU every chance I got to visit my new little baby girl.

  Thankfully she thrived over her 3 day stay in the NICU…and was released a healthy lil chunky baby!

A year later…she isn’t so much a chunky baby… shes a petite lil spitfire…gosh I love her. 

Her actual birthday fell on a Thursday…work day. But Nana stayed home with the kids…and when I got home from work we sang happy birthday and let her devour her treat (poor daddy was coaching polo practice and missed his baby girls birthday).
I loved letting her dig in…not worrying one bit about the mess she was making. It started cute…then she was throwing it on the floor, wiping it all over her hair…it was gross and within a split second she was over it. haha

Her little party is next week…our close friends will come help celebrate her day with us.

I have more blogging to do about her year…more to come. Now is time for some Juan Pablo (TheBachelor)

#ayearofella

A year and a half ago my friend Heather came across a blog OR a pin on pinterest…(I don’t remember which)…of this huge collage…called a Project 365. A  girl took a picture of her kid every single day…found a hashtag that wasn’t being used and then hashtagged them to put them all in the same spot. (If you aren’t Twitter or Instagram savy you have NO idea what I’m talking about haha). While pregnant (Heather and I were due just days apart)…we thought it sounded like an awesome idea and had planned on doing it. (what the hell were we thinking? haha)

Heather’s little man came 9 days before Ella…she started the picture project and when Ella arrived she pressured me in to it as well. haha I was so scared to fail! lol I couldn’t even do one of those monthly picture challenges how the HELL was I going to do a full year of it?!?! BUT with the help of a cool app called Collect on my phone and some motivation from friends and of course my mother sending nightly texts IF I forgot to post one (thanks Bernie!)…I was able to actually take and post a picture of Ella EVERY SINGLE DAY for the past 365 days!! Never missed a day…never posted one from a different day…I actually did it. No cheating!

**Collect (found in you app store) has a calendar where you can place your daily pictures AND it sets an alarm for you…so the evenings you DO forget to post…ding ding ding Collect is there to remind you!! haha! Cool right. And you can make the calendar a photo to save on your phone like this…

I thought the project would end on her birthday, but it doesn’t, it ends the day before their birthday. Weird right? But think of this…if you start the project on January 1st…365 days later would be December 31st..so today was the last day. Last picture. THANK GOD. 

Here’s Day 1 and Day 365…

Wednesday January 30th, 2013  and Wednesday January 29th, 2014…wow 

You think remembering to take the picture every day was the hard part…or trying to think of SOMETHING creative to do that you haven’t done before would be the hard part…or keeping all the pictures together hard?…OH NO. The hard part comes in making the collage…you get a template in photoshop (Heather bought it….isn’t she so awesome! heehee). And you place each picture…individually…one by one!!!

So I  got the template mid January…and DID WORK!! Watched some Teen Mom 2 placed a million photos over a few weeks. Wanted to go to the beach during these HOT weekends but with sick kids I just stayed home and worked on this darn collage during nap time.  Annoying BUT Its ok! It’ll all be worth it.

AND HERE is the final product…can’t wait to see it in my hands in 5-7 days…
 

As much as I stressed and this FRIED my freaking brain some days, I’m SOOOO happy that Heather made me do this!! Tt was amazing to watch her grow and share it with our family and friends via social media. People who have NEVER met Ella always tell me they feel like they know her because of all the pictures! I’m sorry for those of you that did NOT like the daily pics…I’m sure some people found it a tad annoying and probably think I’m one of THOSE crazy moms…well yeah I am! haha

But now time to relax and post pictures of my gorgeous kids whenever I feel like it…it MIGHT be everyday still BUT no pressure! haha  Thanks for all that have followed my Ella-Bean. I must go to sleep now…Her Ladyship turns ONE tomorrow #sadface