Weeks 14 & 15

Well, it was bound to happen and now it has! I just didn't have time to make a post last week, so here are two weeks combined! With Christmas and break and the general craziness of the holidays, I never had a chance to sit down. But today I have some time off, so here are the best pictures from the last 2 weeks.

She's gotten so much better at holding her head up! It's amazing how much stronger she gets every day.

Her new trick: she's trying to roll over.

She can only get onto her side, but she lays there and sucks on her fist and talks to herself. It's really funny to watch. Certainly can't leave her laying on the couch or anything anymore! She will flail herself right off.

We went to Grandma & Grandpa Looten's house in Springfield for the weekend before Christmas. Mommy forgot to pack a church outfit for Sunday AND Monday, so we had to open a present early. We found this really adorable outfit, that started out with some serious high-rise pants...
And ended up looking so adorable that we had to have ourselves a little photo shoot...This is Elena right before she yakked on Uncle Tim. He was holding her and she spit up just a little in her mouth, so it wouldn't have been a big deal. But then she sneezed, and blew cottage cheese chunks all over him. It was pretty hilarious.
She was a stinky baby (from all the yakking) so she had to get a bath in the sink. Kinda like diaper changes, it took every woman in the house to get the bath taken care of!
But she's so adorable, who would want to miss giving her a bath?!

We finally got the four generations of Lootens together for a photo op...

We opened presents with the Lootens on Christmas Eve... guess who got the most presents?! :)
Christmas morning at the Price's... has a santa hat ever looked cuter?
Great-Grandma and Grandpa Price came to visit for the weekend after Christmas, so we went to Aunt Ellen's for dinner, and had some good conversations with Grandpa Price!

Well, it's been a crazy couple of weeks. I've gotten to spend a lot more time home with Elena since I have Christmas break off. She really is changing so fast. She's been going through a little "nursing strike" (they really call it that) where she would arch her back and scream instead of nursing. I guess she wanted to eat out of a bottle, since it's so much easier! But I out-stubborned her, and she's settled back into our routine now. As the pictures show, she really has started trying to roll over now. I know she's got a lot longer before she really makes it over, but it's awful cute. She also has decided to really focus on sucking on her hands. She tries to get both of them in her mouth at once, which is pretty entertaining. She will pull her hands up to her chest and stare at them, then try to jam both in her mouth at once. I also think it's funny because when I first started taking her to the daycare there was a girl there who would sit in the swing and pull her blanket up over her face and rub it around and just grin... and now Elena does that, too. I can't hardly put a blanket over her without it ending up covering her face. Any day now she's going to realize that those darn hands are attached! :) It's hard to believe that, in just a couple of weeks, she's going to be big enough to start eating cereal. That will be a whole new experience... and a whole new set of really cute pictures!

Nursing strike and yakking included, I love being a mom. Watching her grow and change is definitely the coolest thing I've ever done. Christmas was so fun this year, even though all that really changed was was kept sticking bows on her head. Next year is going to be a whole new experience! Check for more Christmas pictures on the other blog... sometime! :)

Another Video

Well, my little girl continues to grow... and I have a video camera for my job that I've been trying to learn to use. So I took this priceless video...

Holding up your head is very hard work! :)

Too Cute

Week 13 and 3 Months!

Well, in week 13, Elena Anne turned 3 months old! She is growing so fast, she smiles a lot more, she's active (ALWAYS). Week 13 was a fun week for Miss Elena. It snowed and iced, so she got to spend all day Sunday home with Mommy AND Daddy, and Monday and Tuesday with Mommy at home. We had lots of fun, and mostly spent time relaxing, and a little time sledding, too! And, of course, the camera was never far away!

Grandpa Price bought her a pair of gum boots.... a little big for her, but still darn cute! :) I can't wait until she is bigger and actually fits them- to see her out in the mud playing in them will be so cute!

Daddy went outside to sled on the ice, so Elena and I bundled up to go with him. We used the snow "sack" that Aunt Jessica bought her... still a little big on her; her arms weren't really in the sleeves, but she stayed nice and warm. And, of course, looked adorable!
First time on a sled! But, don't worry, she just posed, no going down the hill and slamming into the privacy fence JUST yet! :)

Thugtastic in her pink and white hat... too cute!
This one was just too cute... I love this onesie- it says "Dream."

Her First Christmas sleeper... she yakked on all her other ones, so we had to break this one out early! Looks pretty cute in it!

The best thing about snow days is taking naps! :)

She has this new thing where she sticks her tongue out... it's pretty hard to resist!

Someday, this face will give us fits... you can see the onery!

Well, now we have a 3 month old... it's pretty hard to believe! She's still been pretty yakky, but staying home for several days in a row helped the whole milk supply thing, so that's good. She's starting to outgrow some of the pants that were massive on her to begin with... she's getting to be such a chunk! But a cute chunk... :)

Week 12

Week 12 was a calm, relaxing week for Elena, which was much needed after the craziness of Thanksgiving, and before the craziness of Christmas! So we did a lot of hanging out around the house, doing our favorite things. We did put up the Christmas tree, which she has just been staring at. She loves the lights! It's great, because I can lay her on a blanket underneath the edge of the tree and she just lays there and stares. She also really likes the bell we have as an ornament. She loves the sound. Elena is growing by leaps and bounds... she seems like she's just huge, and she is smiling and talking more and more. She is also awake more and more, which is nice. Unfortunately, to grow and be awake, she's needed more to eat lately, so I am running dangerously low on milk! I don't really want to start giving her formula, but I don't know if I can make enough to keep up with her! So we'll just have to see... if I can make it to Christmas break, I can nurse her all the time and increase my milk supply. Elena's other new trick is yakking ALL THE TIME! Just today she has gone through four outfits for her (and the one she's wearing now has been yakked on, so I guess 5) and two outfits for me (and the one I'm wearing has been yakked on already as well). I don't know what's causing all this, but I guess it's from eating so much. Her really COOL trick from this week is that she has started sleeping through the night AND putting herself to sleep. We usually put her down at 10:00, and she sleeps until I wake her up at 6:30 or so. AND, when I put her to bed she doesn't have to be asleep anymore, if she's all swaddled and ready for bed, she'll just fall asleep on her own. Needless to say, those two things are AWESOME, and have seriously increased my energy level! I never knew getting 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep would be so wonderful!
Anyway, I can't believe my baby is almost 3 months old! Here are some of my favorite pictures of us doing nothing this week!

In honor of MU being in the Big 12 Championship, we bought Elena an MU onesie... here she is in it before we went to the choir Christmas party to watch the game.

Unfortunately, Elena decided to poop on her onesie, so she didn't get to wear it to the party.
Laying on the floor, lookin' at the Christmas tree.
My heart melts every time she smiles... I never get tired of it!
Still trying to suck on that thumb... she's also started sucking on her bottom lip, which makes her look like a little old man who doesn't have his dentures in. It's pretty cute! :)
Hanging out in the bouncy seat... always a favorite activity. I love that this binky covers up half of her face... clearly not a "0-3 months" binky!
Even babies like napping in the green chair!
Wearing another new onesie... I've discovered that, while she started with all "I love Mommy" stuff, now she has all "I love Daddy" stuff, and no mommy stuff left. :(
We took pictures for our Christmas card this week, too. She looked adorable, and I was trying to get a picture of her all by herself, but she is such a blur in most of them that I didn't get a great one... I got one good enough for the cards, though. This one turned out to be one of my favorites. I love how she is looking right at the camera.

But she got tired of taking pictures, so we had to stop! :)

Another great week for Miss Elena... next week she'll turn 3 months old!! Hard to believe...

Week 11

Week 11 was a pretty crazy week for Miss Elena. A good part of it was spent in Illinois for Thanksgiving. She got to meet tons of people, and we had a pretty good time. Elena got a little fussy if she was held for too long, but she spent a lot of time laying on the floor "riding a bicycle" as Mom calls it- mostly just flailing arms and legs like a crazy person. Lots of interesting things happened (interesting for a 11 week old, of course)...

We looked all over for a turkey onesie, but we had to make do with a bib... and check out the new blue jeans that Aunt Jessica bought her! They're adorable, even if they do come up to her armpits! :)

She met lots of new people, like her great-aunt Jane, who quickly figured out that big girls like Elena don't lay down!

Even her cousin, Sam, held her without looking terrified... is that a smile I see? :)

Diaper changees were a 6 person affair because every time we laid her down she'd start smiling and laughing... so I got a lot of great pictures!

What a sweetheart!!

We even got her a "My First Christmas" outfit, and it came with a striped headband... which she didn't appreciate very much!

Once we got home, I thought we'd try out her big bouncy seat because she is always wanting to stand up (and my arms get tired of holding her! She looked pretty cute in it, but since her feet dangled about 6 inches off the ground, I think she's not quite big enough for it!

Of course, she watched the MU vs. KU game with her daddy, wrapped in her MU blanket.

I still can't believe how fast she is growing up. She changes minute by minute it seems. I know I'm going to blink and she's going to be 16 and driving! But what a ride...

Five

Over Thanksgiving weekend we went to visit my great-grandparents. It was a really neat thing to see five generations together, and I'm glad Grandma and Grandpa Hook got to meet Miss Elena... they looked awful cute together! :)

The direct line of descent...

Grandma & Elena

Grandma and Grandpa with Elena

All the moms...

Week 10

Well, she's 2 1/2 months old now! The last few weeks have been really fun because she's started being very vocal (without screaming) and started smiling tons. There is nothing so special as when she locks eyes with you, and grins. It's the most beautiful thing in the whole world! A lot of the time she starts really smiling when we lay her down for a diaper change (if she's not cranky). It makes diaper changes a lot more fun, but it also makes them take a lot longer, since I spend 5 minutes making her talk and smile before even taking off her diaper! But, oh well!This weekend we went to Springfield for Josh and my's annual trip to do our Christmas shopping and go to the SDC Christmas festival. We left Elena with her Grandma Looten for the day while we hit The Landing in Branson, and SDC. They had a great day, and Josh and I enjoyed some alone time. Although, by the end of the day I missed my baby girl, and not just because my boobs were about to explode. She loves her Grandma Looten, though, and will just talk and talk with her. Sunday we went to church with them, and she was a great baby. This week has been a great week, and she just keeps getting cuter! Here are some of my favorite pictures from this week...

Smiling and talking for Grandma Looten... she finally fits in the "coming home" outfit Josh and I originally bought her! But it's awful cute now!

Having her make eye contact is so neat... but she doesn't like to lay down very much, she wants to stand all the time. She is great at holding up her head now, too!
Grandma Looten bought her two Christmas onesies, so, of course, we had to wear one home!
After a rough afternoon of laying on the ground kicking, Elena passed out on her Grandpa Looten. Apparently, on a grandpa's chest is her favorite place to nap (see last week's picture of her napping on Grandpa Price's chest)!
Lest everyone gets the impression that Miss Elena is always happy... sometimes she doesn't WANT her diaper changed! Sad thing is, she's still adorable!

Elena has picked up a new habit in the last week or so... she is constantly sucking on her fist. I just know she's thinking "I know there's a thumb in there somewhere, and if I can just figure out how to make it stick out, I'll be set!" It's pretty funny, because you'll hear this loud sucking noise and look over, and her hand is practically wrist deep in her mouth! Anyway, Josh doesn't want her to be a thumb sucker, but I think it's pretty cute! :)

1o weeks old and already a talker, I get the feeling our life is only going to get more interesting! This weekend we are headed to Illinois for Thanksgiving, and to meet lots and lots of aunts and uncles and cousins! I'm sure there will be lots of pictures next week, too!