It looks like it's time for us to update again...it's been two weeks. I have a feeling this will probably be the norm for us.
These past few weeks have been quite busy for all of us. On October 21st, at the tender age of three weeks and one day, Ella began her very first road trip! Dusty had residency interviews in Iowa City and Omaha, so we thought we'd tag along. I was more than a little nervous about the 13-hour drive with a newborn and a dog, but Dusty and I decided we'd give it a whirl, figuring it'd be an adventure at the very least. It went beautifully! We stopped every 3-4 hours to feed Ella and stretch our legs, etc, but the trip went rather quickly. Iowa City is BEAUTIFUL! The rolling hills and corn fields are certainly not the type of scenery we're used to, but they have their own kind of beauty and Dusty and I decided we'd love to live in Iowa. Omaha, however, was quite a bit less appealing, aesthetically speaking. It could be that I really only saw the industrial area and the downtown area, which was surprisingly scary considering it's only Nebraska...
This past Friday Dusty left for an interview in Ann Arbor, Michigan. We were sad that he had to miss Ella's first Halloween, but it was rather uneventful. Dusty really liked Ann Arbor and insists the area is at least as nice as Iowa City. Ella, Abby, and I were not able to go with him this time, so we'll have to take his word for it. : )
Ella has such a little personality already. She really is quite independent and particular. She wants to be held all the time, but only the certain way she's currently favoring. This is always a bit tricky because there doesn't seem to be a pattern to her holding demands. She HATES being swaddled. She also doesn't like any position that limits her ability to flail her little arms and legs around. Hey, I don't blame her. I know I hate it when someone pins my arms and legs to my sides and wraps me like an eggroll...
Lately, she's been skipping her naps. She wants to eat, be held for three hours, eat again, etc. This is making it quite difficult for me to get things done around the house. Thankfully, Dusty has been around quite a bit, so we take turns holding and accomplishing. When we finally are able to rock her to sleep, it's another challenge to put her down without her waking up and screaming for us ingrates to rescue her immediately. She's definitely got a mind of her own, but we wouldn't want it any other way.
Here is a selection of her most recent pictures. We're wondering what color her eyes are going to end up. As you'll see, sometimes they look dark blue, and other's they're brown...What do you think?
We like to call this Blue Steel. She learned it from Derick Zoolander himself.
We're not quite sure how she manages to sleep in this position night after night.
I know this is a bit blurry, but it's one of her best smile pictures. Here are the rest:
And on to Halloween:
This cute onesie was a present from one of Mama's co-workers.
The adorable socks are from Oma and Opa.
This is part of the halloween costume.
And here's the hat. She actually screamed nearly the entire time I was trying to take pictures, so I'm going to try to get her decked-out again. Hopefully, we can get some happy shots of our little bunny.
And these next two aren't really Halloween pictures, per se, but they do have a certain frightening motif.
Here, we see father and daughter snoozing happily...
Or so we thought. Little did we know that our sweet bundle of joy, our precious Ella, has also been secretly preparing for a role in
The Bride of Chucky.
Scary.
