Thanksgiving and how much Ella likes it


I'm pretty positive that Ella loved Thanksgiving...

Uncle Bo

...because there were plenty of people to hold her to her little heart's content...

Grandpa Curtis
Aunt Maddie

Grandpa Jones
Grandma Curtis
...and they even loved her when she was grumpy...



...and she got to meet her cute cousins...



(cousin Reese named her doll Ella too so we had two baby Ellas!)


...and daddy took an after-feast nap with her.


And on Sunday she's going to have her baby blessing.


(This picture with her pulled up socks just makes me laugh!)


Oh that cute mouth!


And that cute-faced boy that I like




Having a little family of three is pretty fun!

Vintage Shoes


I need some advice. 
These shoes are potentially a present that Adam is going to give me for Christmas, but first I have to decide if they are cute or not. I don't really wear heels because I feel too tall in them, but after watching many episodes of What Not To Wear, it seems that the general rule is that you are never too tall to wear heels, so I guess that means I need to get some heels I like, but are these the right heels? What I like about them is that they are vintagey. Here is the image from the Jellypop website:



Is the heel part too thick? Or is grey too boring of a color?

In my imagination these shoes will make me look as cute as these vintagely-dressed girls:


But maybe not so much... what do you think?

And now I'll just randomly throw in some pictures of Ella in this post:







One of my favorite things is when she falls asleep on me after eating (which happens multiple times a day, but I love it!)

Giving birth and all that fun stuff

When I was pregnant, I loved finding blogs that would describe what it was like to give birth because giving birth is kind of a major thing for your body to go through (you are pushing out a whole human being-- I mean really, that is just amazing that a human body is capable of that) and I wanted to know what to expect.

There was a girl in one of my classes at BYU who had a little baby boy and I overheard her say once, "I cannot get pregnant again until I have forgotten how painful it was to have my first baby because that pain was so bad."
Aaak! That scared me out of my mind to hear that!
So, I was hugely relieved when after I gave birth to Ella I thought back on what had just happened and I can definitely say that I would totally go through that again.

You want to hear the weird thing? Giving birth to Ella was kind of a fun! The pushing part was probably the funnest part of all. Although, there definitely were some painful parts too.

K, so for your reading pleasure and since I know you are just dying to hear the details, here is kind of how it went:

The contractions were coming regularly by Thursday morning.

 It wasn't until Friday morning that they started to sort of hurt. 

By Friday night (as we were watching Corpse Bride) I had tears streaming down my face with each contraction and I was squeezing the life out of Adam's hand-- insane amounts of pain. 

But my contractions were coming every six minutes and not every five minutes, which is what I needed to have in order for the hospital to admit me.

Adam was going crazy with how helpless he felt and finally at 9pm, he declared that we were going to the hospital, whether or not my contractions were five minutes apart.

They had mercy on me and let me be admitted and called that blessed epidural man to come to my room.

Epitome of pain: being in the middle of a contraction while having a nurse-in-training spend five minutes digging an IV needle into my arm, trying to get it placed into "that vein that keeps disappearing."

Dying seemed like a favorable alternative to the situation.

Adam distracted me from seriously considering that alternative, he had jumped to his feet and had a look on his face that guaranteed the death of the nurse-in-training if she continued to stab his wife with her vicious needle. Afraid for the nurse's life, I focused on making myself look calm so that Adam would sit back down.
(Two weeks after having Ella I still had a massive purple and green bruise on my arm that made people stop to ask what on earth attacked me)

The epidural man came, I would have danced for joy and kissed his feet but I didn't want to disconnect the IV that took so long to get into that disappearing vein.
Epidurals are probably THE best invention that have ever graced this earth. Honestly. 

Mere minutes after the epidural the contractions had more than doubled in severity-- moms who go all-natural are amazing.

Life was bliss after that. I slept better while in labor than I had ever slept in the previous nine months.

One thing that made the event even more awesome: listening to Michael Buble Christmas music on my ipod while I slept.

Baby Girl's heartbeat was slowing down so I had to wear an awesome oxygen mask so that she would wake up and keep on trying to push herself out.

At 5 AM my doctor (who is so amazing-- I LOVED him!) came in and declared me fully dilated

Around 5:30 AM I started pushing. It didn't hurt a single bit (because I couldn't feel anything below my waist), but it was exhausting

The doctor and the nurses were joking around and laughing with me and Adam even while I was pushing! After every push they complimented me on my pushing skills and then demanded that I push even harder next time. The nurses and doctor were so nice-- it was fun!

5:58 AM: Ella arrived!

They put her screaming little body onto mine and she quieted down and just cuddled with me. It was very surreal to think that the little feet now curled up on my tummy used to be the ones kicking fiercely inside of my tummy.


It's still hard to believe that this little girl is my daughter and not some ridiculously adorable girl that I've just been asked to babysit.

(Yes, I was just as exhausted as I look-- I could hardly keep my eyes open at that point)

"She is so beautiful." Adam and I seriously said that about two hundred times in the next 24 hours. We were smitten with her right away.

Going on a Walk


The weather here is so lovely right now (65 degrees!), perfect for taking walks downtown.





Last night was the first time that Ella slept in a different room than us. 
She is usually a pretty calm baby but last night she was crying and screaming and wouldn't calm down for anything. 
So finally, we put pulled her bed into another room, put her in her bed, closed the door and laid in bed listening to her sobs for a half hour. 
It was heart breaking! 
Finally I went and got her and she fell asleep in my arms out of exhaustion. 

I am excited for when she can smile for real, it will be so fun to see when she is happy and not just know when she sad.

These Beautiful Chairs

In an attempt to have one blog post that is not full of pictures of Ella:


I saw these chairs on Pinterest and I think they are so beautiful! I would LOVE to have these in my future home.


And how cute is this sign above the bed of the cute couple from the Bleubird Vintage Blog?


A few more beautiful colorful things for the home from Pinterest.






Bath Time


More pictures of The Girl-- shocking, I know.