dancer or musician?

I think Ellie's favorite thing right now is music. Well, it's been her favorite thing for as long as we can remember. She loves playing the piano (which she is doing with her friend Asher in the picture above). This, of course, makes me very happy!! She also loves listening to all kinds of music, which she cannot do without dancing. It's like she can't control herself! Nick and I got pretty addicted to the show "So You Think You Can Dance?" this season, and Ellie loved watching it with us! She would just stand in awe and watch them until the dance was over. Her favorite time to dance is when Nick gets out his mandolin. She starts dancing before he even gets it out of the case! Check out my facebook page if you want to see a video. I never seem to be able to get the video to upload on my blog.

I'd say that Ellie's second favorite thing to do is look after her baby sister. She just LOVES Hazel! She's constantly giving her kisses & hugs, covering her up with her blanket, or giving her a paci. I'm glad this has continued. Ellie was loving having Hazel around from the moment we brought her home from the hospital, but we wondered if the excitement would wear off. Well, it hasn't yet, and we're so thankful!!

6 weeks and smiling!

  Our second sweet baby girl is 6 weeks old! I can't believe it's already been 6 weeks, but at the same time, it already feels so normal to have her around. Ellie continues to love her baby sister. She's still learning how to be gentle, but she tries so hard to love on Hazel as much as possible! It's so sweet! Ellie is even learning how to show some sympathy...If Hazel starts crying, Ellie looks at me with a pitiful look on her face and says, "awww!" It's pretty adorable. So here are some things that Hazel is doing at 6 weeks old...

• She has slept 8 hours straight for 5 out of the last 7 nights! We are so excited and truly blessed to have yet another sleeper!! Ellie just teased us with sleeping through the night at 6 weeks, but I'm starting to see a trend that will hopefully continue with Hazel. This will also (hopefully) mean Hazel can join Ellie in their room at bedtime soon!!
• She is a wiggler!! I'm pretty sure she will roll over pretty soon. In the picture on the right, she started out with her head at the top of the blanket, and she was fully clothed. She scooted her way all the way down! I've also found her on her stomach when I know I left her on her resting on her side/back.
• She eats on a very regular schedule with 4 oz. of formula every 3 hours, except overnight.
• She started smiling this week! Nick and I just stood over her this morning, just talking to her...and she was just watching us and smiling! I think she's going to have cute little dimples :)
• She is already attached to a "lovey." Great-Grandma Hempelmann (Nick's mom's mom) got Hazel this bunny/blanket when we were in Missouri a couple weeks ago. Hazel is frequently found with a tight grasp on her bunny (pictured below). It also quickly calms her down when she's upset...Well, that, and her paci! (Just like big sister)

sisters

The past 4 weeks have been a whirlwind already. It feels like it's been much longer! But our new baby girl is just 4 1/2 weeks old. Hazel Ann was born on June 27 at 2:45 PM. She was 8 lbs, 9 oz, 21 inches, almost exactly the same as her big sister Ellie. And can you tell they're sisters? Most definitely! We were all surprised at how similar they look!

So far it's been pretty wonderful. Of course Hazel has her really fussy times, but we know that this phase will not last forever...especially since it hasn't been that long since Ellie was that age. But we're in love with our newest addition, and so is Ellie! Most of Ellie's day revolves around playing with toys and keeping an eye on Hazel as much as possible. She gets more kisses and hugs than we do! We're so thankful that she loves Hazel as much as we do. So far, she hasn't been too jealous of the attention, which kind of makes sense...Ellie gives Hazel just as much attention as we do! :) The true test will be next week when Nick goes back to work. It has been amazing having him home, but it could be miserable for me when he goes back! Learning how to juggle 2 kids (well, 2 babies) has not yet begun. It will begin next Monday at 6:30 AM...We'll hope for the best!

So here are pictures of Ellie and Hazel. They were both 2 days old. Can you tell who is who?

come on baby sister!

Well, it's June 17, and my official due date for our newest addition to the family is July 2. Thankfully, I know that we will meet this baby girl in 10 days at the latest! My doctor has agreed to schedule an induction for June 27 if nothing happens sooner, which has made me incredibly happy! We've been ready to meet this little girl for a long time now.

The nursery is ready, but I will post pictures of that once the baby has arrived :) Ellie and her little sister (name still a secret) will share a room, which could be interesting. We have no idea how Ellie will react to the big changes, but we do know that she will be a loving big sister! Because she is not quite 15 months, she obviously has no real idea of what is about to happen in her life, but I think she knows something is happening. Lately, whenever she sees even a picture of a baby, she holds the picture to her chest and rocks it gently. I have no idea where she learned this, but it is adorable! We hope she's as sweet to her baby sister as she is to the pictures!

So since we have no more details about our new baby, I will share a few things Ellie has been up to lately. She loves her pink polka dot blankie and her Minnie Mouse (which is almost as big as she is). If she's not toting these 2 around, she's carrying her giraffe and an old Vera Bradley purse of mine. For some reason, these 2 are inseparable for her. And her 2 favorite things are reading and music. She often goes to the piano to sit on the bench with me or Daddy when we're playing. Of course this makes me extremely happy. And I have to admit, she sounds pretty good! There's no banging on the keys...She actually plays individual keys with different fingers. Quite impressive!
She seems so much older when she's dancing or reading, especially reading. The other day, I caught her in the corner with her giraffe, both covered up with a blanket, and she was reading to it. So if she's not reading to her stuffed animals, she's crawling into our laps with a book ready to read! Here's what I caught her doing at school back in May...I'll finish by telling you how much of a blessing it has been to have Nick home for the summer! Ellie has grown so attached to her Daddy. There are days when she doesn't want me at all. All she wants is her "DaDa." In fact, she's stopped saying Mama altogether. It's always Dada. She follows him around the house and gets quite upset if he leaves. It will also be a blessing that he will have 5 weeks left of summer with our newest baby before he goes back to school in August!

She's already so "grown up," and ready to be a big sister! I can't wait to see how she reacts when we bring our second sweet girl home from the hospital! My next post should be the introduction of Baby #2 and our family of 4!!

catching up. part 2.

Ellie's first trip to California....

As you probably know, I was born in California and lived there until I was six. Although the first 6 years of my life do not probably qualify as "growing up" so much, but I still love to claim that I'm from California. My dad still lives in California (LA area), along with my Aunt Lois and a few other family members. Nick has only had the privelege of going to Cali once, which was for our amazing honeymoon. By the way, that was 4 years ago this week. Yesterday was our anniversary! I can't believe it's been 4 years already!! Anyways, the point of this post is to tell about Ellie's first trip to Cali back in April, so here it goes...







First I must say that our trip was not planned far in advance, as it was for my Uncle Lee's funeral, Aunt Lois's husband and love of her life. My sisters and I knew that we had to be there, for Aunt Lois and for our Dad. He was probably my dad's best friend, so we really wanted to be there for him too. I decided to take Ellie since she doesn't have that many opportunities to see her Grandpa, and none of my Dad's siblings had met her yet (with the exception of Uncle Larry, who lives in Missouri and has random connections with Nick's family).

< all the attention from her great aunts and uncles. We were able to see 2 of my dad's sisters and their husbands that we hadn't seen in years. One of them came to our wedding 4 years ago, but the other, I hadn't seen since I was 10 years old. It really was such a special time for most of dad's siblings to be together. It had been a really long time since that had happened. It was awesome to hear stories of their childhood!

< Ellie especially loved the attention from Grandpa. I wish she could see him more often, but this was only the 3rd time she had seen him. But she has such an incredible bond with him that melts my heart. I want her to know her Grandpa so badly, but since he lives so far away, it's hard. He came to visit when she was a couple months old, again for her 1st birthday party, and then we saw him this trip in LA. I can't tell you how truly happy it made me to see her fall in love with her Grandpa so quickly! She would run to him every time he came in
the room, which she never did with other people at this point! He is so proud of her :)



And of course, we ended the trip with a visit to In-N-Out Burger. Ellie enjoyed it, even though she's not quite old enough to appreciate it yet! :) We got to the airport only 30 minutes before we were supposed to leave, because we absolutely had to get some In-N-Out! :)

It was a great trip, and I hope we get to go back soon. This time we have to take Nick and our new baby though too :)

catching up. part 1.

I'm well aware that it's been over 3 months since I last posted, and for that, I apologize. I'm going to attempt to make a few posts to "catch up" on our life over the past 3 months. I know that if I don't do attempt to recap now, it won't happen once we become a family of 4.

So this first "catch up" post is about Ellie's first birthday. We had a big party at Grandma K's house with Nick's family, my family, and friends. Here are a few highlights...

All of Ellie's living grandparents were there, which I think is most definitely a big deal, especially since only one of them lives in Memphis!
Ellie really enjoyed eating cake for the first time. I made a Minnie Mouse cake for her (it was quite large, since you can't tell by the picture). It was very stressful, but I guess it turned out okay. We kind of just decided on a Minnie theme... I have a personal attachment to Minnie since she was my childhood favorite. Since then, Ellie has become quite attached to Minnie as well :)
She made quite the show of it! Everyone was impressed with her skills :)We all had a great time. I was especially happy that my dad, Grandpa, was able to make it all the way from California. It was only the 2nd time Ellie had seen him, but they spent a lot of time together, and she grew very fond of him! :)

a first valentine's day

Yesterday was Ellie's first Valentine's Day, which is usually not a big deal in our house at all. This year, it was still not a big deal, but Ellie got all the goodies! So I had to share some cute pictures from the day.

First, a couple updates... We're in the process of planning Ellie's first birthday party, which is so fun! I think I'm more excited than anyone else involved, but I'm the mom, so it's okay! I'm already so excited about the cake. I'm making it myself, and I have had visions of this cake since we watched like 2 seasons of Cake Boss on Netflix. I want it to be perfect...or at least cute. I'll share photos after it's done.

Secondly, in case you were wondering, we found out the sex of the baby this time!! Nick gave in and let me find out. I wanted to sooo badly, so he let me do it! :) I am so grateful! And...we're having ANOTHER GIRL!! After we found out, Nick and I both said that neither one of us could see ourselves with a boy. We both "had a feeling" that it was a girl, which is not something that we typically do... "have a feeling," that is. I'm just really excited that Ellie gets to experience having a sister, like I did. Nick is closest with his brother, and I obviously am close with my sisters. I just really enjoy the memories of playing with Bitty Babies or American Girl dolls, and I'm excited Ellie gets to do that too, especially since they will be so close in age!

And finally, the Valentine's pictures...

Nick's parents sent a package addressed to "Nicholas Unnerstall," so we thought maybe we were all getting something for Valentine's Day. We were mistaken. Everything in the box was labeled for Ellie. We got jipped!

And to explain the picture from the top, I don't make it a habit of feeding Ellie lots of sugar, but I gave her this wrapped sucker in hopes to pacify her during one of my piano lessons. Within seconds, she had unwrapped it and figured out that you put it in your mouth and suck on it! She's incredibly smart, so I let her keep it :)


And this was my gift for Ellie. I saw it in the store and thought it was a fun gift for a first Valentine's Day. It's one of those "pillow pets." And Grandma K loves ladybugs, so it kinda had Ellie's name written all over it. Last night, Nick was using it as a pillow on the floor...As soon as Ellie noticed, she stole it back from him. It became a battle of the ladybug. It went back and forth from underneath Nick's head, to in Ellie's arms while she gave it kisses.



And I can't forget to say that Ellie's first Valentine's card came from Grandma K with some cash for a new pretty dress! I can't wait to go shopping!!