Dancing, Candy Sandwiches, and Cake Walks, Oh My!

Sept. 14-20

Liliana was one week old already on Wednesday! She is such and easy baby, she is still sleeping in 4 hour spurts at night, she is eating 2 ounces of formula every 2-4 hours.

We took our first trip in our new double stroller to the playground.

 Ella enjoys playing on the slides and swings.

Once Liliana arrived, Ella suddenly looks so big to me! She looks taller, feels like she finally weighs something, and looks so grown up. I swear she went from my baby girl to my little girl over night!

Ella and I don't usually watch much TV during the day. Until recently Ella couldn't correctly name a single animated character if her life depended on it, but she could probably pick Ellen and our local news anchors out of a line up. Toward the end of my pregnancy I was having trouble keeping up with the energy level of an active two year, so I gave in and introduced Ella to my collection of Disney movies. Finding Nemo quickly became her favorite movie. We've watched it enough times that Chris and I are randomly quoting it ("Shark Bait, ooo ah ah!") and if you haven't seen this movie, you won't want to watch it with Ella, because she will tell you what is going to happen next. We've continued to watch movies as we adjust to life with a newborn again. We've branched out a little and Ella now recognizes the characters from Cars (not by name), Shrek, Horton (Hort) and a few others. Ella still likes Nemo best. Below is a picture of Ella all tucked in to "Watch Nemo!"

Liliana, Chris and I got to go along to Ella's creative movement class this week, here are a few pictures, again Chris took them through the one way window, so they aren't the best quality, but still pretty cute. 

They pretend to put peanut butter and jelly on the bottoms of their feet so that they stick together while they stretch.

 They say "Tic-Toc," while leaning from side to side with their arms outstretched.

 Ella and her teacher chassé across the floor. This is hysterical to watch because the girls don't quite have the coordination down and many of them, Ella included, end up running across the floor instead.

Ella about to leap over Angelina Ballerina, also too funny to watch. I need to get this on video. Many of the girls jump beside the mouse, or just run by it. Ella manages to jump over it, but it is by no means a graceful leap! :)

You can barely tell in this picture because Ella is on the other side of the teacher, but if you look carefully, her "arabesque" looks just like the girl's off on the far right. LOL!!! Oh how I wish we could see Ella better!

We introduced Ella to Candy Sandwiches this week. When I was little our next door neighbors/family friends made these for their kids and Eric and me. I don't remember if there is another name for this delicacy, but Eric and I call them Candy Sandwiches. To make a candy sandwich you take a piece of white bread, spread butter/margarine on it, cover with sprinkles, fold in half and enjoy. Yum yum!

Ella wasn't really sure what to think at first. After taking a bite she opened it up to inspect the sprinkles.

 Mmm, Candy Sandwiches!

Liliana and I took a nap on the couch, Ella wanted to snuggle with us, but just couldn't hold still.

So she and Chris went outside to play. Ella loves it when Chris gives underdogs! Every time we play on the swing it's "unger gog peas(underdog please), Daddy!" One day when we were all in the living room, Ella crawled underneath Ruby and announced, "unger gog!" She always surprises me with how much she really understands.

While they were out playing in the yard they found a fuzzy caterpillar. I'm not sure Ella was very excited about it crawling on her sleeve.

A few weeks ago, when I was still pregnant with Liliana, Chris and I were talking to our neighbors over the fence between our yards. Ella had been talking to their kids through the fence too. When I looked over at her I was shocked to find that she had climbed all the way to the top of the fence and was looking over the top at the neighbor kids! When did she figure out she could climb a fence? How did she even come up with the idea? How did she get up there on her own without us noticing, we were standing right there? This sneaky girl is full of surprises! I did not have my camera on me at the time, but Chris snapped these pictures while they were out playing this week. I remember thinking this spring how glad I was that we had a fence now because she had learned how to open the back door by herself. I thought the fence would be able to contain her for a few more years before she figured out how to do this!

Our family grew by two feet! Chris and I took this picture ourselves, with a little help from photoshop. The inspiration for this picture came from a baby card we received. 

We went to the carnival at Mom's school Friday night. Ella participated in her first cake walk, and won!

 Ella with her winnings.

 Walking with PopPop.

Bedtime story with Daddy

We took our picture with the stork before we took him down. Looks like he has a floating head, might have to see if I can fix that later.

Tuesday Liliana officially became a lab rat like her big sister. Liliana is in a formula study at the University of Iowa that is very similar to the formula study that Ella was part of. Liliana weighs 7 lbs, 15 oz, is 20 1/2 inches long, and her head circumference is 14.4 inches.  Liliana was not very happy about being measured, we are pretty sure this was the most we've heard her cry since the day she was born. It really wasn't bad, she just doesn't cry very much at all. We will go back for 5 more visits to be measured over the next 6 months and she will get 7 months of free formula, woo hoo! :) While we were there we asked if the results of Ella's study had been published yet, as we've been curious about the results, and they told us they were currently doing a follow up on that study, so they want Ella to come back on her 3rd and 5th birthdays to be measured again. I know we'll never know for sure, but I wonder if the formula she was on was part of the reason she was/is on the low end of the weight chart, or if she just got skinny baby genes.

Tummy time with Mommy

 Ella likes to hold Liliana

 Liliana checks out the view over Daddy's shoulder

 Ruby likes to snuggle with Liliana too.

 Wide awake!

More from last week...

Liliana is kind of a big deal, so she got her own post for this week, but we also did some other stuff this past week, so I'll write a second one, and share some more pictures. The picture above is our first family of four picture, taken as we were getting ready to leave the hospital. While we were in the hospital, PopPop took Ella to her regularly scheduled Kindermusik and dance classes, thanks for keeping it "normal," PopPop!

The girls are all ready to go home Friday afternoon. Liliana weighed 7 lbs, 9 oz.

Since we weren't expecting Liliana to arrive anytime before her due date we had scheduled the closing of our house refinancing to take place on Friday morning (the due date). Oops. So that afternoon after being discharged from the hospital, we stopped by the bank on the way home to sign papers. The bank is only 7 blocks from the hospital, but both girls had fallen fast asleep by the time we pulled into the bank's parking lot. 

Saturday was the big Iowa vs. Iowa State game. We went over to PopPop and Gra Dondie's house to watch the game. They didn't love the girls' outfits, but they did like the final score of the game. 

Liliana slept 4 hours in a row Saturday night, ate, then slept another 4 hours. Not bad at all! :)

Ruby has a new favorite place to lie down.

I love snuggling with Liliana. I don't get a whole lot accomplished in a day because I spend a lot of time just holding her or watching her sleep, but I don't care, I love it. Ella used to snuggle like this too, but now she rarely holds still long enough to get a good hug in, let alone a snuggle.

Tuesday night Liliana slept 5 hours in a row, only waking up to eat once in the night!

Monday we had Liliana's newborn pictures taken. Liliana is a much more laid back/go with the flow baby than Ella was and so got through her photo shoot in one try. Liliana was awake for the first few pictures, but then slept through the rest and nobody got peed on in the process of taking all the naked shots. Liliana did a great job. Ella was wound, she didn't follow directions well and was on our last nerves, but somehow we got some great shots of her anyway. Here are some of our favorites:

These next two pictures are of each of the girls at 5 days old. Can you tell they are sisters?

Ella

Liliana

If you would like to see more pictures from this photo shoot you can go to my Shutterfly Share site.

A nurse from the hospital came to our house for a visit Monday afternoon. Liliana weighed 7 lbs 8 oz, she was 20 inches long, her head circumference was 13 1/2 inches.

 Nearly naked big sister checks on her baby sister.

Ella totally ignores Liliana about 90 percent of the time, but the other 10 percent, she is very gentle, loving and helpful. I love that she helps Liliana get her binky back when it falls out of her mouth. I remember wishing I could teach Ruby this trick when Ella was brand new.

Ella has not called Liliana, "Baby Bow-Wow"once in the last week. If you ask her where Baby Bow-Wow is, she will point to Liliana, but if you ask her what the baby's name is, she usually says, "baby siser."

 Watch Dog. See, I'm not the only one who could spend all day just watching Liliana sleep.

One night this week we came home to find that Grandma Mary and Grandpa Mike had dropped something off in our yard.