3 Little Monkeys

Videos like this will be priceless one day!  He has the cutest little voice!  

2 months come and gone!

It's amazing how time just flies -- and how hard it is to document day to day things when your time is not your own!  By the time the kids go to bed, all I want to do is brainless activity ... and therefore it has been two months since my last post!  We have been busy and Elsie has grown SO MUCH!  At her last doctor's appointment, she weighed 14lbs 1 oz, was 25.2 in long and in the 85th percentile for her head!  She is growing -- but has let the other babies catch up to her a bit as her weight was only in the 60th percentile.

This month Elsie has had a bit of trouble with her "pipes" ... all of the sudden she stopped eating good -- going from 5 oz a serving down to maybe 2 ... and woke up several times a night.  After fighting with her for the ump-teenth time ... I called and got an appointment with her doctor.  They said she was backed up and gave her a laxative.  Since then, she has been golden and is now eating 6 oz a feeding, roughly 5 times a day.  

Elsie is a great member of our family.  She loves to interact with her favorite big brother, Jace, and he loves to play with her.  She is so patient with his "brotherly love" ... sometimes playing a little too rough.  The other night in the car we heard Jace saying:  "Elsie say AAAAH ... Elsie say AAAAH .... She smiled at me mom! ... Elsie say AAAAAAH ......... "  It was awesome.  She still hates tummy time, and will only tolerate it for a few minutes.  She can hold her head up and she has rolled over several times, so we aren't concerned.  

Our little princess has never been a quiet one.  Joe and I decided the other night she is just as "good" of a baby as Jace was -- very mellow and pleasant ... but she makes her uncomforts known as soon as they arise.  She does not whine -- but bellows -- when she is unhappy!

Here is a little of what we have been doing in the last two months!

  

 Getting ready for the 4th of July Parade in Murry

 Mom and Els at the parade.  It was HOT!  Luckily her big hat covered her entire top half and we only had to worry about the sun on her bottome.

 Photo shoot with Elsie.  She is a BEAUTIFUL baby -- She freely gives her smiles often -- especially happy when she wakes up from her nap.

 It amazes me the bond these two share.  

 This is our second hike of the season.  We went up to see Battle Creek Falls in Pleasant Grove.  It was beautiful!

 I have brown eyes, as do most of my family.  Two of my brothers have gray eyes.  With Joe having blue -- the color of my kids eyes fully depend on what 2nd gene I have -- is it recessive or dominant.  Baby Elsie has bright BLUE eyes!  I couldn't be more excited :)  So I guess about 1/2 of my kids will have blue eyes too.

 Elsie after bath time sporting Aunt Penny's bath towel that fits her perfectly.

 Jace looks so big in this picture!

 We tried rice cereal for the first time on July 30th.  Elsie is a "happy spitter"  Because she is growing and is happy when she constantly spits up -- there really isn't anything that can be done for her spitting.  We were hoping that introducing cereal a bit early would help ease her tummy.  She's not a huge fan of eating from a spoon yet -- but we'll get there.  I am looking forward to making my own baby food again.

 I don't know how it's possible, but one spoonful will go in and three will come out.  

 Here is Elsie at about 4 months.

Called to Serve

Ian, 3rd brother in the family, received his mission call last night.  I have never been in the room when someone opened their call and it was quite special.  Ian is the first in our family to go -- and I couldn't be more proud of him.

 (this is how big Jace is the day he got his call!)

 He started to get a little choked up as he read his call!  It was very tender ... and of course, I was "misty" too!!

(This is how big Elsie is the day he received his call!)

P.S. Ian had to lose roughly 45 lbs or so (if I'm right ... it was at least that much!) to get his call -- and I think he's looking pretty darn good!!

Her First Special Dress

Sunday was Elsie's baby blessing.  It started with finding the perfect dress -- so the four of us headed down to White Elegance to pick it out.  Now this dress is the first of three major special dresses she will have in her life, and there were a lot of pretty dresses to choose from ... but I fell in love with this one!  My favorite part about it is the flowing outer layer of the dress (which is tough to see in this picture) ... I knew she'd look like an angel in it!  

I then started on her hair bow -- It was the first bow that I've really made for her!  I found some inspiration from a bow shop online, and went to town.  I love how it turned out!  It's big and frilly, but perfect at the same time.   

The last step was to get a mommy and baby bracelet made.  I saw them at White Elegance and I WANTED ONE!  BUT ... I couldn't pay $35 for two bracelets!  When relaying my wishes to my sweet friend, she offered to make one for me!  I was ecstatic -- and loved loved how they turned out!  Look at that little picture -- isn't she just simply perfect?  Oh I love that face!

Finally, it's the morning of the blessing.  There is just a neat spirit in your home when someone is celebrating a special day and this was my Elsie's special day.  We waited until the last minute to get her dressed, quickly snapped some photos of her on our couch -- and were off to church!  There were three babies being blessed that day ... so we knew we had to be early.  We had so many family members there to support us, and I am so grateful for all of them ... 35 people were there to support our family.

During the meeting, Joe got up to bear his testimony.  It's not something that he does frequently -- surprisingly enough, I think he's shy!  I am grateful for his priesthood and his love of the gospel.  When he sat down, Jace asked if he had fun.  Personally, FUN is not how I describe getting in front of 400 ish people ... but I gave it a go anyway.  

I bore testimony of the plan of salvation.  I am so grateful for the knowledge that we lived before we were born.  I am sure that all of my other babies were there rooting their big sister on!  I'm grateful for the opportunity that God has given us to return to live with our family again some day.  There has been many members of my family that have passed so young -- I would not know what to do if I thought that death was the end.  I have felt the presence of my sweet mom so close lately as there has been many BIG changes in the Stohel household.  With Elsie being born and being named after 2 of her fantastic grandmothers ... I know that they are especially watching out for her too.

After sacrament meeting we headed on over to my parent's house and had a nice yummy lunch.  It was a perfect day!

It's Done!

Today was the last day of my professional career.  I get to graduate and do something way way better -- stay home with my beautiful kiddos.  I'll blog about my thoughts about Bingham and my experience there .... but for now can I hear a ...........

WHOOP WHOOP!!

2 Months ... WHAT?

I can't believe that Elsie has been a part of our lives for two whole months now!  It is ridiculous how fast time has gone.  Again, it feels like she has been here forever, yet it has gone so fast.  At about 6 weeks, she started sleeping from 10 pm until 6 am -- giving her mom and dad a much needed break in the sleep department!  Elsie loves to look around and watch what is going on around her, especially if her big brother is around.  She is becoming much more vocal cooing at whomever will listen to her.  

Since our last milestone post, I have had to go back to work and leave Jace and Els with a family friend.  Thank goodness school is over in 6 school days!  PHEW!  My favorite part of the day is when I get to pick up my little kiddos and I get one of those wide mouth uncontrolled grins -- when her eyes light up when she hears my voice.  It makes me secretly happy that sometimes I'm the only one that can calm her down -- that we have that special bond.  And even though it's looked upon as a "no no ... "  I enjoy snuggling in the middle of the night when she doesn't want to sleep alone.

We haven't had the chance to take many pictures and to do many fun things -- being a working mom of two is BUSY!  But here are some of the things we have done this last month: 

Elsie snuggling up with Grandma at Aunt Steph's and Uncle Trevor's wedding dinner.  (Please ignore my dad's face here!!  What does that look mean?)

 Chilling out with Dad at the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point.  We went there in between the wedding and the reception.

 Ok ... PRETTY GIRL!!

 Can you tell that Jace is LOVING the museum?

 Jace often asks if he can snuggle with Elsie in the morning.  These two are awesome friends already!  As soon as he snuggled up he asked Joe to get the camera!  We're sure to have PLENTY of snap shots of these two snuggling.

 Elsie started playing with the rattles on her little chair.  It took awhile for us to realize that is what she was doing -- she has only done it once, I can't wait for her to do it again!

2 months old

A friend of mine took pictures of her little boy with the same stuffed animal as her baby got older -- to help see the growth that her baby was making.  I thought it was an awesome idea, so plan on seeing this little purple horse hanging around!  :)

Cousin Greyson

In the last year there has been a baby race to see which of the two Boucher babies would make their debut first.  Niki, David's wife (Bro #2) was surprised to learn that she was expecting another baby -- her only "baby" being 17 years old.  She has had many complications, and they didn't expect that Greyson would be able to stay in any longer than 32 weeks.  He didn't have much room to grow and he was very carefully monitored.  He was a good little boy though and waited to make his grand entrance until he was just over 36 weeks along.  Elsie was born on March 23rd and Greyson on April 12th.  When he was born, he weighed a whopping 5 lbs 2 oz.  We have been trying for a few weeks to get these two together -- because not only did we want to meet this little miracle, we wanted to see if our little girl looks like she weighs TWICE as much as her little cousin.

She does!

Jace doesn't have a cousin very close in age to him -- and Elsie is lucky to have TWO!  I can't wait to make multiple trips up to visit Dave, Niki, and her family -- and I hope that these two little babies grow close to each other!!!

 They were holding hands!

One Month Come and Gone

We were sitting at dinner last night and I suddenly realized that Elsie's one month birthday came -- and we missed it!  I can't believe that it has been one month already.  On one hand -- one month has come (and gone) SO FAST!  Was it really just one month ago that we were in the hospital?  On the other hand -- it feels like she has been in our lives forever.  You know, I was thinking about that the other day.  It probably feels like she has been in our family forever ... because she HAS!  We knew each other before we were born -- and were obviously very close there -- it makes sense that bringing her home feels more like a reunion than a first meeting.

Elsie is a GEM!  We had a rocky start ... but after turning to formula ... she is thriving!  She has gone from sleeping all day (she wasn't eating) to having spurts of being awake.  She enjoys going on walks with the family -- as we try to get out daily.  It is fun to watch her with Jace -- when they cuddle together, she is obviously quite content and he loves it to!  She only wakes up once per night now (If you don't count the 11:00 feeding) and goes back to sleep right after.  She is days away from cooing and smiling at us isn't far behind that.  I love to watch the faces she makes when she sleeps ... and I LOVE to listen to her chuck in her sleep.  It instantly makes me laugh.  

Here are a few (a FEW?) moments of our last month

My belly the morning of her birth -- it looks like I'm carrying twins because she was 10.5 lbs!!

Just after she was born -- being cleaned up!

Elsie and Dad  (Less than 2 hrs old)

Elsie and Mom (Just out of the OR)

Siblings meeting each other for the first time

Mom and Elsie READY TO COME HOME

We're on our way home!

Elsie at the Easter Egg Hunt

Easter Morning

Snuggling in Mom and Dad's bed (they look like siblings!!)

1 month old