Merry Christmas!!

Friends & Family,
This Christmas blog update and next week's New Years blog is going to serve as our Christmas letter this year. Dan and I have sent out a Christmas letter every year since we've been married. This year was our best, most eventful year ever thanks to the birth of Eliana!! and we felt like our Christmas letter would be a repeat of what has been on out blog. So with this note, we share an update of our first Christmas with our beautiful daughter and wish our friends and family the best for 2009!!.....

We have all had a wonderful week with family and as my Dad said last night "Ellie has been a trooper". We spent last Saturday with Grandma Eileen's family at my cousin Lisa's house. Here she is with mommy's cousins Melissa and Michelle and Lisa's kids Hunter and Devyn. Hunter is just 2 months younger than Ellie.

Christmas Eve was shared with Grandpa Bud's family at my aunt Jolene's house. In this photo of tired Ellie she went almost all day with no nap, saw lots of family and open gifts...and was very sleepy and ready to go home!

Christmas Day was a full day starting with our own first Christmas morning tradition and then sharing the afternoon with the Wrights. Dan and I plan to make Ellie as much of her baby food as possible when she starts to eat 'big people food' in a couple of weeks (she'll be 6 months already on Jan 10th!) and we gave her a first glimpse at that with a puree of organic peas, potatoes, and carrots on Christmas Day. She also bonded with her Uncle John (aka Buzz).

The Wright's family tradition is sharing presents followed by a prime rib and lobster feast. We are full!! Obvioulsy Ellie has taken most of the gift-giving focus as you can see from her Christmas loot.....Ellie, Dan, and I are heading to St Louis to spend New Years weekend with the Wittmann family.
Merry Christmas,

Michaella, Dan, & Ellie

What's Up Doc?

Eliana is anticipating her first food (besides cereal). First she helped Daddy get the broccoli, rice & cheese dish ready for Christmas Eve and then played with some peppers before chewing on this carrot for a while....we plan to give her some organic veggies for her first real food on Christmas Day.

Ellie Visits Santa

Eliana made a visit to Santa Claus at the Botanical Gardens on Sunday. A little too young to be afraid of the big guy in the red suit (and being the ham that she is), she inquisitively checked him out then smiled at him, her mommy and the cameras. Grandma came with us as well as friends Jackie and Luci. Luci is entering stranger, danger age and wasn't so sure of Santa.

Video Blog

Hello all,
We made it through Thanksgiving with out too much weight gain...except for Ellie.
Watch the video to see why.

Visitors from South and North

Grandpa Roger and Carole came for a visit the weekend of November 14th. Grandpa and Carole spent a lot of time with me!

Mommy's friend Kim came down from Minneapolis the following weekend and met Ellie for the first time. Our weekend was a little more quiet than pre-baby:)

Four Months Old!!

I turned four months old on November 10th and weighed 13 lbs 8.5 ounces and was 24 1/4" long at my doctor visit on 11/11.

Ellie's First Halloween

Ellie spent her first Halloween night at Grandma and Grandpa's so Mom & Dad could go to Mahoney State Park to celebrate their 4th wedding anniversay. Her Halloween 'costumes' where a cute "I love my mummy onesie" (a gift from Mommy's friend Joslynn whose son Callan outgrew it before Halloween could get here) and a cute First Halloween shirt from Aunt Audrey. She seemed to like the pumpkin we got her a few weeks ago at the Farmers Market.




Michaella and Dan had a nice weekend away (with a visit to Ellie on Saturday...we couldn't quite stay away all weekend). We took in a nice hike. The weather was beautiful in the 70s, went to the safari park, ate dinner at the Round the Bend Steakhouse in South Bend (home of the Testicle Festival...memories, Jenn?) and relaxed!!

Extra Extra Read All About It

Ellie had a big weekend - she started rolling over....4 times on Friday and she hasn't stopped since. She also found her loud happy screaming voice, is always grabbing for her toes, and started blowing bubbles with all of that wonderful drool!
It was quite the weekend for her!!

Pumpkin Pie

Ellie is becoming affectionately known as 'pumpkin' and sometimes 'pumpkin pie'. She is getting stronger and bigger each day. She holds her head up really well for longer periods of time and holds onto her toys more. Just the other day she started reaching for her feet. Oh, and she drools A LOT!

She had her first overnight at Grandma and Grandpa Wrights and was a good girl (of course:) She slept all night in the Pack and Play and probably didn't miss mommy and daddy one bit while we went to our friends Adrianne and Andrew's wedding. The photo of Dan and Michaella is after their wedding at the Joslyn Art Museum. They got married there just like we did so we snapped a photo where our big event occured almost 4 years ago this month.

We all took a drive to Kimbalton, Iowa spontaneously last weekend to check out the big Danish windmill and eat at a crazy Danish diner. We have had to get more creative with our road trip ideas since moving back to Omaha:)!

This blog is helping family and friends in Maryland, California, Nevada, Missouri, Ohio, Minnesota, Colorado, New Mexico, and Oregon keep up with Ellie and we hope you all continue to enjoy checking in to see her grow and change!

3 Months Old Today

Ellie is 3 months old already. I just glanced at the clock and 3 months ago today, I was getting wheeled in for my c-section - seems like a long time ago in some ways!

Ellie is probably just over 12 pounds...we had to take her to the doctor last Friday and she weighed 11 lbs 12 ounces. She is really starting to grab things on her own this week. She has a new toy that makes crinkly sounds and has black and white patterns and she is especially interested in it....along with her favorite red cardinal toy. She also really likes bath time.







It's getting chilly here in the mornings so we're breaking out the fall clothes, including her first pair of jeans. Grandma Eileen and Mommy made a spontaneous trip to the mall yesterday so Ellie will be sporting some pretty cute duds from Baby Gap this fall.


Tomorrow Ellie will have her first overnight away from home at Grandma and Grandpas while Mommy & Daddy go to a wedding (we'll see how mommy does with that...gulp:)

Fun, fun, fun!!!

Ellie is so much fun and is such a good baby! She is smiling, cooing, and she even giggles once in a while. And..she is sleeping through the night!
Mommy and Daddy spend every minute with her on the weekends and we are having so much fun! During the week, she spends Mondays & Thursdays with Mommy, Tuesdays & Wednesdays with Grandma Eileen, and Fridays with Grandma and Grandpa Bud. She is a baby on the go...she goes for lots of walks downtown, goes to the farmers market, and goes hiking with Daddy. She even went to the zoo this weekend.




She still looks a lot like Dan, but a few people have commented that she has Michaella's eyes. We'll see!

We love having her here!!

Grandma Eileen's 60th Birthday!!

Grandma Eileen turned 60 on September 24th and Grandma, Ellie, and Mommy spent the day together shopping and at a surprise girls lunch at Roja. Ellie and Mommy bought a special locket for grandma at Le Marche so Grandma can wear a picture of her grandaughter and show her off everywhere!:)

Becoming interactive

Ellie is really becoming alert. She loves it when people talk to her and loves to study faces. Here are some photos of her with one of her favorite toys - her play mat from Cousin Wendy and the Butcher girls. There's a picture of her smiling at Grandpa on Mommy's first day back to work (she had to go to Denver for the day and grandma kept in touch by e-mail and text messaging) and a picture of her and Harry...who still loves to cuddle up close to her (a good indicator of how much she has grown from previous photos).

2 months old!

Ellie is already 2 months old!

She had an exciting couple of weeks the last two weeks. First, she went to meet her great grandma Rose. Busha held her for a long time and seemed to love it. Some things come naturally and always remain that way!

This past weekend, we made a trip to St Louis for Grandpa Roger and Carole's wedding. Ellie was a champ on the road trip. She slept all 7 hours door to door from Omaha to St Louis except to wake up to eat lunch and did the same on the way back. She got to meet Aunt Sally, Uncle Jeff, cousins Ashley and Alex, and Uncle Brian in St Louis. It was Ellie's first road trip and we all enjoyed it. Roger and Carole's wedding was beautiful and the weather was great. Ellie was an honorary flower girl:)

At her 2 month appointment, Ellie weighed 10 lbs 7 ounces.