Matt's first Video

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

 Last weekend we put up our Christmas tree.  This was sooooooo exciting because it was a week earlier than Matt let me do it last year  (I think he has turned soft now that Elle's around).  Matt put the tree up while I did other decorating and then we decorated the tree together.  Elle thought it was so much fun and loved the lights and sparkle.  She is really thinkening up (as you can tell from the pictures) which makes her especially cute in her Santa hat.  While the tree is bare underneath in the pictures we have since changed that adding two gifts for me, and one for Elle and Matt.

It seems rather foolish to buy gifts for Elle this year but I really cannot help myself.  She is so funny and excited making her so rewarding to give things too.  I looked back on the blog posting from this time last year, and at the time I commented on how excited we were to make family memories.  This year was the first of so many to come and it was everything I hoped it would be.  I also commented at the time that I was convinced she was a girl baby...looked at me, mother's intuition!  Elle is the perfect little baby and we are so excited for our first Christmas with her.  We can just tuck her right under the tree and she will be the best gift of Christmas.

We've Escaped

Matt and I traded our Commander in for this 2010 Ford Escape.  It was bitter sweet for us as the Commander was the first car that we bought together.  We bought it about 2 months after we got married and as we drove to pick up our new SUV we talked about all our memories;  trips to Florida, Canada, picking up Urban, bringing Elle Belle home from the hospital; it was a good car to us.  The gas however, was killing us so we traded it in for the Escape which gets much better milage while still giving us enough room to carry all Elle's gear.  After months of searching we found this Silver one about an 1 1/2 hours from our house.  We went down on Saturday to complete the deal and picked it up last night.  We are already soooooooo happy with it.  

A couple of the big things we were looking for that we found are, like I said before,  gas milage which has already proved to be WAY better. The Commander also had a raised back seat making it extremely difficult for me to lift our growing baby into the back seat (she ways a ton in her car seat).  Here are pictures of our new family car.

Black leather interior.

It has the "sync" system, which Ford is famous for.  All this means to me is that we have blue tooth for hands free cell calls and we can hook our ipod into the front console.  I think it does lots of other stuff too but Matt will have to tell you about this.  You can also see the seat warmers we had installed in the picture.  It didn't come with them but it was totally worth the extra money to have them installed.

This shows the ambiance lighting in the cup holders and other places in the car.  I think they are kinda cheesey but you can change the colour to "set the mood".  I kinda feel like I am driving a souped up car.

Trick or Treat

Elle was feeling under the weather on Halloween.  She actually had her first fever, poor baby.  We decided to take her over to my parents and to see her cousins anyway.  Here are a few shots of the girl in her costume.  She could only stand in her costume and since she can't do this on her own it was not well thought out.  Someone gave her a baby gift in this bag but the bag had brown handles.  The minute I saw it I knew it had to be her costume so I got some white ribbon and cut the letters out.  She looked so precious and started to like all the attention once she got used to her costume!

Pumpkins and a Princess

Matt carved our pumpkin for Elle and I tonight.  I apparently picked the largest pumpkin making it tough for him to cut through.  Elle watched Matt like a hawk and thought it was just the funnest thing.  Thanks to Nana and Grandad for sending Elle's 1st Halloween bib, she looked so precious!!!

Very proud of herself with her pumpkins

Matt getting started

Mesmerized by her Daddy

Collecting baby pumpkins

In the pumpkin

No babies were harmed in the carving of our pumpkin

I was determined to get one of her in it!

Matt's master piece

Happy Halloween!!!!

Five Months

Matt had been on my back about posting again and I promised to do so as soon as I took Elle's 5 month pictures!  She turned 5 months yesterday...can you believe it?  She is the absolute joy of our life.  She has so much personality and it seems like everyday she is learning to do something different.  She chatters constantly and we are currently working on "Dada" and "Mama".  She's got Dada down, only it comes out a little more like "Yadaya".  Most Mommy's are heart broken that their babies say Dada first but I told Matt whoever she calls in the morning has to go get her out of her crib, I am pretty anxious to get a sleep in.  Actually she is a great sleeper.  She doesn't usually make a peep until around 7 and she is totally content playing in her crib until around 7:30 or 8.  

We have started her on rice cereal which has also been a huge help.  About two weeks ago she started waking up at 5 am  totally ready to party, and while she was content until around 6:45 or 7 I was anxious to get her back to her 8 am sleep-in.  We have been successful!  The cereal is doing the trick.  She has her bottles throughout the day on her normal schedule but before bed we give her a small amount of cereal.  We started it super runny and we have worked up almost to the normal consistency.  Babies have to learn how to swallow, they are born with the instinct to push stuff out of their mouth with their tongues.  The first couple nights she was spitting everything out but seems to be getting the hang of it.  She needs to be comfortable with cereal by her 6 month check-up at which point we will be told to start food.  Crazy!

We are preparing for Halloween right now.  We got a pumpkin, which Matt and Elle will be carving in the next few days (Pictures to follow) and Elle and I have been working on her costume.  She will not be going trick or treating but I wanted to take her to see her Aunts, Cousins and my parents, plus I would be a horrible mother if we didn't have a picture for the baby book.  Here are a few of her options (excluding  our chosen costume...to be posted after Halloween).

A Cheerleader!

An Eskimo

A Moose, no costume needed!

A Froggy!

Tom Cruise, Risky Business Style
(Matt's been told he looks like a young Tom Cruise before)

Finally, Elle recently got a new toy that she LOVES!  I am trying to figure out how to post a video so I won't post about it today.  I'll try to get that video up so you can see the Girl in action!!!

Beautiful Fall Day

Elle and I spent Wednesday morning at the park with her cousins.  One of my favourite things about fall is the cooler weather on a sunny day.  I love getting into a sweater and jeans and heading out for a walk.  The leaves at this time of year are gorgeous so Linds and I couldn't help ourselves.  We posed the kids and took some pictures of them amongst the leaves.  Aren't they adorable?