Ella and Cooper

Cooper has fully adjusted to the new addition to the family as Ella often goes unnoticed by the unfazed Cooper who finds her antics not so entertaining any longer. He's even adjusted to the nightly feedings (and crying) and just continues his zzzz's. But that doesn't mean he'll miss out on his opportunity to pass a few kisses to Ella. While we've been busy with little Ella, we have not forgotten about our little Coopman! Below are some pics of the two of them. Also, we've updated Ella's gallery so feel free to check out the newly added pictures by clicking on her gallery to right of our blog.
As for the move, we're getting there. Last night, Tim and Erika celebrated Ella's 2 week birthday by unloading kitchen boxes and getting the cabinets organized. We're aiming to keep this move as easy as possible and trying to take advantage of any extra time by moving boxes over to the condo. The official move date is November 1st - less than a week to go!
This afternoon, we took advantage of the weather and walked Ella and Cooper up to Clarendon to shop around and enjoy the day. Ella, as usual slept the entire time in her stroller while Erika and Tim shopped around with Cooper. We sure are going to miss the walk and our neighborhood once we move but will just have to scope out some new trails once we get there!
Hope you all enjoy the updated pictures!

Cooper can't resist Ella...

...But she doesn't seem to mind!

All smiles for Ella while staying warm with Cooper

Kooper Kisses

Ella visits the doctor again

Today, Ella visited Dr. Weinstein for her second wellness exam. She continues to be a healthy little girl and although has not reached her birth weight yet, she did gain 6 oz since her last visit so now weighs 7 lbs 12 oz...right on track, the doctor says. She still remains our tiny little baby! Of course, she was not happy when her clothes and diaper had to come off for her weighing in and definitely did not like her belly button cleaned out (her umbilical cord already fell off last Wednesday!) but was easily consolable once it was all over. Good news: she is sleeping well at night...Bad news: she is NOT sleeping during the day. Hmmmm...this makes it tough on mom and dad, especially since mom has been trying to finish a major school paper! Hopefully she'll pick up a better sleeping pattern soon! We also visited our condo in Reston - just about done! Just a few super minor repairs and it should be 100% complete. We love our new kitchen...here are some pictures of it, along with Ella and her daddy at the doctors office:

Ella (11 days old) and daddy - just weighed in and waiting for Dr. Weinstein

Our little "princess"



New kitchen!

Looking good

Ella Update

Thought we would highlight some pictures from Ella's gallery that we thought were particularly cute! Although we had a rough night on Friday getting her to sleep, we made it up last night. Ella went to bed around 12:30am and slept almost 5 hours before waking up for her next feeding. Hooray! That was a blessing for mom and dad. She then went down again and woke up again around 8:30am. While we don't expect any major sleeping patterns just yet, we seem to be getting there. Regardless, we're just enjoying our little bundle of joy and are just in awe of how wonderful she is!

Ella wears pink!

Wide awake!

Tiny hands!

Ella's first bath

Ella did pretty good during her first bath - Mom and Dad are very proud of her. We think her hair may be a little blonder now that she's clean ;-).

Ella - Day 5

Ella has a couple of "busy" days! Yesterday, we took Ella to her first doctor appointment and boy, was she not happy! As soon as we had to take her clothes off for the weighing and exam, she screamed like crazy. Yikes! But, Dr. Weinstein was great with her and gave her a clean bill of health. He also said she was a very pretty baby - duh! As if her parents didn't know that! She lost a bit of weight since her birth but at 7 lbs 8 oz at her appoint, the doctor said the weight loss was completely normal. Plus, she's been busy breast feeding so that weight should hop right back on. After the appointment, we took Ella to her new home in Reston to see the completed kitchen (see pictures in Ella gallery) which is turning out really great, we are very pleased with it. Afterwards (yes, there is more!), we took her for her first stroller ride with Cooper and got lunch at Booeymonger where we sat outside and enjoyed the nice afternoon. Whew! Big day!
Today, we slept in until 12:15pm! But after not really getting to bed until 3am, we needed the sleep. We've discovered Ella has a "witching hour" of 12am-3am where she's difficult to put to bed...all makes sense given that is when she was probably MOST active in the womb. We're working on changing that schedule around! Ella had her second Cooper walk today in her Kozy Carrier - highly recommended to any mom out there.....it's been just great. It keeps her all cuddled up and immediatly knocked her out on a nice long nap. It'll be great for Erika to use on walks with Cooper without Tim and also around the house, too.
We posted a permanent "Ella Gallery" to our blog - see to the right side column. Feel free to check it out whenever, we'll try to keep it as updated as much as possible. Enjoy our little one, we sure are!

At home with Ella - Day 1

We just had to post a few pics of Ella that we took today. Ella allowed us a whopping 7 hours of sleep last night - she's become less fussy each day as she adjusts to her new world. We're hoping for a repeat performance tonight!

Ella Aquina Carlson, welcome to the family!

Ella Carlson was born on Friday, October 12 at 11:18pm! She weighed 8.1 ounces and was 20.5 inches long. Mother and baby are doing wonderful, but we're all pretty tired after being up for 40 hours straight, including 24 hours of labor, phew! Erika was so courageous through it all and she's adjusting very well to motherhood. Ella is a big eater, apparently, and figured out the whole latch thing quite easily. The Carlsons got home today, Sunday Oct 14, around 2pm and introduced Ella to a very excited Cooper - let's just say Ella got her first of many tongue baths! Enjoy the pictures of our beautiful daughter below.

Ella Carlson

Updated Belly Shots - Maybe for the Last Time!??

So, no baby yet....BUT a doctors appointment this morning indicated that the baby is making progress now (finally!). No dilation, but the head has dropped from last week (+1 for all you preggers out there). . . some news is better than none! We also briefly discussed an induction date but they want to see how things progress by next week - we have another appointment on Monday. Either way, this baby is coming soon! Although she said she was no good at the weight guessing game, our doctor said it felt like it was around 8 lbs. So let's see, if babies gain 1/2 each week, an induction sure sounds nice! :) And finally, some new belly shots...

Also - take a vote! Check out our baby poll to the right.

The kitchen is almost complete!

Check out some recent pictures of our condo that were taken today. There's been some real progress since the last shots and we are so very pleased with the results thus far! As you can see, the remainder of the cabinets have been installed, the granite is in place, and the floors and backsplash are starting to get underway. Also, the entire place is getting a a new paint job - you can see the new yellow for the nursery, green for the master bedroom (we just loved the green we have now, we decided to go with it again!), and once the kitchen is finished, the rest of the house will be painted a neutral brown/linen color. We also had the ceilngs painted, too. Lots of work, but it's almost finished!

And still...no baby news! Sorry!

Still no baby...

Unfortunately, no news to share just yet! Seems like this baby is planning on making his/her introductions later than we expected. Just as well, though, we figure the baby will come when the time is just right. Luckily Erika is still feeling comfortable though and aside from considerable less stamina than before (those dog walks can be exhausting!), she's feeling great and has no complaints. The baby still moves around quite a bit and is just as active as always, although the punches and rolls have more power these days! But the parents-to-be are patient and just taking these last few days (hopefully not WEEKS!) easy in preparation for parenthood! Stay tuned! Maybe we'll get a chance to post one more belly shot before the big arrival, too!

Preparing the Condo for the move...

Kitchen renovations are under way already! Out with the old and in with the new! As you can see, we're still at the beginning stages but the new cabinets are starting to be installed and we had all our new appliances delivered today. It's all a still bit of mess, but as expected and we're excited to see the finished product. Tim met Erika's dad at the condo to put together the baby's crib - our first step towards getting the nursery started! We're having the nursery bedding made so that is underway and should be close to being finished soon after the baby is born although there will be some last minute touches as varying color fabrics have been selected based on the baby's sex. Slowly but surely we'll be settled...until then, we're enjoying our last month in Arlington anticipating the baby's birth!

Our new cabinets! It's hard to tell from this picture, but we also had the entire left wall removed to open up the kitchen

Yikes! What a mess. This would be our living room, aka "holding room" for cabinets and appliances. The kitchen is around the corner, on the right.

New fridge installed!

The crib! Just the start to getting the nursery prepared for Baby C.