Ella Gets Baptized!

On January 20th (yes, we're a bit behind in our updates!) Ella was baptized during the morning mass at St. John Neumann. Many our friends and family traveled from afar (Oklahoma, North Carolina, Maryland, and Florida!) to celebrate with us; it was such an incredible day. Ella wore the same baptismal gown that Erika and her brother Grant wore - it was sewn by Erika's grandmother over 30 years ago! How neat is was to see our little one wearing it and what a beautiful gown it is. Best of all, Ella was an absolute angel during the mass and baptismal rights - she was just picture perfect and although she was a little shocked at the water on her head, she recovered quickly and responded with the biggest, cutest grin. It was a sight to see! After mass, Erika's parents hosted a brunch at their home...everyone enjoyed lots of great food, mimosas, and bloody mary's!
Enjoy some of the pictures from the baptism weekend here.

Last week, Erika turned 25, er, um, okay, 31, but who's counting anyways? The birthday was celebrated at one of Erika's favorite steak restaurants in Arlington with our friends Shaun, Sandra, Meredith, Molly, and John and was followed with some after dinner drinks at the Wolff's home. It was such a fun evening! We decided that a relaxing night was in order on Saturday so we enjoyed a evening with a warm fire, a bottle of wine, and perhaps one of the stupidest movies ever...for those of you who had intentions of watching Snakes on a Plane should either save their money or delete it from their Netflicks cue! Some of the scenes were so bad, they were almost comical...but anyways, we're no movie critiques and can't complain too much since Ella let us enjoy the entire movie!

Otherwise, all is going well here with the Carlson's! Ella, of course, continues to be our little shining star and is just about the sweetest thing. Big congrats to Tim who received a major promotion at work, Erika is very proud of him....it was so well deserved and will be sure to open continued doors of opportunities for Tim!

J'aime Paris!

All bundled up! Check out my legs!

Working on rolling over....almost there.

Vegas vs. Reston

This was Tim's first weekend away since Ella has been in our lives and while Tim was celebrating our friend Shaun's bachelor party in VEGAS, Erika stayed busy with Ella and Cooper in RESTON. Okay, so hard to compare the two cities, there's no high rolling in Reston of course, but Erika managed pretty well! Besides, it might be true for this Vegas trip that there's not much that needs to "stay in Vegas" since the guys realized by Day 2 that it takes a little more effort these days to hang in Vegas. Let's just say that recovery time more than doubled....Hmmmm. Regardless, they had a great time and while Tim didn't come home with any big winnings, he certainly didn't lose much either (Erika is thankful).
Ella is doing wonderful, as usual! Again, she seems to be developing so quickly! Whereas before her most coordinated hand movements involved placing her fingers in her mouth, she can now (although not so gracefully!) reach out and touch the hanging toys from her chair. Erika was in the kitchen and heard the hanging toys moving around and thinking Cooper had crept in for an Ella face licking party, was delightfully amazed to see Ella reaching out her hands to touch the toys. She is such the little wonder. And her legs! Boy, does she love to stand now! We wonder if she'll be an early walker?
We can't ignore Cooper, either. He's been such a trooper since Ella has been born :) His weekend treat was a play date with his buddy Arlie. Erika and Andrea took the dogs out for a good romp in the woods...creeks+mud+Arlie+wrestling+running like hell = dirty Cooper = bath time. Let's just say that Cooper was wiped out for the rest of the day. Below are a couple of pics...

Our "ribbon" princess

Dinner at the Wolff's

Ella gets a hug from Charlie

Whee! Action shot! Full charge out of the water - watch out!

Getting wet

Life doesn't get any better for two dogs

Blue-eyed blueberry

When Ella doesn't get what she wants.....

Congratulations, Christi and Jon!

Yesterday, our good friends Jon and Christi welcomed their first baby into the world. Claire Sophia was born on January 9th at 8 lbs 8 oz and with a head full of brown hair!

Welcome to the world, Claire!

(1/11 Update - Below are some pictures from the hospital visit)

Little Claire is soooo tiny!

Claire getting adorned by her mommy

Sandra takes a turn....

....and Meredith!

Two new mommies!

Claire's babysitters :)

Ella Update

Happy New Year! Today we celebrate Ella's 3 month birthday - hard to believe, isn't it? I looked through some pictures we took the day she was born and it's amazing how big she has gotten! Some of her newborn facial expressions have remained though - including her smile and yawn. She has developed into such a beautiful little baby and each day introduces us to new Ella developments. For example, earlier this week she discovered her toes...really discovered them - you could see the "ah hah!" moment on her little face as she realized "jeez, these little toes are MINE!" She continued to move her toes and feet as her eyes followed them around. And the recognition doesn't stop with her feet - her hands also fascinate her and her hand movements have become so much more coordinated. She is constantly putting her fingers and thumb into her mouth and she has developed a habit of holding onto her ear during nursing. As parents, it's just remarkable and honestly, we could stare at her for hours with no regard to the passing time. Her ability to follow objects has also quickly developed; she follows each of three animals that spin around on her mobile and just this morning, she turned her head towards her daddy when he came in the room. She also smiles so much more and actually giggles! And her movements! Boy, does she kick and squirm! She exercises her legs all the time and works up to full kicking and moving which often puts her out of breath! But she loves it as she smiles all the time during it. And then there's the "whine." Tim swears she learned it from her mom, but she expels a noise with the tone that says "No! I don't want that. Listen to me! It's all about me!" We laughed the first time we heard it since we were not expecting to hear that kind of noise until the "terrible two" stage. We've got a sassy one! Surprised? And best of yet, she set a record sleeping time last night - 10 hours! She's our little sleeping beauty and wakes up smiling and giggling. Have we mentioned how blessed we are?
Here are a few recent pics from this past week:

Cooper goes swimming in the lake, regardless of the chilly weather...he was is doggy heaven!

Shaking off after his first of 10 swims!

Mommy had some fun with Ella while changing her - she's sporting a onsie on the head...she was too cute - this one deserved a picture!

Check out the chubs

Not planned, but mommy and Ella sport brown and white! We bought this outfit for her before she born - couldn't resist the stripes, just too cute.

Cooper and Tim - enjoying the new year's nice sunny weather!