Ella Talking

Finally managed to get Ella talking on film. She always seems to stop once I pull the camera out but not this time. We can't get enough of it!!

Ella "Talking" from Ryan Nowell on Vimeo.

Maui

On to Maui!!! We went to spend some time with my mom, enjoy the weather and celebrate our anniversary! We arrived on our anniversary- we hadn't been back since we got married three years ago... Ella did great on the plane, the trip there was a marathon flight- we weren't expecting that going into it. If you heard anything about a flight from Portland to Maui that had to turn around so a threatening passenger could be escorted off... yeah that was our flight! A flight that was supposed to take a little under 6 hours took 11! And that was Ella's first flight- she was still a champ and slept almost the whole time! Probably her biggest accomplishment in Maui is she started sleeping through the night- her longest night so far was 10 hours! She's averaging nightly about 8-9 hours- we LOVE it! It's amazing what a difference a full night of sleep makes!

On the plane, keeping busy

Grandma taking her for her first dip in the ocean.... for the most part she loved it...

until she was dipped too far in!

this is Baby Beach- the beach just down the street from Mom's house

The view of a rainbow from my mom's front porch

On a morning walk. We have tried so many different baby carriers and this is the only type she'll tolerate! She likes to be faced forward with legs free and hanging down!

Hanging out on the beach while Ella napped in her car seat.

The humidity made the hair on the top of her hair curl! It was so cute!

And now we are back home and back to layering clothes... :( we would have loved to spend more time in Maui, we had a good time and REALLY enjoyed the warm weather. The trip back on the plane was a breeze, only about 1/3 of the time it took compared to the way there.

Road Trip!

For those of you who follow this blog, I'm sorry for such a delay in posting, at a time when you probably want to see more frequent posting! Time has flown since Ella was born and we've been gone for half of that time. We're back now and really settling into our new life and slowly coming out of the fog of first time parents! I will make up for my absence with two blog posts FULL of pictures. Those of you on facebook may have seen some of these already. (and you are also more updated, so for those of you who don't use facebook... sorry) I, Emma, am writing these two posts and will be (hopefully) contributing more regularly to this blog as well :).

To start off, we went on a 3 week road trip down to Tucson Arizona to spend Christmas with Ryan's parents. When we first made these plans, I was only about a third of the way through my pregnancy, by the time Ella was born and we entered parenthood, we started to second guess the length and mileage of our road trip... it was going to be a bigger undertaking then we first thought. Luckily Ella loves the car, and as it turns out loves to travel! She did awesome and we had relatively few problems. She has grown and changed so much in our time away. That was really apparent once we got home and realized how different our routine and baby were when we had left, compared to where she was when we got home.

Our first stop was in Pleasanton for a few days to spend some time at my step moms house. We had a great time hanging out and seeing family.

Ingrid holding Ella and Steve holding Willie- who was very curious of Ella!

After some time in Pleasanton, we were on the road again with a quick overnight stop in Southern California and then onto Phoenix to see my cousin Chad for a few days. We had a great time being shown around and really enjoyed our stay- thanks Chad! These few pictures were from the top of a ridge that looked down on all of Phoenix.





Finally we got to Tucson and Grandma and Grandpa were really happy to see us (Ella mostly!). We spent a majority of our time here. Lance and Suzanne (my brother and sister in law) came for a few days over Christmas and we had a great time catching up and they got a chance to meet Ella and spend some time with her. It was nice to be in warmer weather and for us to spend some time with Ryans parents and for them to have some time with Ella. It had been too long since we were in AZ to visit them and even longer since both boys were home for Christmas.


This picture was taken on her makeshift changing table on top of the washer- all the sudden she began to love diaper changes and this is where we usually would see all her smiles. It was great once she started to smile all the time at us and not just in her sleep.

Puma loved the warm weather! He also did such a great job in the car and all the different places we stayed!

I loved once she started to make more eye contact and smiling at me- it was awesome!

After Tucson, on our way home we went up through Las Vegas, and stopped in Reno for a couple of days to see my sisters and for the two cousins to meet each other. My niece, Taylor was very excited to see Ella and wanted to touch her all the time... Ella didn't really pay much attention to Taylor but soon I'm sure they will be great playmates for each other. They are only about 5 months apart which will be great as they get older! Right now it's amazing what a difference 5 months makes :)

Ella still isn't smiling for the camera :) so this was the best we could do!

Ella loves to hang out on Dad's lap and practice holding herself up!

Taylor is such a bundle of energy! She is also such a happy baby!

These last few pictures were taken on our way home. After 3 weeks we were ready to be back in our own beds... but it was only going to be for a few days since we had booked tickets to Maui (my next post). The price was too good to pass up and with neither of us working, it made is very easy to get away!

This is Mount Lassen in the background, on our way home.