Surprise!

Ok...I am really, really behind on my posts so this one goes back to early May. I have to hand it to my husband. He pulled off a surprise birthday party for me and I had no idea! He planned everything from the invitations to the menu all without me even having the slightest idea.

Yes, this year I turned the big 3-0. I think I will continue to tell everyone I am 29 until it becomes highly obvious that I am not :)

He told me that one of our neighbors were coming over to see Isabel on the Saturday before my birthday. When the doorbell rang and some of our other neighbors appeared, I just figured that they were coming to see Isabel too. They even brought some snacks and I thought "wow, that was really nice of them to bring snacks". At this point I was still completely clueless. Next, I saw his parents pull up in their car. They live about 4 hours away and I thought that they just jumped in the car and decided to come and visit (as they often make spur of the moment decisions to travel). Ok, so I was still clueless... Next, some good friends walked in with a gift in hand and my first thought was that they were here for Mason's birthday party and had confused the dates. When I looked surprised and asked "what are you doing here?" my friend smiled and said she was here for me. At the same time someone said surprise and then I finally got it! Everyone was coming for my surprise birthday party.

It was a very unique surprise since Travis did not have anyone take me out of the house. He had everyone show up at the same time and I am sure it was hilarious to see the bewilderment on my face!

I have to hand it to him, he really pullled off a successful surprise party. He even had everything organized so that we did not have pop, beer, and tons of burgers and hot dogs in our house, since that would have surely tipped me off.

Pictures

It took a while for me to get these posted....enjoy...

March For Babies 4/25/09

I want to start off by saying how proud I am of my husband. He really dedicates himself to the March for Babies each year. This year he raised $2,700 and exceeded his fundraising goal by $1,200! This year was the first year he organized a team to walk to walk in honor of Mason and CDH. 15 people came out to support him and even raised an additional $890 bringing the grand total to $3,590!

The weather turned out beautiful and we were thrilled that Mason was able to join the team in the walk. Everyone had a great time, despite sore feet after such a long walk.

Thank you to everyone who donated, participated and helped raise money for such a good cause!


Team Mason


Mason petting a horse with Daddy at one of the checkpoints

Isabel is Here!

We are proud to announce that Isabel May Ellinger was born on Friday, April 17th at 11:30am. She weighed 7lbs 3oz. and was 18 and 1/2 inches long. She was born via VBAC, and we were able to avoid a second cesarean. Both Mom and baby are doing well.

Here are some pictures...we hope to post more details soon.

Pregnancy Update

Things are still going pretty well. I am continuing to get more and more uncomfortable during the day and at night. Not getting much sleep these days between the aches and pains and trips to the bathroom.

We had an OB appointment last Friday and my uterus is measuring right on track. Right now we are thinking that this baby will be about average size. We have an ultrasound on the 8th to find out the estimated growth and position. The plan so far is to attempt a VBAC if I go into labor before my scheduled c-section, which is on April 21st. The bummer is that our OB just got called for jury duty on that day, so we are not sure what to expect until the date gets closer. We also have a pre-op appointment on Wednesday afternoon.

We did some shopping this weekend to finish up getting things for the nursery. We have one more thing to pick up and then I think we will be ready for the baby. Did I just say that?? As far as the room goes, we need to repair the closet doors (they come off the track really easily) and touch up the trim and we will be done! I spent the good part of the weekend washing and putting away all of the baby clothes and sheets. Next step will be to organize the rest of the stuff (bottles, pump, etc.).

This week's project is packing our hospital bag. We never had a chance to do this with Mason since I was rushed into the hospital with little warning at 32 weeks. It will be our first time packing so any advice you have is much appreciated!

Nursery Preview

Ok, so Mason and I are both sick with a bad cold. We have cancelled our daytime appointments through Wednesday so that we can stay home and recover. It is still pretty chilly outside (only in the 50's here) so we are going to avoid going out as well. The result? We are pretty bored. Just relaxing, watching some cartoons, resting and drinking tons of fluids. The nursery is coming along, but still needs a little work. I thought I would take a few "preview" pictures to show how nice the vinyl decals turned out. I spent hours putting them up after Mason went to bed last weekend. Each bird and leaf is individually placed. It took a couple of hours of tedious work, but it was totally worth it in the end! We are going to order the baby's name in the same design after she is born.

The company we used is Lewas Designs. She has some beautiful designs and I could literally go crazy in her Yahoo store if I let myself! Mason is totally in love with the tree and birds and loves to show them off to his Mom and Dad and anyone else who is here :) I think we might look at doing a couple of decals in his room as well.






Here are a couple of pictures of Mason "reading" his books this morning.

Baby Name

Turns our that our baby name list ended up being one name long. We looked at tons of names and only came up with one that stood out to us.

Isabel May Ellinger