New do

I tried another hairstyle on Ella-belle today, the half-up half-down. Her hair has gotten long enough that it really works and looks cute. I just love the way her curls make a little round pouf when you pull them together with a ponytail holder. Of course by the time I decided to document it with pictures, she had pulled at it over the course of the afternoon 'til it needed some reinforcement. And I didn't do as good of a job the second time. Doh! But She is still such a cutie-pie in these shots that I thought I'd post them anyway.

 

Easter

 We had a low-key Easter this year. Not that the meaning of Easter is ever low-key. But our bunny and egg factor was. We have had so much going on around the house that I just couldn't get into the spirit of decorating and buying candy and stuff. So we went to church and worshipped, and shared a meal with friends later in the day. Other than that, Paul cut down a tree and sanded the counter, and I painted and peeled caulk off a bathtub. Paul was already covered in leaves and sap by the time this picture was taken, but let the record state that he did wear his fancy suit to church with a blue shirt and pink tie. He was very handsomely Easter-dressed. Here I am with my little Easter jelly bean.

Weekend at work

This weekend we have been hard at work on fixing up the house for the market. We have lots of projects going on and it feels good and productive. Love that!

Ella helps us by being adorable. (Also by scattering our equipment all over the house.)

We have taken some breaks for fun though . . .

Pretty princess

 We have great next door neighbors. They are a really nice family, and on top of that, their daughter Anna is our go to babysitter. She is so nice and Ella loves her. Today Anna brought us over some of her old dress up clothes. Most are a little too big, but we found one thing that would fit. Ella was delighted!

Back from the couch

Well hello again!  Missed you all last week! I was down and OUT with another stomach bug. Another. I was a little bitter about this one. My personal belief is that although stomach bugs do exist in the world, a person only deserves to have one maybe once every four years. Twice in one pregnancy is just too much. And following the trend of the last one I had, I still continued to feel bad for almost a week after the official puking part was over. Yuck. No fair. I think I'm back in business today though, which we are all very happy about. When Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

Thank you for listening to my complaints. : ) I promise we'll be back soon with more adventure reports!

A seahorse morning

Poor Ella has just been feeling very cranky and sad lately. This makes for a slightly cranky and sad mama too sometimes. This morning, no matter how much I played and sang and enlisted Lucie's help, nothing but being held would stop her from fussing. I'm trying to get Ella to be able to play and be content without always needing her paci. I like to hear her little voice! But finally, I gave up. We went upstairs for the paci and the singing seahorse. Ella desperately shoved the paci in her mouth, gripped onto her seahorse for dear life and took some deep breaths. Then mama finally got over the tough love thing and we just snuggled. I think that singing seahorse soothes me too. : ) He was a gift from Paul's work buddy who is a year wiser than us since he has a little 2-year-old daughter (who also loves the singing seahorse). What a great gift! The seahorse plays soft classical music, interspersed with bubbles, and seems to be just the right shape to hold. Sometimes he can be exactly the comfort Ella needs (which is a comfort to me too!) After a few minutes of snuggling, with the aid of seahorse and paci, Ella was ready to venture off. I'm glad we have him for a friend.

Crafty stuff

One thing I love to do with my mom is have her help me sew. While she was here last week, we tackled a project I had been wanting to accomplish for a while but needed her help with due to a zipper handicap I had been working under. She showed me how to put it in, and tada!, I was able to make Ella a couple of new sleep sacks. These things are just great. But they are normally pretty pricey. Since we use them every night and wear them through breakfast, and learn to walk in them, etc, we probably use 4 or 5 in our rotation. But Ella is getting so big that she was running out of room in the ones we had been using. To replace them all would have been a weeks worth of groceries! So, I just traced and old one for a pattern, but made them a little bigger. I also felt that ruffles should be added. : ) Here is the finished product. I made 2, but they were really pretty easy. There may be a few more in the works. 

And while we're talking about crafty things, let me show you what we saw in in Wilmington on Friday night . . .

It's guerilla art guys! I have heard about this and love the concept, but had never before seen in in the flesh (?) or whatever. Someone attached a whole bunch of keys to a construction fence, waaaaay more than are pictured, and then in the middle of the whole stretch, attached that knitting. Love is the key? Is that what they are getting at? That's my interpretation anyway. A nice message I think. But anyway it was so cool to see this. I wish we had a guerilla knitter in my town.

Whirlweek

Eeek! It's been a week since I last posted! So sorry to abandon you for so long. We have been very busy and having a lot of fun! Where to begin?

Well, in general news, the McCalls are moving! Not too far away, but we have found an old fixer upper downtown and are under contract with it. Woo! That does mean an incredible amount of craziness in our future, not even including the new baby. But we are planning to renovate it, sell our house and move to the big city. We are about to jump in to our urban dream . . . wish us luck! So, I have been decluttering, fixing up and thinking about all that goes along with "staging" our house, meanwhile daydreaming about plans for the new place. 

Our week was also fantastic because Gramma came, then Paul and I went out of town for a night, then Aunt Megan came. So much excitement! So little time for blogging.

Here's a quick pictorial summary:

 Ella loooves Gramma.

 She was in great hands while Paul and I played hooky.

Of course, she was also in Aunt Megan's great hands. Unfortunately, my visit with Meg was too short. I got no photos! But I think she's going to send me some. We'll go into more detail about different parts of the week in another few posts. But I just wanted to check in and let you know what we have been up to real quick! Hope your week was just as fun and exciting!

Silly Daddy