8 weeks old

My pretty girl is 8 weeks old now, I can't believe it! It's crazy how time is passing! I know I say that every week, but it's true. It's just flying by! It's a bit sad. But it's such a joy to see her growing, too. She's doing better with her eating. I think she's gaining weight fine now, but she still tends to like to take her time eating. On several occassions, we've gotten her to take 6 oz at a time, so that was good. Usually, she still only eats her typical 4oz. She's getting there though.

This week was a milestone week - she rolled over from her tummy to her back on Thursday. I tried to get a picture, but you can't really tell what she was doing.

In this picture, she was all ready for church. Later in the day, Annlee said, "She's cute all the time, but she was super cute with her bow this morning." I must say, I agree!

Yesterday afternoon, we went outside to play before going to church last night. Elianna was asleep when we first went out, but woke up and was in the best mood. I had fun taking pictures of her. All I had to do was tell her, "hey" and she would give me these huge grins. I LOVE the one with her tongue sticking out!

Playing outside

Jeff was finishing up getting our pool set up yesterday and the girls and I played outside while he was out there. It seemed like a perfect opportunity to take a few pictures. (Of course, I don't need much of an excuse to do that anyway, lol) They all looked cute in their dresses (which they each picked out themselves when we got home from church.) Enjoy the pictures!

Videos from church

Kaylin sang and played bells in church yesterday and did a great job. I took a few videos of her to show off here.
The Little Angels singing Hymn of Promise

Playing Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross with handbells

Jesus Loves Me on bells. The first video shows how they normally play. This performance was their first attempt at playing bells like this, which is the way real handbells are played.

7 weeks old

A little late with the 7 week update, but here it is...

Elianna went in to have her weight rechecked and was at 9lbs exactly. So she gained 7 oz in the last week - the minimum that the doctor wanted. He would like to see her taking more in each bottle, but that's easier said than done. It takes this child FOREVER to take a bottle! 45 minutes for 3 oz!

Other than that, she's doing absolutely perfectly! She loves her sisters and watches everything they do. She smiles these huge smiles at them when they play with her. She started laughing this past week - sweet little "half laughs". During tummy time, she can lift her head pretty well. And today, she rolled from her tummy to her back. Kaylin and Annlee cheered for her when she did - it was really cute.

Elianna's Baptism

Yesterday was a very special day. We had Elianna baptized at church. Jeff did the actual baptism again, so that was really special. We also had both sets of our parents here to celebrate. It was a wonderful day and a beautiful time in Elianna's life. What an amazing picture of God's grace!

Here are the pictures from church

And here are the more "creative" pictures I took to show off some of the smaller details of the day.

3, 2, 1 ... Blast Off!!!

Into Kaylin's solar system science project! We collected lids from various things around the house and Kaylin painted them to look like the planets. This school assignment was right up her alley! She loves anything artsy and creative. The star decorations all over the board were totally her idea. I just looked up the constellations on the internet for her so she could draw them. I think she did a great job! Definitely an A+!

6 weeks old

Elianna was 6 weeks old yesterday - where is the time going? We're getting lots of fun smiles now and she seems to be more aware of things every day. Tonight, she was watching very closely as her sisters were being wild and silly. You could just see in her eyes that she wanted to join in!

We took her back into the doctor to see if her weight is getting back on track. She did better this past week than she had been doing, but still hadn't gained enough for the doctor's liking. She had gained 3 ounces this past week and they like to see 7 ounces at minimum. So we are adding a bit of formula into her diet, at least until we can her weight up to where it needs to be. We aren't sure yet what she thinks of the formula bottles, but hopefully she'll be able to at least get enough extra calories to make her doctor happy, lol.

Videos

These are two videos I've taken recently of the girls. The first one is them singing Pharoah, Pharoah that they learned recently at church and then taught to Maryella. The other is all the kids singing in church on Easter morning.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter everyone!!! I hope everyone has had a wonderful and blessed morning. What an exciting day Easter is. I love walking into church and you can just feel a buzz in the air. What a mighty God we serve!!!!

As always, lots of pictures....

Here are a few pictures from yesterday when we dyed eggs

And here are a couple of the girls hunting eggs in the backyard

And some of Elianna - yes, I'm crazy, but just humor me :o)

This morning - the girls in their dresses (I made the bows!!! I'm a bit proud of them)

The kids singing in church (I'm going to try to post a video of this later)

A family picture after church

And finally, checking out the easter baskets. The girls had to wait until after church to see them so that Jeff would be home. It was either that or get the girls up early before Jeff went to the sunrise service. The Easter Bunny left them the Pinochio movie to watch this morning to make the wait a bit easier.

Egg Hunt!

This morning was the annual egg hunt at our church and we had so much fun! The girls had a ball! Of course, they found tons of eggs. E slept through the whole thing - yay!