ella is two months!

words cannot describe how much i love this baby and how much i love being her mother! every day is such a blast and i am so happy! she is now two months old and it is already starting to go by too fast! stop growing ella bean! but it is so fun to see her discovering and learning new things every single day. lately she has started to coo like crazy and i LOVE it.

the rough part about two months are those vaccine shots! She cried during, but i think the hardest part is the next day when she is sore. it just breaks my heart because there is nothing i can do except cuddle her.

besides whats on the picture she can hold her head up, loves to lay in her boppy, fights sleep like she is fighting for her life (which is hilarious but frustrating)
loves to stand and coo at mom, smiles whenever she recognizes a face, and loves her binky. we still dont have a set schedule (probably because she comes with me to work every other day)so sometimes she will sleep a 4-6 hour chunk or wake up every 2 hours. every night is a surprise!

Mallorys shower

While Mallory was in town a couple weeks ago we held a baby shower for her and baby Tessa!






My mother in law and I made these as the favors!


Mrs. Kellie Welty made her this quilt. ISNT IT SO CUTE


she got such cute stuff!



I am SO excited for Ella and baby Tessa to meet and become best friends! Hurry up and grow Tess!

Ella waking up

she kills me! :)

now that im a mom...weird

1.) First off, how was your pregnancy? I am going to be honest, the first 6 months kicked my trash, but after that it wasnt too bad, just uncomfortable.

2.) What week did you deliver? 38 weeks exactly

3.) Describe your labor: Well it was pretty intense. and that is all i am going to say. but honestly everything that i was scared of happening happened, and i survived just fine! I kind of feel like it bring it on when i have my next baby. haha

4.) What was your reaction when you first saw your baby? it was such a surreal moment, i think i said hello a million times, and then i was so happy and content, i loved watching her

5.) How was postpartum? mm i am not going to go into details, but it was healing part was pretty rough and i did get the baby blues at night time for a bit, but besides that it was just fine and this baby girl was so worth it

6.) How is the post baby weight? not a problem, i lost all my muscle from my lack of working out while pregnant, so i think this is the thinnest i have ever been.

7.) Breastfeeding or formula? breastfeeding, but she has had formula and takes it like a champ :)

8.) How were the first couple nights with a newborn? it was pretty hard! just because you are so stinking tired. I think the entire first week i averaged about 3 hours a night, but the hard part was i was so worried! i have this HUGE fear of SIDS so i wouldnt let her sleep in bed with us, which we both didnt like, so she wouldnt sleep and in turn neither would i and then when she would i would stay up and make sure she could breathe. yea i was a little crazy. i have learned to relax a bit though :)

9.) What is one thing you wish you knew that you didn't before having your baby? mm i pretty much was prepared, i have had some great advice from a ton of people. but i would probably just tell myself to relax and not worry so much

10.) Your favorite thing about being a mom? I love how in love i am in with this little girl! I am literally obsessed with her! and all she does is poo, sleep and eat...and looks around. haha but i think she is the greatest thing EVER and the love i have for her is the best feeling in the world.

Ella is one month!

It is insane how much she has grown already! I am excited for when she can sit up and stuff, but i already miss how small she was when she was born. on top of what is on the picture ella also:

-likes to be naked, but hates being cold, which does not work out in the winter time. I think that is why she likes showers so much
-LOVES sleeping with her daddy
-makes the funniest faces when she poos
-will only calm down for her grandma mary
-wakes up every two hours in the night to eat, but on some lucky nights she will let us have 4 hours straight!
-at night time she has to sleep in our bed with us, or she whimpers the whole night. uh oh. (but i love it)
-is becoming more aware everyday
-we have decided that she is a pretty somber baby, she has smiled but a few times and i have been doing the silliest stuff to get her to smile again, but she is just not into it. hopefully she will like it later on because it is the best thing in the world!
her favorite bands/artists include: red hot chili peppers, the police, queen, the mthds, modest mouse, and etta james.


i pretty much think she is the greatest thing in the entire world and i will try and update this more so you will see how great she is too :)

Ella Jane Cray

The Birth Story:

I went to work on December 19th and then came home and (finally) set up our christmas tree, i was having some contractions but nothing regular. After i made our house all holidayish i started hurting pretty bad. Michaels friends were over playing some games and because of this stupid pain in my side i retired to the bedroom, hoping that i was just tired and it would go away when i fell asleep. i was so wrong. After laying in bed until about 4 am i decided to go watch some judge judys and wait it out. unfortunately the pain just got worse and worse on my right flank. i was debating if i should go to the hospital or not, but last time i went it was just because of dehydration so i chugged a bunch of water and waited and waited and nothing. so at about 9:30 michael comes out from our room because my crying woke him up (yea i was pretty much a wreck at this point) so he took me to the hospital and the car ride went something like this (me: drive faster, hurry, oh im gonna puke, michael: ok let me pull over, me: NO DONT SLOW DOWN, JUST HURRY) (i wasnt being very pleasant) so we made it to the hospital and after being asked a million questions from the nurses (who i was also not very pleasant to, sorry ladies) they gave me morphine...ahh sweet relief. pretty much after that it became a total blur because i was straight up on drugs the whole time. I guess they came in and did an ultrasound on me (i was out cold) and they concluded that i had a kidney stone. cool. so they basically just drugged me until they decided what they should do since i was almost 38 weeks. They said that they can either just keep me on drugs until i pass it (but that would be a ton a narcotics for baby cray and my dr thought that wouldnt be best for her) or they can induce me and then figure out what they can do about my kidney stones after the baby was born. so on the 21st of december my dr came in and said they are just going to induce me. (i am still on drugs so i was just happy in general and then i passed out again) i had to tell michael (the hospital made him leave because he had a wicked cold and since we were in the birth center area the nurses told him there were too many babies and he could give it to them.) so after i talked to him he packed our bags (we didnt have ANYTHING together) and came to the hospital to spend our last night together before we were a family of three. i wish i could say that we did something romantic or special, but i was still on morphine for the kidney stone so i dont even remember that night.
7:30 am rolls around on Dec. 22 and my dr comes in and breaks my water, then they gave me an epidural and then they gave me pitocin. I was feeling pretty good, i came in dilated at a 2 1/2 and the contractions werent too bad. and then the epidural decided to stop working on my left side and while they were trying to figure out why it was not working on my left side i went from a 4 to 10 (in about a half hour) which was not fun. and then it was time to push and THANKFULLY the epidural kicked in right when i started to push. oh my heavens if i could give any one person any advise on delivery it is GET AN EPIDURAL. it was totally amazing, i knew when i needed to push and THAT WAS IT! after i delivered i told my anesthesiologist i wanted to kiss her. anyways i pushed for just under an hour and then she came. 5 lbs 13.9 oz. 18 1/4" long and beautiful. We had to stay in the hospital a bit longer than average because little miss ella needed some oxygen and she was borderline dangerous zone with jaundice. but we were able to leave christmas eve and we havent had to be readmitted (thankfully) It is so amazing how much i love this little bean and i am so happy to have her home and healthy. WE ARE SO IN LOVE WITH HER!

a few of my favorite things

well since i cant start decorating the nursery until we move back to california in 2 weeks, i have been collecting ideas and doing all of that mentally. here are some ideas!

here are the paint colors:

i love the gray and white stripes :) (i dont really love the other stuff in the nursery though, mainly just the paint)

i love the idea of doing one big letter like this, not to mention i think this color is adorable:


Here is the bedding that we chose, well that my mom is making. It came in the wrong colors so i am having my mom make it :) the colors we are doing are light pink, light yellow, robin egg blue, and gray and we are nixing the owl. I am so excited to see what it looks like when its done!


and i have found THE greatest diaper bag. its only $59 but its made in paris so the shipping is like $30 :( i dont know if i want to spend that much. my goal is to find something exactly like this or make it :)


and here is a painting i did, i thought it would be cute to frame it but i dont know if i like it enough, or if it will match the colors. i guess we will see!

or maybe this one


i also like this:


and this:


and this:


and this!


ok well these probably wont look good all together, but this is where im headed and as soon as i have pictures of the nursery i will post them. but i am so excited!

even though i am 32 weeks i havent taken that picture yet, so here i am at 30 weeks!