Strawberry Picking

On Monday my mom and I took Ella strawberry picking for the first time.

I love strawberry picking and it's sorta a summer tradition for my mom and me, so I was excited to share it with E. 

It was brutally hot, so we didn't last long, but Ella actually did pretty well. At first she just stuck her thumb right into the berries; so she ate those ones. 👶🍓

Eventually I got her to pull on the stem right above the berry. However she picked every. single. berry. she saw, bug holes, misshaped, and the like. 

She is so precious to me and I look forward to taking my sweetheart again every summer. 

Gender Reveal for Baby #2

Josh and I definitely wanted to find out the gender of our sweet new miracle. With Ellanore, we actually weren't able to see the necessary items so we had to wait (well) past the normal 20 week mark. Luckily, because of placenta previa, they scheduled a followed up ultrasound for 28 weeks. Those were the longest 8 weeks of my life as my crafts, planning, dreaming, and naming had to wait.

I personally love the details in everything. If you invite us over for dinner; I'm excited. Tell me who else is coming, what your serving, that we are using your new patio furniture; and I'm over the moon. So when it comes to my babies, I simply love to dreaming. I love setting up the nursery; knowing who is going to be in there. Do I fantasized about Josh walking her down the aisle or teaching him to play football? 

Praise the Lord - baby #2 was more active and much less shy than Ella. :)

Baby is healthy in every way. God is good.

Now to the exciting stuff!:) The ultrasound tech was able to see gender, but we wanted to save the reveal for our long drive to NH we were starting later that day. I had previously bought 2 onesies, one saying "Little Man of the House" and another saying "Daddy's Little Princess" and placed them both into manila envelopes. At the ultrasound, we gave both envelopes to the tech and asked her to mark the outside of the envelope that contained the correct onesie.

The next day, Friday, as we drove through Vermont we opened the envelope and were delighted to find:

I had previously told a TINY fib to my mom. Since this week, while we are away, I'm 20 weeks - we got to do our ultrasound 1 week early, however I told her we wouldn't know until the week we got back. She was genuinely disappointed - which made the fib all the more fun for me. :)

I brought a pink and blue cake mix with me to my parents house and immediate started baking once we got here at 3pm on Friday. I had to do some swift moves to hide the cakes but was able to keep them hidden. I also brought a tub of blue and pink frosting. After the two PINK heart cakes were cool, I began frosting - half in blue and the other half in pink.

Prior to cutting into the cake, everyone voted on their guess for gender - and everyone guessed boy... 

We let my parents cut into the cake to reveal the color of the cake -- PINK, PINK, PINK, PINK!

Ella meets the Great Big Blue

On Sunday my parents drove Josh, Ella, and me up to Maine after church. I love the ocean, I tell Josh all the time I dream of retiring on the coast of Maine.

Ella has a bit of a love-hate relationship with water, so I wasn't sure how she was going to respond. She loves bath time; she giggles, splashing, spins and smiles the entire time. Fill up our mini pool in the backyard - and she wants nothing to do with it. Turn on the sprinkler, she won't go in alone; but spray her with the handheld house and she is in Heaven.

We went up to the Nubble Lighthouse and ate lunch at Fox's Lobster's House - which I highly recommend. I had the crab cakes and New England Clam Chowder; Josh and my dad had friend clams, and my mom had fish and chips -- we were all pleased with our meals. Ella even gobbled up her grilled cheese. Mom, Josh, and I cheated and had their famous blueberry pie while my dad was outside with Ella. (Don't tell Dad).

She loved watching the water, but wasn't too wild about then rolling up onto her feet.

We then went over to a beach to let her run around. 

Oh how the years go by

This past weekend I attended my 10-year high school reunion. Seems insane to me that 10-years have past. More insanely, I can't believe how different I was then, what I wouldn't do to go back in time and tell my 16-year old self some words of wisdom.

It's amazing how each day I would strive for the attention of people who I barely think of today. How did those four short years seem so important at the time, how did I so quickly loose perspective? Why did I let popularity cloud my vision of my fellow student blending into the background? What could I have learned from them? What did I miss out on by focusing on all the fleeting things?

Although I can't go back and give myself this advice, I'm taking it to heart today. What fleeting things do I worry about? Who am I overlooking, what lessons am I missing out on?

I'm not saying high school was a wash, I did truly have a great experience with some wonderful friends and memories. Distance has simply provided perspective on a past experience. I am grateful for a few wonderful friendships that I've maintained since high school, and I'm blessed by those strong and inspirational women.

We had about 10 classmates attend the reunion (out of 29 original graduates) and catching up was great. My favorite part was meeting their significant others and their sweet babies. It was inspiring to see my friends grow into caring and responsible parents.

11-hour mainiac drive

Josh and I recently drove up to NH to see my family and to attend my ten-year high school reunion (hard to believe). 

Ella is a wonderful sleeper (3-hour nap and 12 hours at night), but only at home with her schedule. Take away her noise machine, dark room, stuffed animals, or anything else and (we recently learned) everything goes out the window! 

We decided to break our drive into two days and left at 6pm on Thursday hoping Ella would sleep through the first half if our trip. Ella is normally fast asleep in her crib by 7pm - it took 3.5 hours to get her to sleep in the car. After sleeping for a meager 2 hours, now almost 1am, we pulled over to sleep. We finally got settled into our room around 1am, thinking Ella would be groggy, however Ella had caught her 2nd wind...

First she tossed and turned in bed with us for an hour. Then at 2 I got her pack 'n play from the car, however she jumped up and down in that for 30 minutes. We finally caved for the sake of the other guests and got her out. Josh sat with her until 4am until she finally slept. (Prego passed out around 2:30). 

Thankfully, she slept until 8:30 the next morning. Still wasn't the restful night we hoped for. 

Needless to say, we will need to figure out a better way to travel with our little ball of energy! 

The next day, she had all her regular energy back! 

Mailbox Revamp

Josh and I have been working to tackle the outside of the house this spring/summer. There definitely is plenty to keep us busy.

Josh is currently redoing our front deck: 

I In the other hand opted for a smaller project. I tire easily and like quick results! :) I still need to paint numbers on the mailbox, but I'm going to use the same paint color as another (yet to be announced) project, so I'm waiting on that color to be final. 

Lake Erie Wine Festival

This weekend we drove up to Geneva-on-the-lake, Ohio for their annual wine festival. We bought the tickets before we knew about Baby #2, so I was honestly a little bummed going into the day knowing I'd be missing out on the wine.

We had a wonderful time with our good friends, Collin and Leah. The weather was gorgeous, the view of the lake was fabulous, and Ella was a peach! 

There were about 15 wine vendors, a couple food vendors, fudge, jewelry ladies, and the obligatory window salesman! :) 

Unfortunately, in the midst of carrying piles of rocks across the park, Ella spilled some of Josh's wine and had a nice wine scent and stain for our pictures.