Here Comes The Bride

We host several weddings a day in our household. Daddy and I are going broke paying for them all. I have even been a groom, a wedding singer, and a bridesmaid. And when I'm the groom, I have to have a Prince Naveen voice and accent.

I think I've mentioned before that Ellison loves everything brides and weddings. She's obsessed with dresses "that drag" still, and now has to have a "bride veil", too. After finding some left-over sheer material, we rigged her up a long veil to dress up in. I get very specific instructions about spreading it out properly - it can't get bunched together when she's walking down the aisle, which is around the circle of the first floor rooms. It is so darn cute how she gets this sweet, shy, contented, proud smile on her face while she's doing her bridal procession.

[June 17, 2010]

In an attempt to locate my old dance costumes up in the attic from when I was a kid, I stumbled upon a couple of things I knew Elli would adore: the flower girl dress I wore when I was 4 years old, and my old veil. Sidenote: I hesitated about the veil since I never wore one when I married Jonathan, but figured I could easily tell her it was just an old veil. We'll have that big conversation someday when she's, like, a LOT older. Anyway, now Ellison gets married on what seems like an hourly basis around here. It's what she wants to wear pretty much most of the day, until she starts getting too hot. Even tonight on our little family stroll after dinner, our girl donned the veil. It had to be a sight - a little girl eating cookies in a stroller with a sundress and Tinkerbell sandals, holding a teddy, wearing a veil.

[June 21, 2010]

The best part of this 1980's wonder? It drags!!! Icing on the cake for our little bride.

Quick Family Visit

While, again, I really didn't take any pics except for 2 for some strange reason (SO out of character for me!), we drove down to Concord one afternoon to see Ellison's cousin Mikey, his wife Brenda, and their two girls, Genesis and Gabriella. They were visiting Tato, Nilda, and the girls from Buffalo, so we thought it'd be nice to see them all. Ellison stepped right into place playing with all of her cousins, which always rips our hearts out. The really cool thing now, is that Ellison has taken a strong liking to Natalia, who has always been SO sweet with her in the past. Ellison has always been more stuck to her older sister, Bianca, and it always hurt Nati's feelings. Well now the tables have turned, and Ellison was Nati's little sidekick.

Gabriella, Natalia, and Mookie

The little girls made "houses" out of pillows, and were peaking out at us.

Ellison, Natalia, Gabriella, Bianca, and Genesis

[June 18, 2010]

Our Pool

Ellison and Daddy got out the Soto-style pool one day when I was at work to beat the heat. After getting it all filled up, they were only playing for a few minutes before a storm blew in.

[June 13, 2010]

We have been SOOOO fortunate to have such great friends that invite us to their pools or pool clubs this summer. We got a summer pass at Bur-Mil, where a few of our friends go as well, but it has been so awesome to have playdates with our friends. Thank you to all who have invited us!!! I stopped taking pictures, which I already regret, but it's still worth mentioning. Thank you to the Barksdales, Perezs, Holcombs, Tooleys, and Campbells for letting us join you for some fun! It's great to get outside, and this is the only way to do it when it's humid and in the 90's. You guys all help make our summer a great one! If anyone ever wants to wade in ankle-deep water in a 4-feet radius or run like mad men through freezing cold sprinklers, the Sotos have got you covered!

We've also been to a couple of fun birthday parties (Sam and Isabella), where again, I went camera-less. :-(

Poolin' It Perez Style

We finally got to have a playdate with the Perez gang again now that summer is finally here! The girls had a great time (and so did we mommies). Little Maggie was asleep for some of the action, and this was the only pic I took.

Caroline, Ellison, and Baity

[June 11, 2010]

The Start of Pool Season

Off to a sweltering summer here in the Piedmont. We kicked off our first day of summer pool time with Cameron & Ella at Bur-Mil Park. I quickly remembered how difficult it is to have playdates at pools - the children inevitably end up wanting to be in two different area, so us mommies don't get a ton of time to chat with one another. Nonetheless, it was a fun day, and Ellison was the little fishie she always is, as long as her face stays dry.

Wow, check out these two. The runways of Milan are calling their names with these fab poses.

[June 10, 2010]

Let's Try This Again...

So word has been getting out gradually that we have a new little kumquat on the way! (I'm told that's the size of our little babe now). Though we've been very apprehensive and cautiously optimistic up until now, we're breathing easier every day, and with every ultrasound we have. We are 10 weeks pregnant, and things are looking great, all thanks be to God! We found out we were pregnant at only 3 1/2 weeks, which was unusual for us, and it felt very surreal, and I don't think either of us wanted to believe it quite yet and get our hopes up again. Thankfully we had our beach trip to try to occupy our minds a little, though my body let me know for a couple of days there that I was definitely pregnant - it was the start of fatigue, a 6 day severe headache and a couple of days of bad nausea. After returning home, we had a 7-week sonogram (I had several minutes of sheer panic and dread while waiting to have it done), and we were so thrilled to see the little heartbeat! We had told Ellison she was maybe going to be a big sister again just before the sonogram, because she had to go with us. When we told her, she was like, "Yeah, okay, whatever..." basically. We prompted her by telling her we had to wait and see if this baby was going to grow. Well, as soon as we saw the little heartbeat and were handed the photos, Ellison insisted she hold them, and started literally jumping up and down repeating, "We're going to have a baby!", grinning ear to ear. She had to hold the pictures the whole way home while she called Grandma to tell her our baby was growing.

Though I remembered from my OB in Colorado that once you see a heartbeat, the chances of miscarriage go way down, we (or at least I) worried a little as the 9-week sonogram approached. But once again the 3 of us saw the little heartbeat and even got to hear it! It was very exciting.

Yesterday was my first official big OB appointment, and I was on cloud 9 when we took a peak at baby, who started moving around all over the place! It totally made my day! I wish Jonathan and Ellison could've seen it. It's feeling more real now.

In general, I'm feeling pretty good. Except for those couple of days at the beach, and the 6-day headache, and a couple of days of vertigo (that's not fun!), I've only had little bouts of nausea - nothing to write home about. My appetite is funky, but I feel pretty good as long as I keep a little something in my stomach at all times. The heartburn has been full-on every day come dinner time, and doesn't go away until I go to sleep at night. Tums are my friend! Of course I have the other normal pregnancy symptoms, but I'm so thankful I'm not hanging over the porcelain in the bathroom!

Since it would've been difficult to hide from them (why would I not be drinking Uncle Dick's homemade wine that always accompanies our family gatherings?), as they were coming to visit for 2 1/2 weeks, Grandma and Grandpapa found out when they got here. Ellison put on her "Big Sister" shirt before bedtime, and Grandma noticed it right away. We told a few members of our immediate family after we had the first ultrasound and 1 or 2 friends right away. For the most part, we've just been letting people find out however. Not keeping it a secret, but we just feel weird just blurting it out and announcing it. So we're letting word-of-mouth do most of the announcing for us.

Ellison is SO interested in anything related to babies right now. She LOVES seeing pictures of how big it is right now and what it looks like on the computer, and loves hearing stories of our pregnancy with her. She talks often about how much of a helper she is going to be, telling us she will change the diapers, and rock it if it cries, and change its clothes. It has definitely helped the guilt feelings we already have about how much her world is going to change, though we know it'll be for the better. We're trying to work on her becoming more independent with small tasks, in anticipation of possible bedrest again toward the end of the pregnancy. We pray that won't be the case, but will do everything we can to prepare as best we can.

We are getting asked a lot if we will find out the sex of the baby, and the answer is yes... in another 7 months or so... :-) Our due date as it stands right now is January 23. Yes, we are getting lots of grief about it. I have to admit that I am more inclined to find out this time than I was with Ellison, but feel pretty comfortable sticking to our guns on this. When I asked Jonathan if he wanted to know, he said "Nah, let's just wait again." It would be nice to know if I could have Ellison's baby clothes washed and set ahead of time, and it would be nice to accent the neutral nursery with a particular color, but we can do that after it's born. We so loved the moment, after laboring to birth her, that Jonathan got to announce, "It's a girl!!!". The good thing is, we have lots of gender-neutral newborn things.

So, that's it in a not-s0-small nutshell. :-) Our big family news that we are so unbelievably excited for...

One of Those Big Conversations...

Much to my surprise a couple of days ago, Ellison and I had the "skin color" conversation while we were coloring. I was curious what her perceptions were. Here's how it went...

"Mommy, Tiana [Princess Tiana from the Disney movie "The Princess and the Frog"] is dark, right Mommy?"

"Yes, that's right. She is. God made her that way, isn't that neat?"

"Yeah."

"What color is your skin, Ellison?"

"Hmm. Peach."

"Then what color is mommy's skin?"

"I don't know..."

"What color is Daddy's skin?"

"Hmm. He's dark, too."

"That's right, he is. Your skin is a little bit dark, too, isn't it?" (as she's totally checking herself out).

"Yeah. That's because Daddy's always squishing me up."

Ha! I was teasing Daddy that she must think Hispanic can rub off onto other people! So cute! I've always wondered if growing up she would see herself as more Caucasian or Hispanic. I never really thought about it a ton until the Census questionnaire came, but what box will she check on those bubble test forms where it asks for your race or nationality? I had a hard time filling it out! She's half of our two different races. At any rate, I hope she has an appreciation for her heritage, but I want her to ultimately think of skin color and ethnicity as a result of God being the greatest Artist. Sometimes that's such a challenge in our lost world...

The Departure

We sadly bid farewell to the beach, and decided to stop off into New Bern on the way home. We had heard some good things about it and had no agenda, so what the hay. We immediately fell in love with it. It is the cutest harbor town! The downtown historic district was full of adorable little shops and restaurants on these beautiful little streets. It was bloody hot, though! Our first stop was to eat at a cool restaurant (our family's lives revolve around food) called "The Chelsea". Yum! Very charming. After filling our tummies we needed to burn off some calories, which honestly would've taken a whole 5 minutes of standing outside in the sauna and we would've been good to go.

The birthplace of Pepsi

How cute is that for a street?

We took a tour of Tryon Palace, which made me totally glad to live in the 21st century! But it was very cool to see how the wealthy lived back then. Unfortunately we didn't make it into the gardens and many of the surrounding buildings to really check them out because, again, it was just too stifling hot.

We cooled ourselves back off with some ice cream inside with air conditioning downtown, and poor Mookie slept for that critical part! Oh well. Then it was back to GSO reality.

[June 5, 2010]

Beach Day 7

Soaking up the last day...

Ellison finally suckered someone into getting into the chilly pool with her. Daddy is the best (and makes Mommy feel guilty). He says he always wants to give in to those fun kid requests and doesn't want to tell her no because she'll be old one day and we'll never have those moments again. Man. I'm going to go slit my wrists now.

And she had the BEST time. Check out the perma-grin. Her whole face was one giant grin the whole time she was in the pool.

Oh, my heart...

I'm the woose (?sp) who likes bathwater for pool temperature. Grandma usually is, too, but she must've been desperate to escape the heat. Then she got Jonathan getting all up on her making it worse.

After dinner, we tried to take Ellison on a little train ride at this cute little miniature golf and go-cart place. We were bummed they wouldn't let you ride the little train unless you played the golf. Luckily, they have go-carts where little ones can ride with an adult. Ellison was excited, watching those ahead of us.

Woo hoo! So darn cute!

Every time they passed by where Grandma and I were standing, she'd wave, beaming ear to ear. It was the sweetest thing!

[June 4, 2010]

Beach Day 6

We took a water taxi over to Shackelford Island to look for seashells and the wild horses, and just to hang for a few hours. This was a very quick boat ride, and Ellison loved it - not enough time to fall asleep. :-) Belle and Aurora took the journey, too, in Ellison's death grip.

Ellison was a little annoyed that we wanted to walk around the island looking for seashells first. All she wanted to do was play at the calm shore. She was so excited to see that there was a beach area that had no waves at all.

The perfect ocean spot according to our Bug.

Can't you just see how content she is now that she can play in the ocean again without worrying about getting knocked over?

Her Belle and Aurora pollies joined her on the adventure.

Grandpapa having some solitude, saying his prayers. He cracked us up a lot of the trip. He was always staying behind for a little while to "say his prayers and rosary" alone on the balcony. We smiled because we'd tell him he could say his prayers just as easily on the beach. ;-) We ripped on him a lot, too, because of his sleep habits. Papa likes to sleep in late, then would wake up for a few hours, only to mention he was going to take a nap, then around 8pm he would mention how pooped he was. That silly Papa...

Daddy is such a great playmate.

[June 3, 2010]