Ella's First Easter Extravaganza!

So not only was last weekend Ella's first Easter celebration, but it also coincided with her first trip to England (the homeland!)

and since there was a lot of sunshine involved, she thoroughly approved!

 To be fair she's never really been out in the sun in Scotland before, not because we keep her locked up inside but because there really hasn't been enough warm sunny weather to just let her lay out on the grass! So it was very cute to see how happy it made her!

She also got lots of cuddle time in with Granny and Grandad Jones which she was a fan of!

 Ellis also loves his Granny time! I love this picture of the two of them together having a right old laugh - share the joke guys!

 On Good Friday, Grandad suggested going to a nearby garden centre that had a miniature train - so we hopped in the cars and off we went! Well, after getting slightly lost, we pulled into this 'garden centre' and parked in someone's garden just in time to see the little miniature train spectacularly derail!! It was just someone's house, and they had planted tons of flowers and things in the garden they were selling and then made this miniature railway! It was pretty random! and after laughing pretty hard about the derailing we went to explore!

We discovered there was a properly miniature railway track too - how cute is that bridge!

 I had to snap this pic of the babywearers of the family!

and we finally got a family pic of the 3 of us! Trust me...Ella is in there under all that fabric!

We made our way to the 'station' and hopped on board!

We thought it was pretty funny that we were doing it for the kids, because the 10 week old and 9 month old really knew what was going on!!!

The Braithwaite's got the comfy seats in our own private carriage!

Mom and Arne - the "big kids" loving it! At this point, we were about 3 rides in and Mom was trying to applaud the train driver who said he wasn't finished yet! It wasn't very busy and I was beginning to worry that he was having so much fun that we were never going to be let off!

Back in Hodnet, we chilled in the sunshine and soaked in some of that amazing sunshine that we have been seriously lacking up here!

Auntie loving!

Are those eyebrows not the cutest?!

We went to check out the baby lambs at the farm down the lane...

I'd like to say Ellis was loving them...

but in fact these smiles were for his crazy Auntie Alli who keeps him entertained by doing all kinds of crazy songs and dances!

Little and large! It's so funny seeing these two together!

Saturday was mainly a yummy foodie day around Shrewsbury involving delicious Nutella cupcakes!

Ella has been to her fair share of cupcakeries in her short lifetime already! This one was a new one we tried out, Empire Cupcakery, and it was pretty good!

On Easter Sunday, Ella put on her special bunny dress!

and had her first taste of chocolate!!! She wishes!

When we got home from church and were sufficiently full up on a delicious lamb roast, it was time to slip into something a bit more comfy for the egg hunt in the garden! so Ella sported her special first Easter onesie! which came all the way from some lovely friends in America!

Check out her cute bunny feet! She was a bit slow off the mark at searching for eggs...

Cousin Ellis had to show her how it was done! Don't waste time peeling the paper off - he eats his paper and all!

Auntie Mel found some gourmet seagull eggs! that actually were rather tasty salted caramel flavour, yum!

Ella eventually found her haul with a little help from Mommy and Daddy!

She seemed unimpressed by her bunny ear get up...

So we gave them to the poser in the family who got much more into it! His scrapbooking mum has trained him well!

The egg hunt almost ended in tears as Mel and Arne got a bit too competitive about finding the last eggs! Luckily Mel didn't end up in the pond...but it wouldn't have been the first time!

Mommy and Daddy also bought Ella a little prezzie so she can always remember her first Easter...

by reading Spot's first Easter! I was a big Spot fan when I was little so I'm hoping Ella will be too!

It was a tasty fun filled weekend with all the family, minus Auntie Mara who was checking out Gothenburg! and a lovely way to celebrate Ella's first Easter!

A 2 Month Old Update!

 

Today our little Ella turned 2 months old!

2 months old?! My ears can hardly handle me saying it out loud! She wasn't feeling the monkey love as much this month!

Time seriously needs to slow down! I can't believe how fast she's growing! I notice it most in the bath, when her legs are outstretched she is SO long now! and certainly not my little newborn baby :( 

...but we are loving how much her little personality is starting to shine through!

On exactly the day she turned 4 weeks old, I saw her first smile! My mom was staying with us that weekend and had taken her for the night shift, she brought her through to me so I could feed her before church and as I sat down on the sofa with her she smiled! I didn't know for sure if it was an 'official' smile because I had been noticing smiles for a few weeks that were probably just wind! but then the next day my friend Joanne came over and told me Ella had given her a smile while I was out the room, and then on Tuesday the health visitor came and saw a few of her smiles and told me that yes they were the real deal! So this was her first officially captured smile!

 It took daddy a few more days before Ella shared the privilege with him! So we captured it on vid...



but after that first week of random smiles here and there, the floodgates opened and there was no stopping her!

She is the smiliest happiest baby! She makes me feel like the funniest person in the world because she just grins away at everything I say to her! She is usually full of smiles first thing in the morning, like she's been storing them up all night long!

and daddy gets tons when he gets in from work too.  He also discovered that she likes the word 'mama' and so that got a great reaction...


Also, if you make the sound of a kiss 'mwah' that will always get a smile from her! Just recently even in the middle of the night when she's getting her nappy changed she'll crack a little smile on the changing mat waiting for your reaction, and even though we're not meant to chat away to her at nighttime so she'll go straight down again...it's hard to ignore her cute smiles so I usually crack a few back at her!



This month she got a new toy! A baby swing.  Lots of people on my baby group had said they had them and their babies fell asleep in them so then they were able to get things done around the house.  This sounded like a great idea! So we bought one second hand off gumtree, and I was very excited to test it out! Sadly Ella is far too excited by it to fall asleep in it, but it does keep her occupied for short periods of time.  The funniest part is it's pretty hi-tech and got a lead where you plug your ipod in for music, and a little led light display above her head for her to look at...but none of that interests Ella, the reason she is so in love with her swing is the grey plastic arm support that makes up the frame of the swing! Who knows why! but she grins away at that thing like it's all singing and all dancing! Funny girl!

Other exciting things that happened this month were Ella meeting her other Granny for the first time! and just in time before she jetted off to Tanzania!



We all went out to Tony Roma's Steakhouse, and it was the first time that Ella has not slept through a night out! She was super alert and loved looking around at everything going on! It must have exhausted her out though because when we got home that night she slept for her first ever straight 7 hour stretch, so we were loving that! Unfortunately I'm not sure our bank balance can justify taking her out for meals every night of the week to ensure she sleeps through the night! She's one high maintenance baby, haha!



 She also met her two uncles for the first time, Cam and Ja...



We took them to Loch Lomond, as it was their first time visiting Scotland! As you can see spring is in full force here in Scotland...it was 6 degrees, we were in hats and I was in gloves!
 

We also took Ella on her first sling adventure, and subsequently her first little hike!



This is called sling face, her little cheek got a little bit squashed! Luckily she was so snug and cosy she didn't seem to mind!



We went to the very spot where I had taken a bump shot back in November! It was so lovely to be there again, but this time with my little baby!



The view was still pretty spectacular with the snow capped Ben Lomond in the distance!



Daddy got some good snuggles in too...



and I snapped this pic of her, looking SO much like me when I was a baby!

 I was able to celebrate my first Mother's Day as a mother!!



Ella is the baby elephant, we call her Ella the elephant so I loved this card that By had ordered especially!

He also took us to this cute little farm shop and cafe, Scotland is severely lacking in anything nice like this and so I was touched that he'd gone to the effort of tracking it down! It was about 45 minutes away in a town called Douglas.

We sat on these super comfy chairs, and had a little Mother's day treat complete with chocolate coconut slices, yum!



Of course Ella has been well trained by Daddy and knows that the best way to my heart is through delicious baked goods, these fudgy brownies were packed with raspberries and baked in a farm in yorkshire and then delivered to my door - magic!



We had a brunch on the actual day of puffed pancakes with bacon and maple syrup, just like our good old Vancouver days!

and By topped off the day by making me a roast - which is pretty much my fave dinner on this planet!

Yes, I was well and truly spoilt! oh and I also got some awesome polka dot transfers to transform my Kitchenaid mixer into a polka dot mixer!!



It was a lovely lovely day, and it's been a lovely month with Ella just getting cuter and more scrumptious with each passing day!