Bienvenidos a Miami

Yes, Ella had her first trip to South Beach last week. She's just so trendy, ya know?!? My cousin Brooke got married in Coconut Grove on Saturday so we used the extra time in the Miami area to so some sight seeing. We arrived THursday afternoon.... please don't get me started on why it is cheaper to fly 20 minutes to Charlotte, sit in the airport for 2 hours and then leave for Ft Lauderdale rather than just driving 2 hours to Charlotte and saving bunches of time.... and airline fuel! Quite annoying. But Ella was kept occupied during our layover by her granddaddy playing around on the floor with her. Notice the similar hairstyles ;)

Once again she was a dream on the planes. We were really worried because of her ear infection but it didn't seem to bother her at all. Once we arrived it was straight to the hotel... kudos to whatever brand of minivan we rented, we managed to get myself, Bryan, my parents, McNair, Ruthie, Ella and car seat, and ALL of our luggage in without being too cramped. Of course, once we got to the hotel and started unloading I'm sure we looked a bit like a clown car at the circus. Oh well! Ella was very anxious to begin doing her research on what the area had to offer. We just went to dinner that night down the street from the hotel at a yummy French restaurant. When we were in Miami last January for the Orange Bowl we made sure to try out Joe's Stone Crab in South Beach... there was NO WAY we were going to miss out on another opportunity to feast there. Joe's is actually the oldest restaurant in South Beach and here's how it works, they give you a menu to look at, you ignore it, the server tells you what you're going to eat. I'm sure everything on the menu is delicious but if you ever go you have to eat they're "signature" meal. Stone crab, grilled tomatoes, hash browns, and skinny sweets. The tomatoes are huge slices, covered in creamed spinach, topped with cheese, and grilled to perfection. The hash browns are divine and the skinny sweets are double fried sweet potatoe fries. I cannot even begin to describe the delisciousness that is the stone crab. YUMMY!! The wait staff is also very knowledgeable about how many orders of what to get based on the number in your party, as it is all served family style. We got 2 orders of jumbo and 1 order of large stone crab claws. Please, promise me if you're ever there you will go- warning it is super expensive but worth every penny for the experience, the service, and the quality of food. But go early, there is always a wait.

Playing with Uncle McNair while waiting for our table at Joe's.Being tossed around by Daddy.

Ella checking out the stone crab... you can see how huge they are, they're as big as her head! And we all know she's got quite a noggin on her.

Friday night the rehearsal dinner was at a place down the street from out hotel called Cafe TuTuTango. How cute is that? The food was fantastic and everyone had a great time I think. Ella liked the party so much we could not get her to go to sleep. This picture was taken around 10:30 and she was still wide awake and showing off for everyone there.

After the dinner was over we sent Ella home with my parents and Bryan, McNair, and myself spent some time hanging out with OD, a friend of McNair's from high school who lives in Miami. It was a good chance for he and McNair to catch up since they don't ever get to see each other. He's a teacher and lacrosse coach in Miami.

That's RC (he works with OD), Bryan, OD, me, amd McNair. And yes, we're at Hooters. Awesome.

Somehow on Saturday when Ella was taking a nap in the crib (so nicely furnished by the hotel) and decided that her bumper pad would make a great pillow and she managed to pull it down and rest her ehad on it. I don't know which was funnier, the fact that she did that or the lines and creases it left on her face when she woke up.

Saturday was also Ella's first time in a swimming pool. She absolutely loved it! I got her all dressed up in the new swimsuit her grammy Debi got her (it has a matching hat that is too precious but I couldn't get her to keep it on long enough to get a picture) and loaded her with 70SPF and we were good to go. Unfortunately the rest of the family was still eating lunch while we were in the pool so I only got some photos snapped at the end, when she was starting her "I'm so tired please put me to bed" meltdown. You can't tell from the pictures but she really did enjoy it!

The wedding was Saturday night and it was beautiful. We had a sitter for Ella and I'm afraid she got the wrong end of Ella not napping at all Friday... she was so cranky and crying the whole time. I felt really bad for April (the sitter) because Ella just could not be comforted. Ugh- I had been bragging about what a good baby she is and how she never cries, boy did she prove me wrong! At one point when I went up to check on her I could hear before the elevator doors even opened! Around 10:30 Bryan just went up to the room to stay with her and sent April down to the party. Oh well, we made it through anyway. Here's one last photo- Bryan and I at the wedding.
I can't believe we're leaving in 4 hours to drive to Pittsburgh...

QT with Aunt Lytch

Although Ella is lucky enough to have lots of family close by to hang out, with her Aunt Lytch is far far away in Houston. The first time she met Ella was right around Christmas and we finally were able to see her again last week! Needless to say she was amazed by how big Ella has gotten-- 4 months is a lifetime in growth for a baby! Lytch has just finished her first year of law school and once her exams were over Wednesday she headed to NC to visit family and to VA to visit friends at her old stomping grounds, Hollins University. The vist for us was short and sweet as the Holcomb family was off to Miami Thursday morning. Ella and I picked Lytch up at the airport and she spent the night with us. It was great getting to catch up with her and give her some time with Ella, I wish it could have been longer! We're hoping she'll be able to get back up here before summer's over and we're planning a trip to the great state of Texas sometime in the fall to see her school and her apartment and such. Anyway- here a few pictures from her visit.

Hooray for a crafty Nana!

Most of you already know this, but Bryan's mom is so talented when it comes to crafts it's not even funny. She crocheted the prettiest blankets for Ella and helped Grandma make a gorgeous quilt too. How fantastic that she's also a master seamstress!! She has made Ella some of the cutest dresses. So far they're all still just a tad too big for her but now that the weather's finally warming up I'm putting them on her anyway. This is one of the latest ones and it is so precious!

Happy Girl

I hate to look at all the pictues of Ella and see that she's not smiling in many of them... I swear she is the happiest baby alive, she's also the most inquisitive baby alive. She can be smiling and laughing like crazy but as soon as she sees the red light on the camera, indicating that flash is about to go off, her smile disappears as she studies it, trying to figure out what's going on. It's great that she's so curious, but frustrating as all get out that it's next to impossible to get a picture of her smiling face with the camer we have. Alas, last night I was sucessful!! She has been so congested the last day or 2, in her head and her chest that I put her in a Vick's Vapor bath to try to loosen some of the crud up. I can't tell if she was just excited about the warm water or excited because her daddy was there to help bathe her for the first time since she was about 3 weeks old. Whatever it was, she was loving it, splashing around and kicking up a storm.
As for the congestion, we went to the pediatrician today. Even though she hasn't had a fever or anything I wanted to make sure all was well before we head to Miami on Thursday. Sure enough, she's got an ear infection. Nothing major, but she's started taking an antibiotic today so hopefully it will clear up quickly.

Ella's first plane ride....

Ok I'm very late on this.... we went to New Mexico to visit Uncle Richard and Aunt Janine almost two weeks ago and I'm just now getting around to posting pictures. Sorry! We had a great time, Richard and Janine were wonderful hosts and made sure we saw all that the Albuquerque area has to offer!

Ella was great on the plane... we fed her during take-off and she had no issues with her ears and slept most of the time. Once we got to New Mexico it was non-stop action. We went to Taos and saw some amazing art and the pueblo up there. That was actually the only time Ella had a problem with pressure in her ears, heading up the mountain, but then Richard hit a pothole and shook everything loose. Here are some picture from the pueblo at Taos.

That's the Rio Grande River.

We also went to Acoma for a day, the oldest continuous dwelling place in America. Very cool! But also very cold and windy, since it's on top of a mesa. Ella was less than excited about the weather conditions up there.

The last day of our trip, Richard and Janine took us to an Albuquerque Isotopes game. They're a farm team for the Marlins, just like the Grasshoppers. Funny that they're actaully named after a team from an episode of The Simpsons! Ella got to meet Orbit, the mascot. We also shared the day with the kids from El Ranchito de los Ninos, a home for children that Richard and Janine's company sponsors. What a great group of kids!! Once a month the gang from Cliffdwellers (Richard and Janine's company) get together with them and celebrate the birthdays for that month. There were two celebrated that afternoon at the ball game, Avery turned 3 and earl turned 12. For more info on the home you can visit http://www.losninosnm.org/

The only complaint we have from the trip is that our hot air balloon ride was cancelled, but that was because of the wind... not a darn thing anyone could have done about it. And now, we have to go back just to do that! Thanks, Janine and Richard for showing us such a fabulous time!!

Election Day

It was a big day for Ella... her first election day. It started like any other Tuesday, driving to Kernersville for Mommy & Me. A quick trip to Target was in the plans, as we were pulling in I noticed a bunch of State Trooper cars, I thought there might have been a wreck till I turned down the parking lot aisle and saw a huge looming tour bus parked in front of the Starbucks next door... John McCain's tour bus to be exact. Wow! Apparently even presidential candidates need their Starbucks fix. Knowing how much of campaigning is pressing flesh and kissing babies we jumped out of the car to see if we could get close enough for a photo op. There really was no one around, other than Secret Service people so I thought we had a pretty good chance. Sadly, as we got about half way across the parking lot they started to all load up the caravan. Bummer! We just missed him. Oh well. I thought it was kind of cool to know we were in the same place. After a trip to High Point to celebrate her grand-daddy's 60th birthday with some delicious Lexington BBQ, we headed to Calvary Church to vote. Ella was very helpful at the electronic voting machine, she kept reaching out trying to touch it. Luckily I was able to wrangle her in enough so she couldn't get to it. All in all it was a pretty exciting day in politics for the little one!

What is that face?

So, I've decided that Ella is teething. Is this actually true? I have no idea, but the with amount of drooling and chewing she's doing, plus waking up screaming in the middle of the night, it's the only explanation I can come up with. So there you have it. For some reason she's decided that if she can't get to a toy or her pacifier to chew on, her bottom lip with do just fine. And this is the face we get a few hundred times a day now as she attempts to suck her bottom lip in far enough to chew it.
The picture truly doesn't do it justice.... it's a classic face, exactly like the funny greeting cards you see with the picture of old people with no teeth.

Ella and her buddy, Deacon

After we got back from the beach Ella and I went to Winston to spend the day with my mom.... rather so Ella could spend the day with my mom and I could get an uninterrupted nap! While there, she got some QT with Deacon.

Beach Weekend

Finally I have some photos from the beach trip with the Brundage girls... This is pretty much how Ella and Logan spent the time at the beach, napping in the shade listening to the sound of the waves. Carrie and I had to laugh at the fact we took all this time getting the little ones into their bathing suits, sunscreen, and cover-ups... then they spent a total of about 5 minutes in the sun the whole time we were there! Oh well. Riley, however loved the sand and the surf and had a great time digging holes and jumping over waves. Sorry the quality of these photos is horrible- that's the problem you run into using a disposable camera.

Here's a cute one of Riley and Ella... Riley was a huge help in entertaining the babies!I have more on anther camera that I haven't taken to be devloped yet, I'll post them as soon as I do.