April 7-8, 2012: Easter Weekend!

For as long as I can remember, Easter has been my favorite holiday. I have the fondest memories of my childhood Easters: waking up to amazing Easter baskets, getting a little too competitive during family Easter egg hunts, dying eggs and then tie-dying Grandma's thick napkins, eating Mom's potato salad made using our hard-boiled eggs . . . I could go on and on!

This year, Ellie's addition to the family made the celebration that much sweeter. We were so lucky to have my parents, and Heather, Jeremias and Betinho spend the entire weekend in celebration with us. And Uncle Gene and Beth even joined us for a full day on Saturday!  On Saturday morning, we went to an Easter event at Burgess Park sponsored by the City of Menlo Park and the Menlo Park Firefighters Association. The crowd was huge, but we had fun taking pictures with the Easter Bunny and joining in the Easter egg hunt.

One of my favorite moments from the weekend was seeing Cousin Betinho overcome his fear of the bounce house that they had at the park. It was just adorable. When he first entered the bounce house, he was so scared.  I think we all thought that he would start crying at any moment.  But he hung in there!  He started out clinging to the ground for dear life, then slowly made it up to his knees.  Then, after a few minutes, he was up on two feet jumping up and down!  It was amazing to see him build his confidence, and to see the shining smile on his face as he bounced up and down.  What a cutie!

After that, we enjoyed a nice lunch in the sun at Cafe Borrone, then came back to the house and relaxed. In the afternoon, Betinho and Heather helped me put together these cute "nests" made of rice crispy treats, coconut flakes, and jelly beans. They tasted delicious too!

We finished Saturday with a yummy family dinner (pasta with spicy sausage, arugula and bread crumbs) and an evening of good conversation before hitting the sack to rest up for Sunday. On Sunday morning, Grandma outdid herself my making Betinho and Ellie some beautiful Easter baskets.

We attended mass at St. Simon Church in Los Altos, and then shared a delicious feast with the family (lamb, butternut squash risotto, asparagus, and creme brulee). Grandma even organized another Easter egg hunt for Ellie and Betinho in the backyard.  This time, we had color-coded eggs filled with money and treats. This was exactly the type of family events that I was picturing when we re-did our backyard last summer!

Thank you Mom, Dad, Heather, Jeremias & Betinho for sharing this special holiday with us!

April 4, 2012: Ellie is 6 Months Old!

Happy half-birthday to our little Ellie Rose! It feels like just yesterday that we were mastering the double swaddle, and now we are lowering the crib to prevent catastrophe for our bouncy little girl who likes to sit up, roll over, swan dive forward and background, and play the "harp" across her crib bars. In the words of one of our favorite books, Where the Wild Things Are, "let the wild rumpus begin!"

At her six month check-up, Ellie weighed in at a whopping 16 lbs., 6 oz, and she measured 26 inches in length. She is currently in the 65th percentile for height and weight, and is continuing to grow fast. I'm pretty sure she is in the 150th percentile for hair length and thickness! :)

We are realizing that, with Ellie in daycare now, she will likely be picking up more and more "tricks" that keep us on our toes. We have seen her waiving her arms with delight as she watches the other children play, and she is already working hard to mimic their movements. We've recently seen her attempting to pick up her bottom to get into the crawling position and scooting her body across blankets to get to toys. We are going to need to baby proof the house soon!

March 28, 2012: Back to Work

I know I have said it again and again, but it is amazing how fast time flies with a baby. On September 26, 2011, a week before Ellie was born, I began my maternity leave from WSGR. I felt so lucky to be getting six months off of work, and I remember making lists of all the things I would accomplish during my leave. It seemed like my return-to-work date of March 28, 2012 was forever away. It is unbelievable how fast that date came.
I am filled with so much gratitude for having had all of this time to get to know my little girl. It has truly been the adventure of a lifetime. I thought that the first seven weeks would kill me. It is exhausting being a new mom, and the sleepless nights, the difficulty of breastfeeding, and the loss of independence and spontaneity in life were hard to adjust to. Then Ellie began sleeping better, and she began smiling - that first amazing sign of interaction - and every single day, I just fell more and more madly in love with her. The holidays flew by like they always do, but this time they felt so much more meaningful. I had so much to be thankful for on Thanksgiving Day. I loved having the time to take Ellie to go see Santa, and to spend days soaking in the beautiful Christmas decorations around town. By twelve weeks, we really got into a groove. It became easier to go out with Ellie for errands, take "field trips" to San Francisco, attend Baby Boot Camp and mom's groups, go out to lunch with friends, and the like. At the same time, Ellie was continuing to accomplish developmental milestones like grabbing toys, rolling over, and sitting up, and I loved being there to capture it all.
So the arrival of March 28 left me full of so many mixed emotions. I was excited to go back to a job where I enjoy the work. I wanted to be stimulated, to regain some aspects of my pre-"Mom" life, and to have adult time. At the same time, I was full of fear...fear of missing out on Ellie's milestones, and of not being able to handle the new role of "working Mom." After a pretty teary March 25 and 26, I decided to just maximize my last day home with Ellie. We slept in together, went to lunch, and took portraits! It was an absolutely perfect day.


And March 28 arrived. I dropped Ellie off at her wonderful new day care, and I had a terrific day at work re-connecting with colleagues, bragging about my amazing little girl, and getting back to work on interesting client matters. It felt surprisingly good. Especially when I came home to my amazing family!

March 26-29: Papi and Grammy Linda Came to Visit!

Who says you shouldn't do business with family members?!?! We are lucky that when Papi and Grammy Linda come to Palo Alto for work with Grant, they get to visit Ellie (and me) too. We always enjoy their company, as it invariably leads to good food, good conversation, and good fun!

March 25, 2012: Betinho's 3rd Birthday Party

Three years sure flew by fast! We had a great day up in Berkeley on Sunday afternoon celebrating our favorite nephew's birthday! While he technically didn't turn three until March 28, that didn't stop us from ringing in his new year early with an Easter-themed party complete with decorating Easter baskets, an Easter egg hunt, music, play-doh, and more! Thank you, Heather, for organizing such a great party!

There are no words to describe how adorable Betinho is with all of his little preschool friends. More pictures of the party to come, but Grant did capture this sweet one of Betinho, Ellie and Grandpa just before the party got started. Notice that Betinho placed a sticker right in the middle of Grandpa's forehead! Our kiddos sure are lucky to have the best grandparents!

March 17-19, 2011: A Visit from Tia Megan

We were so thrilled to have Tia Megan and Danny visit us from Orange County earlier this month. Tia Megan hadn't seen Ellie since our Christmas in Colorado, so we were thankful that she and Danny took the time to come up and spend some quality time with our little Bean. We ate yummy food, took a nice walk on the Dish, relaxed, and set up Grant's new office. Thank you so much, Megan and Danny, for all of your manual labor in the new office!

As usual, Tia Megan spoiled Ellie with some adorable clothes; this time, Seven jeans and a cute top. I cannot believe that my 5 1/2 month old has Seven jeans (pics of those to come)! Thank you, Megan! Ellie sure loved giggling and snuggling with her Tia.


We truly loved the opportunity to just relax with family. On Saturday, Grant's cousins Corbett, Nadalie and Kyle came down and joined us all for a St. Patrick's Day celebration. I'm so bummed that we did not get any photos of their first time meeting Ellie, and of all of the fun we had eating good food and playing one of our favorite games, Wits and Wagers. On Sunday, we had another amazing family night with Kevin and Katherine coming to spend the evening with us. This may have been the first time that all of Grant's Gaudette-Cross siblings got together outside of Visalia! It's fun to hang out as adults. We celebrated the occasion with s'mores!

March 4-11, 2012: Vacation in Sunny Scottsdale

Grant and I decided that a vacation was in order to soak in some quality family time before I return to work. After much deliberation over the best destination to travel to with a new baby, we decided on Scottsdale, AZ. We originally wanted to go to Hawaii. However, since you can't snorkel or scuba dive with an infant, and our beach time would be limited with an infant, we decided that Hawaii just wasn't in the cards for now. But Grant promised me that we would make our trip an "Operation Hawaiian Vacation in Scottsdale." And so it was!

We soaked in some sun and took Ellie swimming for her first time!





We went on a tour of all of the shaved ice locations in the greater Phoenix area!


And we even went to the Arizona Aloha Festival, an event that draws thousands of people to celebrate and enjoy Hawaiian culture through performances, food and shopping. We were so glad that Richard, Jen, Rhett (and Abby, in utero) joined us for the event. And, we were so glad to get even more shaved ice there!


Grant played a round of golf at the Phoenician with Richard, and we went to two Spring Training baseball games: A's vs. Angels, and Giants vs. Reds. Ellie had a hard time at the baseball games -- it turned out all of the cheering impeded her from taking naps.




Most of all, we enjoyed all of the family time. We have been so busy since Ellie's arrival, and have been blessed with so many visitors, that it's been rare to spend quality time with just the three of us. Our trip to Scottsdale was absolutely perfect in that regard!