Ella's First Christmas

The meaning of Christmas changes when you have a child. It becomes a lot more meaningful and joyful. You realize how precious life is and that a new baby is truly a miracle and the best gift ever from God. Merry Christmas, everyone!

Merry Christmas!

Aw, how sweet! Font is sharing his lap (and arms!) with Maddie & Ella. On this night, we celebrated Christmas with the Bonzella Family.

Maddie & Ella

It just seems like yesterday when Maddie was Ella's age. Maddie is so sweet with Ella. Ella just adores her! Maddie is 5 and Ella is 2 months old in this picture.

Ella meets her Great-Grandparents

Ella met her great-grandparents, great Grandma and great Pap, today. They drove down with Angelo's mom and dad from PA for the day (a three hour plus drive each way!). How wonderful is it that Ella has great grandparents at an age where most children lack grandparents. We feel very blessed and extremely grateful to have such a loving family :)

Nap time...

I don't know why it is, but I sleep so well when Ella is sleeping on my chest. I know my little one already prefers to lie on her stomach rather than her back, and this is one way I can accommodate her wants.

Ella's First Bath

We've been giving Ella sponge baths since she arrived home last week and today after her umbilical cord fell off (yeah!) she got her first bath in her baby tub!

Gobble, Gobble!

Ella celebrated her first Thanksgiving! It was just our immediate family this year. We had a delicious meal--and enjoyed some quiet time as Ella slept through most of it! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Ella's First Doctor's Appointment

Our precious baby had her first doctor's appointment today at Bayside Pediatrics with Dr. Chaney. As she was being weighed by the nurse, she peed on the scale! Ella weighed in at 7 lbs and 6 ounces and was 20 inches long. Ella is doing great--very alert, a good eater and is sleeping about 4 hours a stretch at night. We are so in-love with Ella!

Ella's Birth Story

We welcomed our little beautiful precious girl, Ella Sayward into the world last Tuesday at 1:38 am. She weighed 7 pounds, 9 ounces and was 19.5 inches long. I went into labor at 5 am on Monday with contractions about 7-10 mins. apart. At about 9 am my contractions were 5 mins. apart and stayed that way until about 5 pm at which time they were 2 mins. apart and we headed to the hospital. When I arrived I was 4 centimeters dilated and fully effaced. The contractions were painful, but not ridiculous at I thought they would be, but I did opt for an epidural anyway not knowing if they would get worse--and I didn't want to pass up the opportunity to feel less pain. After I had the epidural , I dilated 2 cn. a hour and was ready to push at midnight. The epidural was great--I still felt the contractions, but with much less pain, and still could rest some. I felt great when it came time to push--still had energy and wasn't really that tired. I pushed for about one hour and half and out she came! It was such an amazing, surreal experience. I am very fortunate I had a relatively easy labor. Ella was VERY alert and scored a 9 on the Apgar scale which made us happy :) So far, she has been a good baby. From the nose up, she looks like me, from just below the nose, she looks like Angelo. We are so in love with Ella and enjoying every moment. Breastfeeding is going really well--the bonding experience is amazing. I am sleeping when she does (at least trying to rest) and doing as little as possible around the house. My mom is here until Tuesday. She has been a big help with "keeping house" and giving me a break when I need one to shower, etc. My dad flew back on Thursday and Ang's parents left on Wed. soon after we arrived home from the hospital. Angelo went back to work on Thursday which was hard for him to leave us. He has most of the next week off because of the holiday, so it will be great to have him home. His sister is flying in this week from Vegas and his brother Anthony and Melany will be here towards the end of the week to visit too. Such fun times!