Little Toes

Last week I was inspired by a Facebook post to try and create a heart shape out of stamps from Elliana's feet.  Cute idea, right?  Well.. the execution is problematic.  First, you have to have a sleeping baby. No, a coma-like sleeping baby.  Second, you need 3 hands; one to hold the foot, one to hold the paper, and another to make sure the toes are flat.  I don't know about you, but I only have 2 hands. 

After several trial runs, many false wakings, and some help from Grandma, we were able to get this:

The criss-crossed image above is close to a heart shape, right?  Well... Happy Valentines Day :) The true success from this excersize are the cute toe pictures:

And a few messy index cards to send to family:

Oh - I've had some requests for pictures with Grandma, I just happen to have one of those!

Her shirt says "I heart MUSICIANS". 

5 Weeks & Travelling

Grandma, momma, and baby are all doing great.  All three of us ventured to the Kenai Penninsula last week for an overnight tour.   The drive from Anchorage to Soldotna was beautiful, with temperatures above 35 degrees, most of the roads were wet pavement.  The mountains had been dumped on with fresh snow the weekend before - everything was a beautiful white with the bright blue sky framing it.

 

While in Soldotna/Kenai we stayed busy enjoying the local cuisine (kind of a joke if you're local to the area) and visited all of the fabric/quilt stores in the area.  Let's just say we spent more in fabric than in gas and food for the trip :)   Grandma was thrilled to see the moose walking the streets in Soldotna, we also saw a wolf on the lake North of Cooper Landing (not sure which one it was) and lots of eagles.  The picture below is where we stopped at Beluga Point on the way back to capture the sunset.

After our trip, we've been busy building an Irish Chain quilt pattern between feeding, burping, and soothing Elliana.  I'm quickly realizing that stay at home mommy work is the real deal.  There is barely any time that the baby is not occupying your hands and/or attention.  The few moments that you have free are spent changing over laundry and rinsing dishes.  The only reason I have any time to write today is because there are TWO of us taking care of the baby during the day. 

That being said, we did leave Elliana home with Dad/Husband for one night to see the local symphony accompany a traveling cover band for Queen.  It was awesome.  While downtown Anchorage, we enjoyed the melting ice sculptures and the fine dining while away from spit & poo for a few hours.  Here's proof that mothers do get out of their pajamas in the first year after childirth:

Okay - FINE!  I know that you're here to see more pictures of Elliana... so here's some of the cute ones from the past two weeks: (Notice that all the happy pictures are while she's sleeping!)