We are thrilled to announce that our little Elin Cole joined our family on October 31, 2013! This post is very over due; however, I've been trying to learn how to prioritize my time outside of caring for a newborn between housework, laundry, play time with Payton, cooking, catching a much needed rest, etc., and have pushed posting pictures to the back burner. However, I know one day, we will be thrilled that we have this to look back on as a way to "re-live" some of the most memorable moments of our lives, so I am going to try my best to keep things up to date! With that being said, I am going to try to re-cap all the changes and exciting moments that have taken place with our family over the past 10 weeks. Wow, I really can't believe it has been 10 whole weeks since Miss Elin made her debut!!!
Little Elin was in an even bigger hurry to join our family than her big sister was! I thought my labor with Payton was pretty quick, but Elin's surpassed even that. I started feeling hard contractions around 6:00 pm on Halloween night while Ryan and I were trick or treating with Payton at Eastland Mall! Yes, I went into labor while walking the halls of the mall surrounded by probably 100 + kiddos and their parents! Lol! It was a pretty chaotic environment, and I am almost wondering if that environment is was triggered things to start happening! Luckily, my mom was with us, so she took Payton with her while Ryan and I headed to the hospital. Once arriving to the Women's Hospital, I was already at 5 cm! We finally made it up to our room, I received my epidural (after a bit of a delay...not quite ready to talk about that one yet! haha!), and had my water broke. After this, I was 6-7 cm, and an hour later was ready to push. Miss Elin was born about 5 minutes after the doctor arrived. She was in a huge hurry, and we were ok with that! :)
As with Payton's birth, the moment we first laid eyes on our precious girl was one we know we will never forget. I almost think experiencing it the second time around was a bit more emotional for both of us just because we now know first hand exactly how much this one little girl is going to impact our lives forever. In addition to being so thrilled to finally meet her, so breath-taken by her tiny little face, and so thankful to God for blessing us with this incredible baby girl, we also felt the enormous weight of responsibility that goes along with being entrusted by God with another little life. I can honestly say that I have never felt God's presence more in my life than I have at the birth my two girls. It's an absolutely amazing experience, and Ryan and I are so grateful to Him for blessing us with these two little ones!
Now that we have been home for a couple months, I think we are finally pretty adjusted to our new "normal." Payton has been an excellent big sister from day 1! Elin has also been a pretty good baby. That's not to say that we haven't had our share of challenging moments, but those are to be expected, and I think Ryan and I now know better how to handle those moments with patience and teamwork. We are also starting to get a little more nighttime rest, which makes a HUGE difference with everything! Payton, Elin, and I have been getting into a new weekly routine during the days at home. I've been trying to keep things as normal for Payton as possible, so we've continued to go to her play groups, story time class, and music class. She has loved getting to introduce Elin to her friends and teachers!
When looking back at previous posts, I noticed that when I was first blogging about Payton's first few months of life, I listed her likes and dislikes. I thought it would be neat to do the same with Elin. It's so exciting getting to know Miss Elin's personality, for it seems to be quite a bit different than Payton's!
Likes: She LOVES to be held and loves music! She also likes to sleep! lol! This may sound odd, but I don't remember Payton sleeping quite as much during the day as Elin likes to do. She also likes to be talked to and LOVES her bouncer! This has been nice because she seems to have a place where she can be content if I have something I need to be doing for the rest of the family.
Dislikes: She HATES the bath!!! I have tried and tried to get her to enjoy bath time...even buying the expensive little soaps that are supposed to calm babies. lol!! She screams and screams the entire time! She also does not like a pacifier. This is much different than Payton because she LOVED her paci! Elin will take one if its pretty well forced, but most of the time she'd rather not have it. I'm thinking that this could have something to do with nursing, but who knows! She's also not big on being swaddled at night. We still do it, just because it keeps her asleep once she falls asleep, but she fights it every time!
It's been so neat watching the dynamic of our household change a bit since welcoming a new baby. In some ways, things seem so different, but in other ways, it's hard to imagine what life was like with just one kiddo. Again, we ask ourselves the question.... "What in the world did we do with all our time when we just had one!" lol! However, Miss Elin is the perfect addition to our family, and we cannot wait to watch what God has in store for her life!!
By the way. we've had a lot of people question how to pronounce her name. and the E is pronounced as a long E, so "Ee-lin," meaning most beautiful woman. Also, I don't think I listed the specifics; Elin Cole was born on October 31, 2013 at 11:22 pm. She weighed right at 7 pounds and was 20 inches long. She came out with lots of black hair and looking more like my side of the family as opposed to Payton who is her dad made over! Now that some time has passed, Elin and Payton are starting to look a little more a like, but we are anxious to watch them grow into two unique individual little girls! We are so blessed!
Welcome Elin Cole!
Holding Miss Elin for the first time!
2 Days old!
Meeting Big Sis!
Meeting Aunt Kyla and Grandma!
Meeting Aunt Amy and Uncle Kenny!
Meeting Uncle Brent!
Meeting Uncle Dylan!
Meeting Aunt Kyla!
Snuggling with Grandma Kelly!
Elin and Papa John
Cuddling with Big Sis and Grandma Dorothy
Elin Cole- 1 Week Old!
Elin Cole- 10 Weeks Old!
Sisters at Christmas!
Cuddles with mommy before bed
First Thanksgiving as a family of 4!
