Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Picture Day


Today is the big day!  Quite possibly the most important day of the school year.  Last night Ella picked out her clothes specifically because the hearts on the shirt match her new hot pink glasses with hearts on them.  She got to bed early so that she would be good and rested.  I meant to give her a haircut, but didn’t get around to it, so it looks like she’ll be wearing a pony tail.  It doesn't matter...she'll look cute anyway.

In honor of this important day for kids across America, here’s is a special song written and performed by Ella’s uncle Curby.


Thursday, October 3, 2013

Hello out there



Hello out there in Blogland.  Things at the Murray house are pretty low key, so I don’t really have much to update you on.  I just wanted to make sure you knew you weren’t forgotten.

I realize that I haven’t yet done an update on Ella starting first grade.  Yes, our girl is in first grade and so far she loves every minute of it!  Thankfully she’s in the same school and has the same aide as last year, so she has a lot of consistency, which is good.

Unfortunately Ella’s primary teacher has been out of school with health issues, so she started school with a substitute.  Luckily the sub has experience teaching first grade and has been great for Ella.  Ella’s primary teacher is expected back in the classroom full time in October, but she’s been making visits to the classroom periodically this month.  When we went to the school for Back to School Night Ella told me ahead of time, “Mom, Ms. K is SO pretty!  I’m not even joking!”  When we left, after I met her teacher, Ella said, “See mom, isn’t she pretty?  Was I right?”

Ella was sad that she didn’t have many of her friends from last year in her class this year, but I am confident she’s going to make a lot of new friends.  Most disappointing was that her best friend isn’t in her class, but they see each other at lunch every day and wave to each other in the hall.

Today is Ella’s first field trip as a first grader, as well as her first field trip without mom tagging along.  I would have gone if they needed another chaperone, or if Ella’s aide wasn’t able to make it.  But truth be told, I’m glad I don’t have to go on this one.  It’s going to involve a lot of walking and I’m not sure my 30 week pregnant body could handle it.

Just a short update on the baby front, I’m almost 30 weeks, which puts me officially in the third trimester.  Only 10 more weeks to go and we have A LOT of things to get done before he arrives.

Truth be told, we haven’t done much prep work.  We have an awesome crib that has been given to us, but it’s not put together yet.  And we still have the rocker from when Ella was a baby, but it needs some simple repair work.  Before you get too worried, let me say that Ella was born on Thursday June 21, 2007.  I worked on Tuesday June 19th and on Wednesday June 20th my parents and I spent all day setting up her room.  My attitude on the whole thing was that she was going to spend the first several weeks of life sleeping next to me in a bassinet, so why stress about the room.  It worked out for us.  We still have the bassinet (granted, it’s in the attic, but at least we have it) and we have a little Moses basket that was given to us.  We have plenty of clothes and a pack of diapers to get us started, so even if we don’t get the room ready by the time he arrives, at least he’ll have a place to sleep and a clean bottom.

We do, however, have to purchase a new car seat.  One of the frustrations of having children 6 years apart is that car seats expire after 5 years.  That means that we can’t use the car seat we used for Ella.  I feel like it’s such a waste!  It’s a very nice car seat, has never been in a wreck and is in great, barely used condition.  It’s sad to know that we have to just throw it out.

Yes, we have a name.  No, we’re not telling anyone.  When I was expecting Ella we got a lot of negative feedback on the boy name that we had picked out.  So much so that we ended up changing it…well, not changing the actual name, just the nickname.  No one liked our nickname and you can only hear “Oh, that’s different” so many times before it echoes in your head for all eternity.  This time around we’ve decided to keep the name a secret so no one can taint it for us, and no, it’s not the same name we had chosen for Ella.

I have gained A LOT of weight!  In fact, I’ve already gained as much weight as I did with my entire pregnancy with Ella.  While this is not ideal, we are praying for a big baby so at least the weight gain shows that he’s well on his way to being a BIG boy!

That’s about it for us.  I wish I had more exciting things to report, but at least for now things are pretty low key.