We Made It!

That's right... we made it. We survived 2 years of Ellie!

Just kidding, we ADORE our spunky little redhead. She is just
a little intense... but at the same time, amazingly fun
and sweet and smart. We had a fun birthday weekend with
her about a week ago.

She was excited when she went to the mailbox with
me one day and was told that there was mail just for her!
Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Roggia... she loves the card!

Of course, a birthday for Ellie right now means a new dress.
She looked especially cute in this one, and of course needed
to spend some time out on the trampoline... it was her day.

Homemade mac and cheese made for the perfect birthday dinner.
And, as evidenced on her face... bread with butter for an appetizer.
Dang girl loves butter. Yikes.

We were busy and lazy this year, so we let her choose a cake
at the store... not the prettiest thing ever... but it was bright...
and had balloons on it... perfect for Ellie.

We always talk about how Ellie does everything with purpose
and gusto... eating birthday cake was no exception. Thick frosting
and all... she downed her piece pretty quickly. And yes, those
are Toy Story Plates.... she LOVES Buzz Lightyear.

She got her new dresses and nightgowns (cause even night time
requires a pretty dress), an art easel from Mom and Dad, and a
pretty doll bed for her babies from Gma and Gpa Garner (but
she still seems to think it was made for her).

My men... enjoying the festivities.

Leftover cake... mmmm.

One of her pretty new nighttime dresses.

Quick shot of the Seth... I didn't take many of
his this past week... oops. I'll do better next post.

Ellie loves to hold Seth and takes care of him all the time. We
are so impressed with her big sister skills. Such a good girl. They
both had checkups this week and were big and healthy... Ellie
a strong 31 lbs, and Seth at 10 lb 7 oz already... quite a good
weight gain in his 6 weeks of life.... he eats A TON!

The latest

We have had a pretty good couple of weeks, other than a cold
that has passed around to us all this week. Seth is doing great,
and Ellie is getting more and more 2. Hurray for tantrums. Good
thing she is so much fun the rest of the time.

She's really a sweet girl, despite the craziness.

This picture was a little blurry, but I thought it was funny.
Seth kind of looks like a lizard in it.

Ellie has gotten pretty rough with the pups... which she finds
hilarious. Luckily, they are very patient with her. But every now
and then she pets them or hugs them like this to remind them
of her love.

Notice a theme? Yep, our crazy, roughneck girl wears dresses
ONLY!
Try what you will, she is not satisfied until she has a "prih-ee"
on her (that's Ellie talk for pretty). So other than pajamas at
night, she has been wearing dresses every day for at least a
month or more straight.

Our cute little man.... he is such a sweet little cuddler.

Hard to believe he is already a month old. He eats
all the time, so he's filling in that skinny body quickly.
They were impressed with his rapid weight gain back
at his 3 week check up.

Grandpa likes to captivate babies with his loud, deep voice.
It always works for Seth.

Ellie loves to sing and dance. This is "If you're
happy and you know it"... her face will surely show it.
She's so funny.

She makes up weird ways to tell me what she wants. This sign
apparently is her interpretation of Buzz Lightyear. She loves
Toy Story, and Buzz is her favorite, so this is how she asks for
the movie... by putting her arms out like his.

She also just adopted a box of my old Barbies that
that Grandma still had around. I guess they were
going night-night here.

Seth Rocco Roggia was given his name and blessing at church
today by his father. It was a wonderful blessing, and he was
perfectly quiet and sweet throughout the whole thing. We are
very blessed to have such a wonderful little spirit here with us.

The outfit was a little big, and I couldn't catch him awake...
(he spent a few hours screaming yesterday evening from a
sore throat, so today was recovery day).

He has a super cute smile that he shows us every day now.
This is the closest I've gotten to getting it on camera thus far.

He also works out his neck muscles a lot. he's a strong little
guy and holds his head up very well. Such a cutie.

The last two weeks....

So I have too many pictures to blog, and no time to blog them.
But here is a nice big, chunk of our last 2.5 weeks, since we
brought Seth home with us.

The cute little man, just after arriving home from the hospital.

Ellie greeting her new little bro. She loves him and always
makes sure we are taking care of him properly.

The two men in my life. Seth looks sooo much like Adam...
just like Ellie did as a newborn.

A few days later, we got a quick visit from some family.
Ellie and her cousin, Izzie, had way too much fun
playing together. Made us sad that we don't live close
enough to any cousins to have these meetings regularly.

Izzie is such a sweet girl.

Last weekend, Adam and I packed the kiddos into the car at
3:30 AM to drive down to Lynchburg so that Adam could run

in the Lynchburg Half Marathon. Ellie had way too much fun.
She looked pretty country, running around barefoot, cheering
from the hood of the car, and eating lots of yummy snacks.

The colorful twizzlers kept her pretty happy.

Adam prepping for the race.

And stealing a good-luck hug.

The start of the race... Adam in on the left end in the front.

Looking good! He got 10th place overall, 1st in his age group,
finishing in just over 1:27.

Luckily for me... Seth spent the majority of the trip sleeping.

This picture is PURE ELLIE. She was trying to get Dad's
attention in this picture. Who could ever ignore that?

So to celebrate the race, we hit the local Sonic
for breakfast! YUMMM! Sadly, there isn't one up where
we live. So we enjoyed it, despite Adam's expression.

Ellie tried to climb into her high chair last week on her
own, and ended up stuck in this position.

Watching over her brother. She is very protective
of him around people who aren't family. She is so sweet,
and always wants to help with him and make sure he's
being held and changed and brought along with us.
A natural big sister. We are very proud of her.

Sleeping on Daddy.

I don't like pictures, but I decided I needed to record
that I was in fact around when my son was a newborn.

Seth Rocco spends more and more time awake as he grows.
He is adorable, and ultra sweet.

The craziest pair around.

We love our cute little pair of crazy ones. Can't believe how fast
they grow. Ellie is getting so grown up... today, when I took her
to nursery, she got down, turned to me, waved, and said
"bye bye!" So I said goodbye and left. Such a good, smart, and
insane little girl.

A Few Real Pics of the Little Man

Thanks for the patience everyone. I still don't have a lot of decent
pictures to post, but here are a couple until I can get on the ball.

Seth has been wonderful. He seems pretty mild mannered, from
what we can tell. I'm learning how nice it is to actually have a
normal baby (like one that mostly sleeps and eats as a newborn).
But, at the same time, I also have Ellie in toddler form... which
isn't so nice all the time, but at least it's entertaining.

The little man with Grandpa when we got home
from the hospital.

We're still not sure what color to call his hair. It is very much a
mix of everything. Mostly a light-brown, dirty-blonde, but with
maybe just a hint of something reddish. I don't know. It depends
on the light. But his face looks A LOT like Ellie's did... same little
features and expressions. Ellie's were just more intense.

Ellie is quickly learning to be a Junior Mommy to Seth. She
always likes to check on him and give him his things. She LOVES
to hold him, maybe a little too much. But she's being a good big
sister, even if she is becoming increasingly "2". Yikes!

She was SO happy when we brought the baby home from
the hospital. Such a funny girl.

On a side note, Ellie got her own new baby this week... if you
watch any kids channels, you know "Pillow Pets". She loves their
commercials and saw them at a stand in the mall with Gma and
Gpa, who of course, saw how excited she was, and let her bring
one home.

They said she hugged it and carried it all through the mall, then
had to buckle it into its own seat in the truck coming home.
Such a goofy little girl.