Eliana's Sign and Mommy's Cloth Diaper Love

The absolute coolest thing ever happened this morning! It completely makes up for the rough night that we had (Eli got up three times last night, one of them because it was too hot, and we haven't put the air conditioner in her bedroom window yet. We really need to get on that.). Anyway, so Brian got up this morning, changed her diaper as usual, played with her for a little bit, and brought her in and set her on the bed next to me so that he could start getting ready for work. I roll over, still slightly groggy, but happy to see her, and start saying good morning to my sweet baby girl. Well, all of a sudden she very deliberately makes the sign for milk. I was so excited! I've been using that sign when I ask her if she's hungry for a few months now, but wasn't really sure when she would start using it. There have been a few times that I thought that she might be trying, but it was not a definite sign asking for milk until today. So she made her first sign this morning, I grinned at her, and she grinned at me. Beautiful. It was cool, because Brian saw it too, and we were both amazed. And then I fed my baby milk.

Part 2: Cloth Diaper Love
I love love love cloth diapers!! We are mostly using the BumGenius All-in-One One-Size organic diaper, with a few prefolds thrown in when we run out. I love them! We've been doing cloth for three or four weeks now (I think), and they are awesome! Nothing at all like the cloth diapers that our moms used. No pins (which is wonderful), and they now make flushable liners so that when baby starts solids and you can't just throw the poopy diapers straight into the wash anymore you can put in a liner and the poop shakes right out with the liner. Love love love. Occaisionaly we do miss putting a liner in when she poops, but that's what yellow cleaning gloves are for, right? So that you can clean up messes that you'd rather not touch with your bare hands. I feel like with using cloth I'm actually getting something out of diapering her, instead of throwing away 40 to 50 dollars a month. Of course, it is a big up front investment, but in the long run it does end up being cheaper. Especially when you consider that cloth diapers usually last through more that one kid. Yes, I'm a hippie. And I love it.

Four Words

STAR. TREK. WAS. AWESOME.

Brian and I went to see it last night, and being who we are, we decided to dress up. I went as a Trill and he was a Starfleet Commander. It was basically awesome. Unfortunately we didn't get to go opening night, so we were the only ones dressed up, but I don't think that a lot of people here in Provo are into that sort of thing anyway. We got some very interesting looks, but my favorite was the old couple who walked by us and said "Hello Commander" to Brian and then looked at my spots and were like: 'Wow, you're a Trill!" and then he said "It was a Trill to meet you." Absolutely awesome. We apparently are young Trekkies, and they are old ones. It was funny though, because Brian's costume was super easy to put together, and mine cost 10 bucks at DI. We thought that it was hilarious, because any time that you see Star Trek characters dressed in casual clothes, they look like they fell into a rummage sale bin and came out dressed that way. Anyway, the movie was great, Spock was AWESOME (I absolutely love Sylar, and he was AMAZING in this role) Kirk was perfect, cocky enough that he was, well, Kirk, and intelligent enough that you really end up rooting for him. I'm definitely interested to see if they end up completely remaking the Star Trek universe now that they have created the alternate, but I'm not really sure if I want them to. It's a little scary to think about starting over. Anyway, I am really in the mood for some ice cream and The Next Generation, so I'm going to go drool over....that is watch me some Picard and Riker.

Global Warming My .... Um.....Eye....

I would like to point out something that is very incongruous with the whole 'global warming' epidemic. Today is the first day of April. And it is in fact, snowing. Wait, I get it now, global warming is the best April Fool's joke ever! What the problem really is, the reason that it is warmer later into the year, and colder into the spring, is really that scientists miscalculated the duration of the earth's rotation, and the year is actually supposed to be a few minutes longer than they have made it. Wow, I'm glad I figured that out. I believe that I will wait to tell them until after I've graduated though, because I would hate for them to fix it in the middle of the semester and have to wait an extra few days to graduate. That would just be miserable. And they'd have to come up with some crazy name for that extra week. Like leap week. And knowing BYU, they still wouldn't let us have a spring break! Of all the nerve. Of course, my whole theory could just be a product of Utah being screwy for weather. They do say that if you don't like the weather here, wait 10 minutes. Which is somewhat true. Monday it snowed 4 inches, and yesterday was beautifully sunny. Stupid Utah. Stupid snow. Stupid global warming.

Anyway, enough ranting about the beautiful (kill me now) weather, and on to recent happenings in the Wells household. Brian and I are still managing quite well in our studies, Eli went through another growth spurt, and is trying to exhaust her mommy by waking up 2-3 times during the night when she had been down to 1, Megan (me) wants to just quit school, and is just happy that she only has 3 weeks left, and Brian is for some inexplicable reason still enjoying sadistics....I mean, statistics. My mom left this past friday after having been here for just over a week, and it was really quite fun. I was horribly nervous beforehand, not having seen her for quite a few years, but found out that we have an awful lot in common. And she completely spoiled me while she was here. Shame on her (Thank you mom). We did drive up to Boise so that she could see Cherokee, which she completely enjoyed, and I had the strange experience of seeing both of my parents in the same room, and sort of smiling, no less. All in all, it was really good, although next time I hope that I can convince them to stand close enough to each other that I can get a picture with them and myself. Although I have no idea when 'next time' is going to be. Considering that mom lives in Hawaii, and it's a trifle expensive to come out here, the next time might be when Cherokee gets married, although I really hope that it's sooner than that, and I think that my mom hopes that, too. I also have realized that I don't need to worry too much about getting old. I have similar skin to my mom's, and all week everyone kept asking if she was my older sister, which was hilarious, but she really doesn't look old enough to be my mom. Cher's, maybe, but apparently not mine. We also were naughty and surprised Brian while she was here. Wednesday night I put Eliana to bed and mom and I started getting ready for a 'girls night out'. Little did Brian know, we were secretly planning a date for him and I. I looked freaking hot, too. So once I was ready, my mom told Brian to go put on his shoes, and he looked at her for a second and then was like "Oh!". It was really cute. Also, my mom and I bought matching shoes from Charlotte Russe. Honestly, they may even tie with Jessica's 'the shoes' for amazingness. Although I haven't quite decided if they do or not. But they are extremely sexy. Anywho, I need to write a research paper to piss off my parenting and child guidance professor. It's about breastfeeding and the development of allergies. He is of the opinion that breastfed babies rarely get allergies, and I found a bunch of research studies that contradict him, although others agree with him. So basically they can't really prove that breastfeeding prevents allergies. So there.

Peanut Butter and Awesome

Brian here. Thought I'd drop in my customary what down low on the low down...
First off, wanted to let you know that a new album is up on Facebook of Eliana from January to February. Here's the link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=66199&id=505458532&l=2d262

Well what about us? Things are going well for the Wells Family. Both Megan and I are doing pretty well (Megan says it's actually "FREAKIN' AWESOME") in classes. Megan was completely amazed today when I said she had 6 and half weeks of class, plus a week of finals, and then she'd be done with school. It's crazy to think about her being all graduated and having a degree. (It's just so she can one up me. Haha... j/k)

My family came down for the President's Day weekend, which happened to coincide with Valentine's weekend. (What is up with that anyways... too many holidays in one weekend. It just ruins it, ya know.) We had a great time. This also meant we got a new car! Hooray! We told Dad we were looking for one since ours was like hashed from our accident last year. Well Dad found an awesome deal up there; we bought it and he brought it down. It's a lovely gold 2003 Ford Taurus which has more space and CD player. Megan loves to drive it. Probably because it doesn't look like she bought it from the ghetto.

Eliana is growing so much! She's over 13 pounds now and I'm sure beyond that by now, which means she's doubled her birth weight. She has discovered the joys and wonders of moving objects and TV. Many a night has been spent watching Star Trek or a movie with Eliana just big eyed towards the screen. We were actually watching a movie a couple of weeks ago, some kind of explosion happened and Eliana jumped back in her seat with big shocked eyes. It was cute.

She has also found the joy of music. She loves hearing mommy and daddy sing. She's fallen in love with:
- "Popcorn Popping"
- "In the Leafy Treetops"
- "I Love to See the Temple"
- "I am a Child of God"
- "Book of Mormon Stories"
- "Little Bunny Foo-foo"
- etc...
But of particular interest is her theme song which we made up from an old army tune Dad Wells taught us. It's a cute little song. Megan just wrote a third verse. The other song of interest is a song we heard on InsideOut's newest CD "Sharing Time" (which she loves to listen to in the car... no crying). It's called "Peanut Butter and Jelly". Its a fun song. I've linked a homemade YouTube music video to it (please note we did NOT make the video).



Well... I think that's all for today/tonight. (I've been writing this over the course of about 10 hours.) We love you all. We appreciate your love and support and your prayers in our behalf. More posts to come because more is yet to happen.

Desensitization to human feces

It's amazing to me how quickly you get used to cleaning up someone else's poop as a parent. I have gotten to the point that it is just a fact of life that I will probably be washing baby poopoo out of a onsie every day or two. Of course, then there are the days that it happens two or three times. Just recently Eli had a day where I set her down in her bouncer seat, and about ten minutes later had a poopie diaper. They don't smell terribly bad, but she goes off like a trumpet and is quite loud about it. So I take her out to change her, and there is a lovely yellowish stain all up her back. All over her outfit. Somehow she missed the chair (thankfully). So I get her changed and go back to washing dishes. Probably twenty minutes later I notice that she has a new brown stain, all over her new onsie, only this time it's up the front. I have no idea how she managed that one. Butt in back, poop in front up far enough that her belly button is filled with it? Not sure how the logistics of that worked. So I take care of that one, too. Now, I'm no fool, and realizing that it's just that she wants to ruin all of the cute clothes, I put her in the ugliest onsie that we have. It works, and she didn't have another blow out that day.
Well, today is the second day that I am really back into my prepreggo jeans, and they look quite spiffy. Not gonna lie. Now, I know that she is just itching to get poop on them. It's how she rolls. (Well, actually, she rolls from her tummy to her back, but you know what I mean.) So I'm nursing her, which is prime defecation time. I hear a rumble. Uh, oh, she's gonna try for it. So I put my hand over the edge of the diaper to assist it in poop keeping. Woohoo! No poop escaped from the side! Yay for me! So I very carefully lay her down on my lap, assuming the diaper has done it's job of absorption. Not so! I grab the changing pad to lay her on, and as I move her I notice a lovely big spot right on my thigh. Eliana 1 - Mommy zero.

Oops, I hear her going at it again, better make sure she doesn't get it on the couch! Where did I put that changing pad?....

By Popular Demand...

Many have asked to see more pictures of Eliana. Well, I've done so on Facebook. So if you follow this link:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=60654&l=0d983&id=505458532

It should get you to the new album of Eliana. Some are repeats, but whatever. I'll add some more later. But enjoy!

Yeah, the baby found a thumb... MINE

Happy 2 month birthday Eli!!! Yeah!

School has begun anew... to the chagrin of all involved. Megan is enjoying her 3 classes (the last 3 remaining before she graduates). I am feeling spread thin between 4 stats classes, work, etc. Eliana is enjoying her time on campus. She gets to see all the interesting people and hear random strangers say, "She's so cute" all day long. Eli has gained 4 pounds and not sits at 10 lb 10 oz as of Wednesday. She actually had an ear infection this week which was no fun. Though the good news is that she has slept at least 8 hours each night this week. (Yumm... I love sleep.) The big issue is she loves breastfeeding. And hates the bottle. Go figure. You start them on the bottle; they like it; you give them the boob and she's like, "Why did you ever give me the bottle? This boob is delicious!" And so it goes...

So, yes, we abbreviate Eliana as Eli. I know it's spelled like Eli from the Old Testament, but we aren't British and so we don't add extra random letters that confuse people. (Thanks, and no offense, Cadence.) So it's Eli. Ta da.

Tuesday we had the awesome priviledge to hear Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. I've copied the link here: http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=1819&tid=2 This will get you to the site to download the mp3, or in about a week or so, the written transcript. Seriously, this was one of the top three talks I've ever heard at BYU. It's entitled "Remember Lot's Wife" and focuses on the sin of not letting the past alone, whether that be in relationships, family problems, etc. He teaches to not dwell on the past, but have faith in the bright future which is in Christ. Full of power. A must read for sure.

Well... I know you don't want to hear about our BORING lives (wait... that's what a blog is for?), so here are some pictures:

This is Eliana in her blessing dress on the day of her blessing.

The proud parents after the blessing. Cue music. We are a happy family.

Here is proof that Megan is still hot after having a baby. Eli is definitely mommy's daughter.


And this is just one of my favorite pictures of Eli. SOLID! Also a disclaimer: this was not posed. She just did it. She's totally her dad's daughter.

We were going to post a video of Eli rolling over from her front to her back but its 220 MB. Blogspot doesn't like that so much. Meh.