Meeting of the Cousins

Saturday was an exciting day because Ella had her first family visitors. Mike, Lisa and Maitland came over to visit for lunch and cousin Mait was so sweet to his new cousin! We had a great visit and are so happy that they live close by! We look forward to getting together a lot more in the future!

Introducing Ella Katherine McDonald

We are so excited to announce that Ella Katherine McDonald arrived on Wednesday, June 2nd 2010 at 3:45 pm. She weighed 6 lbs 11 oz and was 19 inches long. The delivery went perfect and mommy was only in labor for a total of 8 hours (1 hour, 45 minutes of actually pushing)!! Miss Ella was ready to meet her family and her family was ready to meet her!

We are so in love with her and cannot get over how much she changes from day to day. She is a big eater and has already surpassed her birth weight in record time! We think she looks so much like her daddy, but we can also tell that she is going to have some of her mommy's personality because she is very impatient when she's hungry! She is so alert and bright eyed and loves to look at the pictures on the walls and loves anything that plays music!

Here are a few pictures from her Birth Day and a few from the last 2 weeks! We look forward to updating the blog each week and sharing her life with all of our friends and family!

We would like to thank everyone for their support and kind words over the last couple of weeks! It truly means a lot!!

Ella's first Picture!

First Picture with Daddy!

Mommy and Ella snuggling!

Ella and her Mimi

Going home from the hospital.

Mommy and her girls

Ella in her flower hat.

Daddy and Ella snuggling

Ella sleeping...

Ella in her dress!

Big Sis Lexi trying to get some R&R!

"Nesting" Project....

This weekend Brandon and I (okay, mostly Brandon) worked on our final "nesting" project. We decided that we needed to plant something in our front courtyard because there was way to much mulch in that area and no other color. We went to Lowe's and Home Depot and picked out some plants and got started late Saturday afternoon. Due to the drastic drop in temperatures Saturday night, we decided that we would just get the plants set and that Brandon would start digging on Sunday morning...

Well here we are at 8pm on Sunday night and Brandon has just put down the final bag of mulch! We are so excited and pleased with how the project turned out. It took a lot of digging and a few trips to Lowe's and Home Depot but we are very pleased with the outcome and it truly exceeded our expectations! Great job Brandon!!

Here are a few before and after pictures.....

Lexi "supervised" all day from the window....with her eyes shut!

Visit to the city!

This weekend we went to visit Mike, Lisa and Mait in S.F.! It was great visiting with them and they gave us lots of goodies that we are looking forward to using for Miss Ella! Mait is looking forward to having a little cousin Ella and he kept asking me to “open it” when he was referring to my stomach so that he could see her - so cute! He is such a sweet cousin to share his things with her!

After our visit we decided to drive back over the Golden Gate Bridge instead of the Bay Bridge and we stopped at a waterside park to take some pictures. While we were there we saw a sailboat race in the bay. It was really exciting to see the boats so close and you could hear how hard the crews were working because it was such a windy day.

Lexi also met some admirers....this couple stopped us and said she was the most beautiful thing they had seen during their visit to San Francisco. They even asked to hold her which was hilarious since they almost dropped her. You can see how excited Lexi was about the whole thing in the pictures below….

Happy Birthday Lexi!

Today is Lexi's 2nd birthday!  We had a great day - we went for a long walk, had lunch with daddy, went to our favorite doggie stores to pick out treats and had a steak dinner!  We can not belive she is already 2 years old! 

Happy Birthday Lexi - We love you!!

37 Weeks!!

We are officially 37 weeks!  We went to the doctor today and we are still 1 cm dilated, but Ella has moved even further down, so the doctor said she could come at any time!  We are very ready to meet her when she is ready, but for now we are just waiting!  Here is a picture of my big belly and you can see that she has dropped a little from last week. The count down begins....

Here is a "family" picture from last weekend - just the 4 of us!

Mt. Diablo

We attempted to get out this weekend and venture into Danville a little more.  So, we decided to go to Mt. Diablo since it's just down the road from our house.  We thought it was more of a park setting, but instead we quickly found out that you actually drive (or for those more daring - bike) up 3500 feet.  Well, after driving up 3 miles of very steep road (w/huge drop offs on the sides), we finally got to a gate and thought we must be at the top...not so much...we were only 1/3 of the way up and the ranger said it would only get steeper as we continued.  Brandon is very afraid of heights, and with me being only 4 weeks from delivering, we made the family decision not to drive the remaining 2 thirds.  It was however beautiful and we have every intention of finishing the drive in a few months. 

Here are a few pictures from our adventure!

35 weeks last week....

Here are a couple of pictures from 35 weeks.  We are definitly getting bigger and Ella's kicks are getting a lot harder! We will be 36 weeks tomorrow and will start our weekly doctor appointments - we'll keep you posted on our progress, but we have less than 30 days until we meet our little girl!

Here is a picture from Derby day - drinking out of my Derby Diva wine glass - it's crystal light so not as good as wine, but it worked!

Ella's Nursery

Here are few pictures from Ella's nursery.  We got her chandelier hung this weekend and Brandon did a great job painting her wall letters and he even made her wall art above her dressers!! She is so lucky to have such a special daddy! It feels like everything is finally coming together - all we need now is our little Ella! We'll post some more pictures once everything is completed, but I wanted to share the latest!

33 Weeks....7 to go!!

We are officially 33 weeks pregnant and feeling great! We went to the doctor last week and Ella is doing well and growing each week - she should be about 4.5 lbs this week. We go back for an ultrasound next week and we will get to see her and will find out if we are on track for our due date of June 2nd.  We will post the other pictures that we have taken throughout the pregnancy as soon as we figure out how to do a slideshow on the blog.  Hope everyone is doing well - California is great but we are ready for some warmer weather and sunshine!!!