Its Saturday night, it 3:00 AM, and I am awake!

I think the title says it all. It is 3:00 am on Saturday night / Sunday Morning and guess what, I am awake. Did I go out to some great Vegas Club tonight? Did I go to a rocking concert and now just stumbling home and need to post? Nope, little Miss Ella decieded to see what it would be like to stay awake and cry everytime we tried to sleep. How do you ask do I now have time to share this with the world if I am trying to calm a crying baby? Well, let me tell you. For some reason Ella really likes to bounce up and down. Up and down, up and down, bounce, bounce, bounce. That is where the big green exercise ball comes into play. Yes, the same type of ball you might see at a gym works great for calming our little bundle of joy. So, for the past 30 or so minutes while watching really really bad tv I have been bouncing up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down. She is finally asleep and guess what, it is time to wake her up to feed her!

It is truly amazing how life can change in less that 2 weeks. We've lived most of our lives without Ella and now cannot imagine life before her. We are already raising a genius as in the past 2 days she has found her hands and legs and even tried to put her favorite toy bee's leg in her mouth. She is also a pretty good sleeper so Mom gets a stretch of 3 hours at a time (for anyone without a child, enjoy your sleep - you don't realize how great it is until you lose it). Ella also loves going with Mommy to Starbucks for a morning coffee and to get some exercise. Here's one of my favorite pics... forget pacifiers, fingers rule!

Ella...The Second Week

Today (this is Mike) I went back to work and Ella just hung out at home eating and sleeping with her Mom and Grandma. I figured I would take a quick second to post some more pictures. You can check them out here...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7822160@N02/sets/72157600117908472/

A little tummy time for Ella. Which really means right now she just kind of hangs out on her tummy for about 10 min. and then we flip her over.
Ella found her fingers today and loves to suck on them.

Like my new hairdo?

Big day for Ella. She had her first trip out into the world since coming home from the hospital. We loaded her up in the car and headed off to her first Dr. appointment. She passed with flying colors (mainly a bit of brown and yellow when she pooped before being examined). After a hard core day of napping and eating and swinging and then some more eating and napping followed by eating and then winding up with a nap, Les and I took her out to check out the 'hood. Check out the snazzy stroller courtesy Grandma and Papa John.
I also posted some more photos so just click the linky...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7822160@N02/sets/72157600088302193/

Funny Faced Ella

Its been 3 days and she is already looking older and more alert. As most babies do, she looked like a typical newborn (with lots of hair). Now she has expressions we are starting to read and understand. We love this picture of her. This is the cross eyed look she gives us in her few hours of waking time. She definitely resembles her dad, he often gives me the confused look! :)

Photo Time

After only about 2 hours of sleep I figured I should post some pictures. Ella seems to be able to sleep like a champ durning the day and then, BAM, wide awake at night. We are giving her shots of espresso until about 2:00 pm today and then will switch to wiskey at night. From what I read that is supposed to help (an yes, I am kidding).
I have uploaded up some photos for all to check out. So, check out this site - http://www.flickr.com/photos/7822160@N02/sets/

Hello World, ready for my close up?

Hello Everyone, just a quick post to introduce everyone to Ella Allyson Murdock. She was born on 04/13/2007 at 4:50pm. She is very cute and has a big old mess of hair.

Leslie did a great job and she was a rock star during the labor. Our Dr. and the nurses were all fantastic and were a huge help. I will update up more later but wanted to post a few pictures of our new little gambler.

My mom just arrived

Mom just arrived for the big day and we are getting things done around the house.

Our Last Getaway as a Twosome

Happy Easter/Passover to all! Ok, so we are enjoying this whole blog thing and promise not to bore you all things we do but we figure we may not be on top of it in the next few weeks so we thought we would post again.

Last night we escaped to Lake Las Vegas (a beautiful completely man-made lake with a fake European Village to it) to have our last Sat. night out without lining up a babysitter. We spent the night at the Ritz out there and lounged by the pool, ate good food, and went to the boutiques in the Village. The hotel also had an R&R package that included breakfast (in bed if you wanted it), 2 movies, movie snackies, resort fees, and valet parking. It was fun taking a babymoon! Highly recommended for anyone with an impending little one.

This week we are prepping for baby. According to the doctor, it could be any day now. Leslie is ready to be able to put socks on herself again without groaning and Mike will get more bedspace with less pillows. Trying to have good meals and get last minute things done before we go to the hospital. Folks have been asking us where we are delivering so FYI we will be at Sunrise Children's Hospital in Las Vegas. We'll keep you updated on our little Helga Lou! :)

Final Countdown

Hey All,

Trying my first post... finally up with the 21st Century.

As Mike stated, just waiting the arrival of our little one who will be making her way into the world in a week or two. We are just excited to meet her and get the anticipation of the birth (yikes!) over with.

We already found out that Helga Lou (our affectionate nickname for her that my dad came up when he had a bad dream that was what we named her) has lots of hair (dad is already jealous) so we bought a brush to make sure she doesn't look like Don King on arrival! We are also curious to see if she recognized our voices as I have been reading to her in utero and Mike has already been giving her life lesson such as "get a job" and "no dating until 18."

One week to go and time to share.

Both Les and Mike here (Mike is typing so all words that are misspelled were typed when Les was not looking).

Finally, we will start putting up info and pictures about the newest Murdock to join the world right here, so bookmark it. We are about a week or two out and are officially in the "Wow, we have lots and lots of stuff to do before this happens" phase.

As of today when the baby is born we will be able to bring her home as we got the bases for the carseat installed. Who would have guessed that it requires a nursing degree, 40 hours of training, a two square foot piece of anti-slip material and a chopped up pool noodle to get the thing in correctly.

Here are some photos of Leslie and myself until I get my butt in gear and get more posted.

Cheers

Mike and Les.....