The further adventures of Elena the Wonder Baby...


Elena is now over 2 weeks old and growing bigger by the minute. In fact Elena grew a pound in her first week and has continued to grow quickly since then. She also seems to be getting longer. Her little feet stick out of her receiving blankets now.

We love our little bunny! This picture is from Elena's first week of life. We will be very sad when she can 't fit in this little sleeper any more.

Elena loves her Grandmama Mary Louise! After the joy of having Jon's mom Debbie Lightbown with us, we now have the joy of having my mom, Mary Louise Moskowitz, with us. Momma has been changing diapers and burping like the pro she is and we are SO thankful for the extra set of hands. We feel very blessed to have so much family supporting us!

Here in Vancouver we had a big surprise when we had a very unexpected snow. The city has been pretty crazy in response. Vancouver doesn't get snow very often and almost never in November! Here Jon celebrates Elena's first snow in front of our house (we live in the basement).

Jon often uses his finger to distract Elena when she's hungry so I can get a chance to prepare myself for feeding her. In this case, Jon decided to see if she would suck his nose instead of his finger. She DID! We all had a good laugh!

Like her mom, Elena loves chatting with her girlfriends. : ) Actually Elena (on the right in pink) had fun at a reunion party for our prenatal class. We placed all the babies on a padded mat on the floor and watched as they interacted with one another. Here Elena was looking at Lily who is only a week older than Elena.

Behold the power of the Baby Flower! We snapped this shot at our prenatal class reunion. Elena is wearing pink near the bottom of the circle and lying to the left of the only little boy in the shot, Joseph (wearing orange shirt and overalls). Joseph's mom and dad live on the same street that Jon and I live on and we have enjoyed having friends with a newborn so closeby. We all had to laugh because Joseph is such a ladies' man being the only boy with a whole group of girls. Joseph's the MAN!

This is the first time that a little girl held onto Elena. This little girl is Zara the daughter of our prenatal class instructor. She's four and was very helpful with all of the babies.

We love our little Elena. Though sleep is scarce, we find ourselves experiencing the greatest joy just playing with her, holding her, and getting to know her. She's a wonderful little person!

Our love to all,
Beth and Jon

Let the clamouring for photos hereby be stilled. I present to you Elena Larissa Stovell!







Elena was born at 5:26 PM on Thursday, November 16, 2006. Since Beth had been in early labour for two and a half weeks (!) already (the medical term is prodromal labour), and she was now ten days past her due date, we went in on Thursday morning for some pre-induction tests to see how little Elena was doing in there. She was a happy and strong little baby, but they discovered that there was very little amniotic fluid in the uterus, and so it was decided that we should induce labour right away, rather than waiting a few more days as would otherwise have been done.

Now, during those weeks of endless early labour, Beth had already gotten a good head start on things and went into the induction with 4 cm dilation already accomplished. As a result, after only three and a half hours of labour and forty minutes of pushing, Elena was born! Beth is still regaining her strength, but she is doing well and loves her little girl lots and lots. Dad is doing well, and everyone says he is clearly in love.

Elena is a happy and content little girl, who seems to find this whole-crazy-new-world-with-lights-and-sounds-and-colours-and-smells-and-stuff thing very interesting! She is quite strong and can already lift up her head and look around (though eye focus is still a trick to be conquered). Aside from eating and snuggling, her favourite form of entertainment so far is watching the visualiser effects on the computer screen as it plays techno music (her favourite in the womb). One can see the "Wow..." on her face every time!



Look for more info on the adventures of the bunny-eared wonder and her parents soon.

October 12, 2006

Portrait of the Great Delay

I thought I would give this blog a heading fitting of my lack of blogwriting ability. I have friends who like to blog everyday and share the most recent events in their lives. Jon and I basically forget we have a blog and then remember about once a month (if we are lucky!)

The pictures above are my most recent pregnancy shots (taken last week). I am officially 9 months pregnant with just a few weeks to go before the baby comes. We are SOOOOO excited!! Observant friends and family will also notice that I cut off over a foot of hair (13 inches!).

Anyways, the most exciting news right now is that Jon FINISHED HIS THESIS!! This means that Jon will be graduating in April and will be officially done with Regent in December!!! We are so excited! We went out to celebrate at the end of September. September 23 was Jon's birthday and I threw him a party. During the week prior to Jon's birthday I painted the baby's bedroom (blue trim with yellow stars and moons, for our space theme!) and very little party planning happened. We ended up hanging out with our friend Ross and having a great time watching a movie and eating yummy food. I also made a cake that was the ugliest cake any of us had ever seen, but tasted great! (Cocoa Fudge Cake with Caramel Icing). My gift to Jon this year was a birthday dinner consisting of his favorite foods: steak, tomatoes, and green beans in a red wine sauce, twice baked potatoes, and homemade cherry cheesecake from scratch!

We have had lots of fun over the past few weeks. At end of August, Jon and I went to the 2nd birthday party of Sophia Pallister, the daughter of our dear friends Wade and Joanna. We had lots of fun playing with the kids and mingling with the adults.



In this picture, Jon is pushing a little girl in a swing. It was SOOO cute!



Here are our lovely friends Wade, Joanna, and Sophia Pallister!



In this pic, Jon and I are looking happy at the end of my 7th month of pregnancy. (In August).



This is a picture of Sophia blowing out the candles on her b-day cake. She is adorable and we love her!

This past week was Canadian Thanksgiving and Jon and I spent time with our friends the Pallisters again at their annual Thanksgiving feast. When I say "feast," I mean "feast!!" The food was PHENOMENAL!!! There were tons of loud "yums!" coming from us!



Wade, the master chef of the Incredible Team Pallister, is carving the turkey.



Our Thanksgiving Party!

Besides eating an amazing Thanksgiving dinner at the Pallister's, our dear friend Kirsten Jarvis invited us over to her place for a Thanksgiving dessert/game night. We played Cranium for several hours with lots of close friends.






Those of you who have taken the time to get this far in our blog also get a very special surprise. Below is a picture of Jon pretending to be Pamela Anderson while playing Cranium. Enjoy!!

Wow, time really goes by quickly! I can't believe it's been a whole month since we last wrote! I (Beth) am WAY bigger now and entering my 7th month of pregnancy this week. I'm also entering my third and final trimester. November 5th feels like it is coming very soon and simultaneously is very far away. Here I am in all my most recent pregnant glory!

Since our last entry we have been busy spending time with dear friends and spending time with our daughter-to-be. Our friend Danielle Akert and her two beautiful children have been visiting from Switzerland so I have gotten the opportunity to play mommy's helper with a two year old and a 4 month old. Good practice for the future! We also had the joy of celebrating the second birthday of Ari St. Louis, our friend Shannon's son. We gave Ari a little wooden train and a book called "Everyone Poops" all about exactly that. ("Everyone Poops" included drawings of different animals pooping). Our presents got quite a response! Shannon said it was a great gift because she was potty training Ari the next day. Ari is the little boy in the middle holding the little train we got him. His mom, Shannon, is pointing towards the camera.

In the baby department, our most recent excitement has come from learning that the baby's eyes have now opened and she can see light. According to the baby books, babies at this age will respond to a flashlight placed on the mommy's tummy. So we tested this out and, boy, did it ever work! She came right up to investigate this weird shiny light thing. We decided we had to take it to the next level and throw her a baby rave. We started playing her some of her favorite music (Andy Hunter) and flashing the flashlight on and off in time to the music. She found this very exciting and danced in rhythm while following the light wherever it flashed! Our baby is a regular PARTY ANIMAL!! Like her momma and daddy!

We have also been blessed with an abundance of baby items starting to come in. Family has been sending us baby blankets, clothes, stuffed ponies (thanks, Ovelina ), and so on. Some of the items have been hand made, others were handed down from previous generations. All of them have been very special. We have also been receiving donations of baby items and furniture. We now have a crib, a changing table, two diaper bags, a bassinet, and a jolly jumper that hangs in the doorway, as well as some little baby clothes for 0-3 months. Our apartment is officially being babyfied!

On a side note, something very strange happened to Jon last night. Through a strange combination of chemical reactions, Jon's hair first became streaked platinum and then turned Atlantic Blue! Such a rarity of natural occurence is quite remarkable. (We may have helped mother nature a bit!)

By popular demand, we present photos of Pregnant Beth! Note the large belly. She's pregnant, and she looks good doing it.

Beth and I have had an eventful few days. On Sunday morning, I decided to try to see if I could feel Baby Bunsen kicking. I was rewarded with a solid little thump right in my hand! We should have tried it sooner...

On Monday, we went to have our sonogram. Beth was convinced her bladder was going to explode, and complained bitterly about how miserably difficult it is for a pregnant lady to hold her urine to begin with, never mind with that much water in her system! The baby spent a while hiding from the sonogram lady before being cajoled out into the open by Beth's pacing and coaxing. And then we got to see that...

We are having a daughter!

She takes after her mother in that she stayed nicely posed for her picture, but only until she got bored... We got to see her from many angles, and even watched as she did a flip! In this picture one can see the profile of her head and face looking up, and her torso to the right.

Our baby girl has been very responsive to her daddy's voice lately, so we decided to strap the headphones to Beth's belly last night and played her some good bass-thumping electronica. She was surprised at first, spent a little while deciding that this was the most seriously cool thing she could remember ever happening, and then (being the hyper-intelligent little girl destined for world domination that she is) she realized that the best response was to have her own little rave party! What amazed me most, however, was the fact that within 45 minutes or so, I could feel her thumping against the uterine walls in almost perfect time with the music! Our baby's got rhythm!

In other not-so-interesting news, the car is in the shop today for an expensive brake repair job. :( Why can't someone invent a perfect non-degrading material to build things out of?! Stupid laws of physics, always ruining everyone's fun. Hrmph!

Dear Friends and Family,

This is our first time creating a blog so Jon and I are very excited about this! We hope that this blog site will enable family and friends both far and near to keep up with our busy lives. We also anticipate this coming in handy with new baby pictures in November (Baby Bunsen is on the way November 5!)

Since our last newsletter, I (Beth) graduated from Regent College with my Masters in Christian Studies. In the picture above Beth and Jon are spending time at the graduation with their dear friends Sarah and Barrett Lee who also graduated this year. Graduation was a fun and busy time! Especially with Beth's burgeoning belly! (Not obvious in the picture above due to the enormity of my robe.)

In other Beth and Jon news, Jon recently got a raise at his job where he works construction. In the meantime, I have changed jobs from a shipper with the Regent Bookstore to a grader for the Continuing Studies Department at Regent College. The pay is much better and I am finding great joy in doing more academic work. This job also enables me to work on my own time schedule from home and to work part time. This is such a great joy, especially since it means not being on my feet all day!

Well, I suppose that's enough news for now. We send our love to everyone!

Love,
Beth and Jon