Hey Folks. Elianna, my mom and I arrived safely in Steinbach last night (and Ellie only screamed for half the flight)! Rob and my dad are currently driving across the country with the trailer of stuff, hopefully stopping here and there for the occasional gut bomb (greasy burger)...so we'll be seeing them tonight!! I got to see our new joint and it's HUGE compared to what we're used to!! MAN, I got a PANTRY, a walk- in closet, and three other closets, and our old place only had one TEENY little closet in our bedroom, and the door didn't even close. Plus we got a DECK and now i'm dreaming of the cherry tomatoes i'm going to plant, and the hummingbird feeder i want to hang. PLUS we have two bathrooms...HALLELUJAH! I won't tell you why that's a relief, but it certainly is. :) ANYHOW, all this to say that things are going well, and I'm so thankful to the Lord for taking care of us.

Hi Everyone! Just wanted to let you all know that we are in the midst of packing up our place to move to Manitoba (YEEEHA!!) in six days! This, plus an extremely gas-filled week for Elianna (which equals many tears and little sleep) has made it next to impossible to keep this page updated. Do keep checking back...

A Lil' Bit About ME

by Elianna (Ellie) Joy Balfour

Hi folks. I've been waiting awhile to tell you all a bit about myself, but my MOM just can't seem to find the time to sit down at the computer and type it out for me! Every time I fall asleep she goes against everyone's good advice and cleans up the house, because she has a hard time relaxing when my poopy diapers and spitup cloths are lying all around the joint.
So I've been in the world for 3 weeks and 1 day now, and I've gotta say, it's not as bad as I originally expected. Coming out of my little place in the womb was pretty scary, because I somehow managed to wrap my umbilical cord around my neck three times and I couldn't really breath at first. Yikes. I still seem to have a bit of trouble with my esophogus and it might be because of that, who knows? After I eat (my very FAVORITE thing to do!) my mom and dad have to hold me upright for a while so I don't get acid reflux. I hate acid reflux. I almost never cry, except when my throat starts to get that horrible burny feeling. Mom and dad just hold me and sing until I feel comfortable again. At least they figured this out now, and finally stopped trying to burp me - I don't have a lot of burps - just heartburn! I also have to sleep with my bed raised up 45 degrees, but I don't mind so much. Sometimes when mom and dad lie me down to sleep, I accidently let one 'rip' , because of the gravity. :) Mom is a little afraid I might have one of my poop explosions in church sometime, because they're SO loud, the whole congregation would hear for SURE!
My favorite new pastime is going out for walks with mom or dad in my Baby Bjorn, or the front carrier. I fall asleep almost right away, every time! This was a relief to my mom who took me to the doctor in it yesterday, and didn't know for sure if i'd like it. Well I LOVE it! Today was really nice out and me and dad and mom and Auntie Leila went for my first ever walk in the forest! I didn't really see anything because I slept the whole entire time!
My eyes seem to be focusing a bit better these days, and I've started to look at my mom and dad's faces really intently now. They seem to like that. They keep telling me how excited they're going to be to see me smile. I'm WORKING on it! I give them these cute little 'gassy' smiles in my sleep, just so they can see how cute i'll be once I've figured out how to do it on purpose.
I make a lot of squeaking noises. A few nights ago mom had a dream that a hamster jumped into my crib, and she jumped up to make sure it wouldn't bite me. Then she woke up, and it was just me squeaking in my sleep. Hehe - tricked her! She calls me her "Hamster" now, among many other crazy names that ma and pa think are cute.
Well, it's time for dinner now (wonder what's on the menu tonight!?) and then I have to have a bath. I still hate baths. Hope mom makes the water warmer this time.
So that about sums up what there is to know about me, in a little nutshell.
Thanks for all your letters and comments! I hope I can meet all these people that mom and dad love so much one day soon.

Love, Ellie

Three things Elianna's great at: Yawning...
...flexing...
...and pooping!

Life with Elianna...she's asleep when we're awake, and she's awake when we're trying to sleep. We have a bit of day/night confusion going on. :) Thankfully, she sleep awesome during the day, which apparently means eventually she'll be a good sleeper at night, once she gets things figured out.

Ellie trying to eat her frog towel during her first 'photo shoot'. My cousin Alison came over to take a bunch of pictures outside. Unfortunately it was rather chilly so we had to wrap Elianna up.

Ellie at bathtime - where in the world did those curls come from?? (not us!)

Here she is!

ELIANNA JOY has made her appearance!!!

On March 16th, 2006 after a brief 8 hours of labor (wahoo! and no tearing, either!) Elianna came and stole our hearts away. She weighed 7 pounds 0 oz, is 20 and 3/4 inches long, and has a head full of dark hair. We can't get enough of her, and have fallen into the deep deep love trap of first-time parents. I will try to upload pictures as soon as I have some time (HA! That might be a while, though i'm becoming okay in my skills as a one-handed nurser) but in the meantime, please visit my family's sight (the hildebrandt family ties link) for some of Elianna's first pictures.

Thanks for all your prayers! We have a healthy beautiful girl! YEAHOO!

Hi folks. Here's the latest: I'm officially on 'the list' of people waiting to be induced at Women's Hospital now. So that'll happen either tomorrow or Friday. We hope. We had a non-stress test and ultrasound done on Monday and unfortunately everything looked perfect so they couldn't rush me into ER and pump me full of oxytocin to start contractions. :) We even tried bribing the nurse. Didn't work. No, I'm thankful everything is fine!! Tomorrow we go back for another non-stress test and ultrasound, and Friday I have another doctor's appointment, so really i'm keeping quite busy! So there you have it. The latest. Hope your lives are all progressing a little faster than my cervix. hehe.

Nope. Sorry. Nothing. *sigh*