Cousins

Some of you may know this, but I come from a large extended family. I love this. One side has something like 10 cousins and the other has closer to 25, however it is exponentially growing with cousins now having babies and getting married. Holidays may be more chaotic than some families, but I think it is fun. There is always a lot of love in the room. 

Anyway, it has always made me a little sad that Ellie won't have that same experience. With only one aunt and uncle, she won't have a palethera of cousins unless Jackie and Brant want to qualify for a TV show on TLC. :) So, I have decided to call our cousins' kids Ellie's cousins. It is still legit, they just may not be first cousins. 

Anyway (again), Billy and Julie Winters (cousins on the Prunk side) were blessed with twins on September 29th - less than 24 hours before Ellie was born. It is going to be so much fun watching these three grow up together. Here is a picture of our first meeting. Due to the fact that all babies were only 5 weeks old, there was usually at least one baby crying - so we took this rare opportunity to snap a photo. It isn't the best, but you get the idea. :) Meeting Max and Finley was fantastic, but so was sharing stories with Billy and Julie. It is great to have someone close by who is going through exactly what you're going through - even though they are doing it double! 

One another note: Ellie may be (I don't want to jinx it!) starting to sleep longer inbetween feedings at night. Of course, I have still been waking up and nervously checking on her since she isn't screaming for food as often, but that habit shouldn't be hard to break. On Saturday night, she actually put herself back to sleep after waking up and therefore slept for a total of 6 1/2 hours before being fed. Then last night she slept for five hours and was unsuccessful with putting herself back to sleep - but that's ok. Five hours of sleep is glorious compared to the 2-3 hours I was getting a couple nights ago. Let's keep it going!