It’s the Dawsons!

Time flies when you’re having fun, working on a lot less sleep and learning how to be a parent!  We’ve had quite the first month with our little girl.  Neither of us can believe it’s been one month since Elliott arrived and brightened our lives.  We survived Kari’s post-partum health issues, 10″ of snow on our first day home from the hospital (look for a Homer blog post about that in the future), Homer’s return to work and that whole first time parent thing…and we love it.

Elliott is a true blessing and everyone who gets to meet her is uplifted by the cute little faces she makes and her all-around adorableness.  She’s starting to coo, reacts to her Mom and Dad, breaks out the occasional smile and is determined to hold her head up without any help from us.  Elle will have many firsts in her life, but managed to include Dad on three big ones.  Who’s the first person she spit up, peed and pooped on?  You guessed it - good old Dad.  Mom has been stuck with boring firsts like her first smile and first giggle…

While we already miss that tiny little cuddle bug who came home with us one month ago, we are in love with the girl who is starting to show bits and pieces of her personality, growing so quickly and sleeping more than 2 1/2 hours at a time!  Here’s to the first month of a wonderful life!

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Many of you have asked us about the origin of our little girl’s name–Elliott Dorothy Dawson.  Here is where it came from….

A few years ago, I caught an episode of the tv sitcom “Scrubs” on NBC. There is a character on the show named “Elliot” played by actress Sarah Chalke.  I really liked the name.

Now, I can’t say I’ve watched “Scrubs” since then, but the name stuck with me.  A few months before Homer and I got married, we had a late night if-we-ever-have-kids-what-would-we-name-them conversation.  I threw out the name “Elliott.”  Homer said he loved it.  We also decided that we liked the shortened version of “Elle.”

A year-and-a-half later when we found out I was pregnant, I brought up the name “Elliott” again. That was that.  It was decided from the get-go that Elliott was her name.  (And it wasn’t easy keeping that a secret for nine months!) We had a boy’s name ready too…but you’re going to have to wait until I have a boy to learn that one!

One minor detail–our Elliott has two t’s at the end of her name, instead of just one. 

Her middle name “Dorothy” is my late grandma’s name. She passed away in June of 2003.  She and I were always very close and she holds a very special place in my heart. She would have loved Elliott and been so proud of her. I look forward to the day when I can tell Elliott all about Grandma Dot.

Friends and family have asked what we want them to call our girl.  I prefer Elliott, Homer likes Elle…Elly is OK too (but only when she is little.) 

So, there you go….

We had a very nice Easter weekend here at the Dawson household.  Grandma Monica, Aunt Julie and Aunt Molly came to visit from Minnesota and all got to meet Elliott for the first time.  They were all appropriately smitten! 

Grandma Sue and Grandpa Gary had the family over for a very nice Easter meal Sunday.  It wasn’t warm enough for any Easter dresses, but Elle did have a pair of bunny ears to wear.  The vote is still out over whether or not this was the first documented case of child abuse…

Enjoy some pictures of our Easter blessing!

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Our little girl is almost two weeks old and time sure does fly by.  We can only imagine that it’ll keep moving faster and faster.  Here are a few more photos of our little Elle.

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We got a camcorder with some Christmas money this year and this is our first video of Elliott to share.  Only being a week old, there is only so much she can do but we wanted to share her personality a bit beyond the photos we’ve been sharing.  This video are some cute faces she likes to make as she wakes up.  Hope you enjoy as much as we do.

Before her trip to the doctor Wednesday, we decided that Elliott needed a bath.  She wasn’t a fan.  To show us her appreciation, she let us finish her bath, wrap her in a towel and once she was all warmed up - she left us a “present” in her duck towel.  Check out some pictures here…

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