6 Weeks Old!

I can't believe 6 weeks have passed since Gracie came into our lives. She has grown so much over the past 6 weeks and is doing something new almost every day (or at least it seems like it). She is such a sweetie and so much fun to play with. She has started smiling a lot. When she wakes up in the morning and fusses a bit, it go straight into her room and she always has a big smile for me. It's so sweet....almost makes it worth while to be up at 5am! :-) (Keep in mind, I said almost.) Five in the morning is still too early for me!

She has started cooing and being more vocal. She even laughs a little and sighs which is totally adorable. Of course, I'm a bit biased. She is getting stronger by the day and lifting her head for longer periods of time and moving it around. She is also still rolling over - I guess it wasn't a fluke! She can go from her tummy to her back and is quite proud of herself when she does it. I don't think she likes 'tummy time' much, so instead of fussing and wanting me to roll her onto her back, she just prefers to do it herself.

My friend Dena commented on the fact that she is losing that 'newborn' look and she's totally right! Her little face is getting so much more 'baby like' instead of 'newborn like'. Crazy!

We took a quick trip to see Gracie's Grandparents, Great Grandparents and Aunties this week and will be back down in Roseburg again for a longer stay in a few weeks. Grace loved the visit and did fairly well. I think she spent all of 10 minutes the entire time NOT being held. So many people with so many laps to cuddle on. She loved it. She did decide to go on a bit of a hunger strike and wasn't in the mood to eat much while we were there. I think she was just so excited about everything that was new. She chowed down as soon as we got home.

Here are a few more pictures of Gracie and Daddy - my two favorite people in the world!
Hmmmm, who looks more tired in this picture??

I call this one "Who, me??"

And the grand finale...possibly my favorite picture of the bunch. She was quite playfull when I snapped this shot and you can really tell. So sweet!

One Month Birthday

Gracie entered our life exactly one month ago today. I'm both shocked that it has only been a month and yet feel, at times, like it has been an eternity. Can you say sleep deprivation? It has been amazing to see her grow over the past month. We have seen...

• Her roll over! I keep forgetting to blog about this. The first time she did it was at 2 1/2 weeks and I thought it was a mistake. Then she did it again, and again! My parents were here, so she was obviously showing off for them. She doesn't do it every day, but usually does it about every 2 or 3 days and always does it several times in a row. It probably has something to do with her getting that 50th percentile head moving in a direction and taking her 25th percentile body with it.
• Lift her head and move it from side to side while lying on her tummy.
• Track things with her eyes.
• Smile - and also smile back if you smile at her (she usually has a select audience for that. It's usually Aaron.)
• Stick out her tongue if you do the same thing to her (again, usually for a select audience...me. Hmm, sticks her tongue out at mom and smiles at dad. And so it begins!)
• Go from a super sweet little baby to screaming mad (and I do mean SCREAMING) in less than 2 seconds. No select audience for this one...she's very much an "equal opportunity" crier.

We are seeing some nice progress with the sleeping issues. I feel like a liar typing this, because the last two days have been the absolute worst, but she was doing fairly well for the past two weeks. I'm hoping the last 2 days had something to do with too much napping in the car. A friend of mine recommended the book The Contented Little Baby Book. One word to describe the book...amazing! Grace is now getting up only once during the night. She goes to bed at 7pm (usually followed by an hour of crying...so I guess she goes to sleep around 8) We wake her up at 10 for a feeding and then she usually only gets up once in the night to eat and then sleeps till about 6:30. We started giving her one bottle a day, so Aaron is doing that 10pm feeding which means I have the opportunity to get about 5-6 hours of sleep at a time! I never thought I'd be excited about that statement...it's a far cry from my 11 hours of sleep while pregnant but a treat none the less.

We also had our first family outing to Cannon Beach on Monday with the babe. She did really well and ended up sleeping most of the day in the car seat or on a blanket on the beach - thus the horrible night of crying. She wasn't tired! I hope we can do a lot of little day trips. With Aaron's work schedule, there should be lots of opportunities for us to get out of the house and out of town for the day with Gracie.

Here are a few pictures of Grace during play time. She LOVES that black and white book, courtesy of my friend Angie. Her favorite shape is the black maple leaf, which makes us think she may grow up to be a big fan of Canada :-)

4 Weeks Old

It is so hard to believe that Grace is 4 weeks old today! We are having fun getting to know her better and are doing well. She is still super tiny...weighing in at a husky 7 pounds 3 ounces. I swear, this girl eats a TON but is still super skinny. She is getting longer but not any more chunky...yet.

My sister was up last week and did Gracie's first photo shoot. I'm sure it will be the first of many. Here are a few of my favorite pictures. They are so precious! For those of you already thinking it...yes, I am well aware that I have become one of those parents who think they have the cutest baby ever. I guess it goes with the the territory :-)





Bath Update: It's still very traumatic and her least favorite part of the day. She likes to protest by spitting up all over herself right after I have bathed and dressed her. Oh, after her bath is also usually the time she decides to have a nice, explosive poop too. You can see she is quite the drama queen in the picture below. She wants me to know that bath time is very traumatic and she hates it.

That's all for now. Her highness is waking up and is ready to feed.

3 Weeks Old

Hi All,

Thanks so much for the sleeping advice and support. I'm happy to say that things got a bit better. I started putting her on more of a schedule during the day and am feeding her every 3 hours, even if I have to wake her up. What do you know, it's worked wonders for the night time feedings. She's been able to get her long stretch of sleep in the evening instead of the afternoon - translation, I'm sleeping more too! She is also better about going right to sleep after her night time feedings instead of being up for an hour afterwards wanting to play. Of course, this has only been going on for the past 3 nights, so ANYTHING can happen. Keep your fingers crossed!

In other news, my parents came up and stayed with us for a few days. It was Aaron's first week back to work and I just couldn't bear the thought of doing 13 hour days alone! Gracie LOVED having grandma and grandpa up here. She soaked up all of the attention and loved being played with, cuddled and doted on 24/7. My parents just ate her up too. Here are a few pictures of proud grandma and grandpa.

I also couldn't resist adding the cutest pictures of Gracie to date. I took these this afternoon when she was waking up from her nap. Her little smile is just so cute! Never mind that she was screaming her head off about 15 minutes later :-)