Happy 1 Month Birthday, Lia!

In celebration of Amelia's first month on the "outside", here are a couple of pictures taken today.  The first of these pictures requires a caption.  The caption is: "So you've heard of a milk mustache?  Well, this is a milk goatee!"

Way to rock it, Lia!

Here's the second picture of Lia all snuggled up for bed after a night of hanging out with friends at Bible study:

Also, we celebrated on Lia's behalf with apple pie, ice cream, and candy.  Yummy!

Birth Announcements!

Good news!  Matt woke up this evening with enough spare time (before heading to work at 11pm) to take over for me with feeding Lia so I could get something accomplished.  Note that Lia packed down about 5 ounces in a span of approximately 2 hours, so I'm hoping she'll sleep for a while longer tonight.  :-)

Anyway, thanks to our wonderful photographer, Ryan Siemers (www.ryansiemers.com), we have a cute birth announcement with beautiful baby pictures currently being printed.  I know that we're a bit late on this bandwagon, but I couldn't help wanting to share some of the cute pictures with family and friends in a conveniently sized announcement.  Look for the announcements to be arriving in a couple of weeks, assuming that Matt will cover for me again so I can get them in the mail once they have been picked up from the photo printer.  Yay!

"Celebrating Families" class

As part of our prenatal classes, Early Childhood Family Education hosts a night for our class to gather again post-delivery to talk about the experience and baby-related updates while learning more about babies and development.  I was slightly disappointed to find out that only two couples in addition to Matt and me showed up for the event.  And only one of the couples was from our class, so there must have been at least 2 classes invited...  Regardless, we had fun sharing and walked away with more resources and info!

In answer to the question: "Are you getting enough sleep?"

It's been a long weekend (plus Monday) so far.  Matt got started on a string of night shifts at work, so I have been covering Amelia-care on my own much more that usual.  Saturday was a good day.  Matt and I got to go for a walk in the morning, then I got to take a nap in the afternoon while Matt ran some errands with Amelia.  Sunday was a bit more work...

As normal, I like to live in an "overcommited" way.  Matt covered for me as a table leader in our Sunday school class, Amelia got to spend time in the nursery (her first day there!), and I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off playing in the orchestra, jumping into Sunday school for about 5 minutes, running to the nursing room to pump (twice), running to check on Amelia, and back again  for more orchestra and church service.  It was a fun morning, but I was running on about 2 hours of sleep from Saturday night since Matt had been at work and Amelia needed extra attention overnight.  Thank goodness for that Saturday afternoon nap!

The whole "attempt to breastfeed/supplement with a bottle/change Lia's diaper/play with Lia/put Lia down to sleep/pump/wash bottles and pump pieces/try to nap/Lia wakes up hungry" cycle is keeping me from having much time to sleep.  I tried to nap Sunday afternoon but had no luck.  (I think Amelia was hungry during the 2nd church service on Sunday, but her caretaker was able to calm her without feeding her, so she stored up all of her hunger for the afternoon.)  Sunday night and Monday didn't work well for much more sleep, either, but Matt did help me get a bit of a nap in the afternoon.  I'm looking forward to more sleep tonight, so here's to hoping that I can learn to fall asleep fast and help Lia to do the same.

Anyway, all things considered, I'm still functioning pretty well on limited sleep.  Matt is doing well, too.  But I am looking forward to getting through this stage and into the more sleep-filled nights down the road!

Bad Kitty or Protector Kitty?

We put Amelia down for a nap this afternoon, and when I stopped in to check on her at one point, this is what I found:

I'm guessing Mattie (the cat) was just attracted to Lia's warm and toasty temperature.  Regardless, the kitty was removed from the crib promptly after photos were taken.  Matt and I decided that we should close the door to the baby's room during naps and use a fan to circulate air in the room instead of leaving the door open.  Mattie is a sweetie, but she is also twice the size of Lia, which doesn't make for a safe situation when unsupervised...  It did make for some cute pictures, though!

Visiting Baby Sam

Less than three weeks after Amelia arrived, baby Sam arrived, too.  Fun times!  We went to visit our friends and meet the new baby this morning.

I find it interesting how newborn instincts drive similar behavior patterns in these kids.  It reminds me how amazing this whole process of being born is and how wonderfully we are all designed...

Post Bath Snooze!