Big Weekend for Addy!

This weekend Addy turned 6 weeks old and according to the official hospital paperwork, we could venture into crowds with her! Her first official outing besides our brief trip to a few stores last week (that was an adventure with me carting that huge car seat around!) was to our friend Lyle's wedding. Brad and I even got dressed up (contacts and make-up!) and tried to pretend like it was a date. The fact that we don't even have a picture of ourselves shows how well that worked! Addy did great for most of it but we were pretty focused on her instead of our date. Oh well. Congratulations Lyle and Bethany DeVries!

This weekend we also made our annual monster batch of apple butter. We started with 24 lbs. of apples peeled, cut and cored. . .

While the weather outside turned snowy we steamed up our kitchen with our production line. . .

Addy did what Addy does best. She napped. . .

and she played with us. Brody barked at the door every time a seal on a jar popped!

Brad slaved away over steaming apples processing them in the food processor to make the applesauce.

I was in charge of the canning pot and processing the jars to seal them.

By the end of the day we had a major mess in the kitchen and 51 jars of apple butter! What a great day and all that with a 6 week old!

Proud Mama of a One Month Old!

On Tuesday, Addy turned 1 month old! She has changed so much even in the last week! She has started smiling, not just in her milk coma, but also when she notices things and people.

This was the first time Addy really noticed the toys on her floor gym. She discovered that she could bat at the animals with her hands and she just giggled up a storm!

Addy sleeps most of the time but we've discovered that when she sleeps in pants instead of a sleep sack, she walks her way sideways in the crib. When her feet reach the side she tends to wake up pretty mad!

Goofy milk coma strikes again!

After waking up with dried spit up all over her head, Brad offered to wash her hair before he went to work. He'd never done it before but he was a pro! What a great dad!

Addy is practicing holding her head up. She's been able to do it since she was born (she has crazy strong muscles!) but now it's for longer periods of time. She really likes being on her belly on the boppy because she can scoot herself with her feet and look around.

After a week of round 2 of Brody not being able to walk again (we doubled her steroid dose and the pain and lameness in her back legs went away), she's back following me around and coming to hang out during each feeding. She really likes to lay on whatever is on the floor. So much for clean laundry!

Addy continues to gain weight and she's officially out of newborn clothes and into 0-3 month clothes already. This shirt was pathetically small on her and after she ate she had a serious pot belly problem!

Brad's mom, Grandma Lynn, is visiting right now. She's been sharing her wisdom and experience about Addy's gas fits that I couldn't figure out. I'm learning a lot and Addy is enjoying her time with Grandma!

3 weeks old!

Adalyn is heading into her 3rd Week birthday tomorrow and she's pretty excited about it! We went to the pediatrician this week and she weighed 8 lbs 6 oz. already. She was 7 lbs at birth and 7lbs 3 oz. 4 when she was 4 days old. The Dr. said she looks healthy and strong and is gaining weight like a pro. She ought to be, she is a serious eater!

Brad went back to work last Monday and so my mom came into town to help with that transition. She kept us fed and got to spend some time with Addy in her very brief awake times. My dad flew back to Denver on Thursday night to make sure he got some face time with Addy as well. They are loving being grandparents!

Last week we ventured outside for a walk with Addy. This time she didn't cry at all (we tried before and she melted down before we reached the end of the driveway!) and we even made it down the trail a ways. It felt really good to be outside and our stroller is awesome on the trail!

Most days this is what you would see if you came by to visit. Addy is only awake about 45 minutes each time she eats and then she's off to dreamland. And dream she does! Addy peeps and squeaks all through her naps and if you watch her she has quite the array of facial expressions. She's starting to get the difference between night and day and occasionally going 4-5 hours between feedings at night. Those are great nights!

I'm feeling almost normal (except there is nothing normal about getting up in the middle of the night!) and falling into the milk lady role for Adalyn. I haven't taken Adalyn anywhere by myself yet (yikes!) except I did try out the Baby Bjorn today to walk around the neighborhood. I'm going to need some practice gettting her in and out of that thing. . . I jostled her enough to cause her to lose her lunch all over my sweater once I finally got her in! Oops! Oh the learning curve of motherhood. :)

Push play

Look for the Elvis at about 1:20.

Here's Addy!

This is a slideshow, push play!

Coming home with Adalyn

So, its been quite a week to say the least. Kim went into labor Saturday night around 9:30 pm. We were watching a movie and she said the contractions were starting to hurt. I said we should start timing them which was a bit of a joke since I'd been saying that for a couple of weeks and Kim would tell me that the contractions weren't the right kind. She didn't say that this time. We started timing them and they were 3-5 minutes apart lasting about 45 seconds. She hadn't really had any up to this point. Well we went into freak-out mode (all of our "you can have the baby-at-home training went out the window), called the doctor who told us to come to the hospital. We got there at 11:30 and Kim couldn't walk because the contractions were hurting too bad and she was getting the shakes. I have to say Kim did an amazing job. Several times during the night I thought, "No way I could do this" along with a few, "Thank you, God I don't have to do this". At about 5:00 am, she was exhausted and I was as well. With the contractions getting harder and Kim unable to really relax due to the shaking we were getting nervous about how the delivery would go. Luckily, we had a great nurse named Katie who kind of took over and helped coach Kim with her breathing and positions so that she could deliver naturally. When the pushing started everything went really fast. I didn't really want to watch the actual birth cause I thought I'd pass out but there I was right in the middle of it. I saw the whole thing and even cut the cord. I also took pictures of the placenta. which is the strangest looking thing. We spent a couple of days in the hospital while Kim healed and we learned how to swaddle (still working on that, spatial relations was never my thing). Kim and Adalyn are bonding through breast-feeding and she's bonding with me cause I'm the diaper man. She's definitely more excited with Kim at this point but someday she'll want to know how to spit a loogie or skip a rock my time will have come.