Grillin'!

What a great weekend and it's not even over yet! Yesterday we started the day by going grocery shopping. Carina slept, we shopped. After we got home I made a chocolate cheesecake. I've always wanted to make one but don't own a springform pan. Luckily it came up in conversation with my neighbor and she said I was welcome to borrow her pan anytime. So - yay for chocolate cheesecake! Now I just need to pack some up to share with our neighbors as a thank you.

Yesterday afternoon we babysat our friends' 7 month old daughter. What an experience! Gave us an idea of what we have to look forward to. After both girls fell asleep - Peter and I did too for a few minutes. Kids are hard work!

Once we were back down to only one baby in the house, Peter fired up the grill and I prepped some kabobs. Steak, potato and tomato ranch kabobs - yum! Throw in some corn on the cob and we had ourselves a very nice summer meal. Peter did great on the grill too! We took turns carrying Carina in my baby wearer. A little girly but it looks good on Peter :)

Carina has been up once overnight for the past 2 nights so we haven't exactly had the full night's sleep we were getting those few days last week but we're still getting plenty of rest. Everybody keeps telling us that we are VERY lucky to have a breastfed baby sleeping as well as she does. What can we say - she's perfect!

We Love Sleep

What a good little sleeper we have! After 8 hours Tuesday night Carina gave us 7 straight hours Wednesday night and then 6 straight hours last night. I think we can say she's sleeping through the night pretty regularly! It's awesome.

Not much else to report. We saw some real smiles this week and Carina played with a wrist rattle and her activity gym/mat for the first time this week. We're slowly moving from newborn to stage 1 diapers. I think she'll soon fit into them pretty well. Our little girl is growing up!

So Big!

Carina is 6 weeks old today. I can't believe it! We had her to the pediatrician for her one month check up on Friday. She was so happy and content despite her raging hiccups. She weighed 8 pounds 1 ounce (until she peed all over the scale anyway - then maybe a few ounces less) and measured 19 inches. That puts her in the 25th percentile for weight and below the charts for length, haha. The Dr. said she's a little peanut. Because her weight gain was so spectacular we've decided to let her go as long as she wants between feedings overnight. She slept one 7 hour stretch over the weekend but her diaper didn't last as long as she did unfortunately.

We had friends from Pittsburgh and their nearly 3 year old daughter stay with us over the weekend. We hadn't seen them since last Fall so it was really nice to visit with them. We had a family picnic Saturday and they had a wedding so we didn't see a whole lot of them but it was still neat to have them around. Our family picnic went well. Carina does great in the car (it was about an hour away) and she was good about being passed around to everyone. We got a little break so that was nice too.

Sunday we took Carina to church for the first time. She slept through most of Sunday school and church and didn't even need to be fed till we got home. What a convenient kid! Our Sunday school girls were very excited to meet her.

Yesterday I took Carina to visit Peter at work. His co-workers have been dying to see her. We plan to take her to visit my co-workers next week. Last night I went to a Pampered Chef party and left Peter on daddy duty. Unfortunately Carina was pretty fussy before I even left so it was a frustrating evening for everyone involved. Still - everybody survived and Carina even slept 8 hours last night. She would have slept longer but we were worried about another leaky diaper so we woke her, fed her and now she's sleeping again.

So all in all we're doing alright! She's growing so fast and we're loving every minute of it.

Happy 4th!

Only 4 days late. We had a long, busy weekend. Peter's parents stayed with us Thursday through Sunday. Saturday we had my parents here too for a picnic! We broke in the new grill and made some burgers. The rest of the menu included pasta salad, corn souffle, deviled eggs, chips, grape pie, cherry pie and peanut butter striped delight. I had a fun time planning the picnic and hopefully Peter learned a thing or two about grilling from our dads. I can't wait for Peter to make kabobs some night.

Carina is now one month old! I really can't believe it. She's exactly 5 weeks old today. She's growing so fast - it's amazing. She loves to look around and take everything in. We still have her on a fairly strict schedule. Feedings every 3 hours during the day and then overnight she sleeps one 5 hour stretch, eats and then sleeps another 4 hour stretch. It's heavenly to get so much sleep and we really are blessed to have a baby that likes to follow a schedule, haha. She must be mine. We have a pedi appt Friday and at that time if we are told that she no longer needs to keep to a schedule and can eat on demand (meaning less often) then we'll do that. Should be interesting!

We Love the Weekends!

Carina and I had a very good week together. It helped that we had Peter home on Monday so really it was only 4 days alone together. We're figuring each other out and I'm loving it. I can't believe she will be one month old this week!

So far we have had a wonderful weekend. After dinner Friday I ran to the grocery store alone. I always enjoy doing the shopping together with Peter but I didn't want to mess up Carina's schedule and I think Peter wanted some Daddy time with her anyway. So in the end - mission accomplished.

Yesterday we made a family trip to the mall where I got some nursing bras, some summer tops and an iced mocha. Heaven. We got so much attention from people - everybody loves a baby! And who couldn't love our sweet little thing?

I pumped for the first time yesterday. It went better than I thought - not as complicated as I had imagined. I think I can do this when I go back to work! Peter was a great help with cleaning all the parts for me (probably the worst part of the whole deal).

We went to Target to return a duplicate gift and came out with some sippy cups! I don't know why but I just love sippy cups and love the thought of Carina learning to use one down the road. The ones we bough are TOO cute. We ran to Babies R Us to return another duplicate gift and bought a HUGE box of wipes. We ran into a woman from our birthing class too with her little girl - only 9 days old!

Because I had pumped earlier in the day, Peter got his first chance to bottle feed Carina. It was a little complicated for everybody and Carina wasn't exactly thrilled with it but she drank 3 ounces and slept really well so I guess everybody survived. Last night she actually slept for 2 five hour stretches and it was so nice. I love it when she sleeps well.

Speaking of... she's napping right now. Peter is teaching Sunday school by himself and returning all the pans and such friends delivered dinners in. We have been fed so incredibly well these past 3 weeks. We are truly blessed.

Looks to be another great day! Oh - and one more piece of exciting news. Carina has managed to find her own thumb twice now. I think we have a thumb sucker on our hands, haha.

Father's Day

Yesterday we celebrated Peter's first Father's Day! My parents had spent the night Saturday and Carina's feeding schedule allowed for me to teach Sunday school with Peter so Gram and Grampa babysat. Carina slept the whole time (which was not the case when Peter and I went out for icecream Saturday and came home to a very unhappy baby, haha).

After Sunday school and another feeding we went to my Gram's for the day - but not before a little drama. I had bought an "I love Daddy" onesie months ago for Father's Day and hid it away. Carina had it on for exactly 20 minutes before she spit up all over it, herself and the carseat. The most frustrating part was she never spits up! So sadly Peter didn't have much of a Father's Day present. Oh well. At some point I will get a picture of her in it when she's actually clean.

We made it to Gram's - once again Carina slept the entire way. Apparently she likes the car. We unpacked the trunk and the beautiful cupcakes I had made and brought had overturned and were a complete mess. I was so disappointed. Fortunately I had made a cake as well and it survived the trip just fine. I had made cupcakes for our small group too so at least they were home and safe.

We had a lovely lunch and passed the baby around a good bit. She slept the entire visit except for her diaper change and feeding - silly girl. She managed to spit up big time on Aunt Jeanne too. We have no idea where that all came from yesterday. I guess babies of a certain age, whether bottle fed or breast fed, tend to spit up a bit more. Maybe she got jiggled too much in the car too - like shaking a soda, Peter says, haha.

After such a sleepy day we had a very awake, somewhat fussy evening but Carina slept like a champ last night. She did stay awake for a good bit of our small group meeting last night. We hosted at our house. Our friends brought their 6 month old daughter who was just fascinated with Carina. We got a good video of the two girls together. I can't believe Carina will be that big and eating baby food and crawling one day. It seems so unreal!

A Day in the Life

...of a stay-at-home-mom.

6:15 am - Wake up, move the baby supplies (boppy, bibs, eye drops, etc) downstairs for the day, shower, eat breakfast

8 am - Carina eats breakfast

9 am - Laundry, paint my toenails

10 am - Strap Carina into the baby wrap and wear her while I blog

10:30 am - Carina eats her 2nd breakfast

11 am - Check mail, put in "Sex and the City" movie

12 pm - Make lunch, cuddle Carina while she is fussy, protect my sandwich from Kenny

12:30 pm - Enjoy Carina sleeping on my chest

1:30 pm - Carina eats lunch, I get sucked into Days of Our Lives (who watches soap operas?!)

2 pm - rest a little

I expect an early dinner for Carina before Peter gets home. Someone from church is delivering dinner for us. Hopefully tonight at least one of us (if not all three) will get out to the grocery store.

So excited for the weekend!