Playing at the Park

I'm still working on organizing our sifting through the hundreds (literally) of pictures we took during the Christmas season. Our new camera (thanks Santa!) takes some amazing pictures, but we also take a ton more of them...some of them great...some of them not so good. The files are huge and I'm learning patience while trying to work with them. :) So, here's a fun little post to hold you over...

A couple of weeks ago, our friends Meili and Benji hosted and Karen and Grace & Rebekah and I over to their house for lunch. We had some delicious Cincinnati chili (thanks to Matt!). Then we walked down to the park. It was a fun little stroller brigade going down the street with all 6 of us.

Everyone got a chance in the swing...
Grace

Benji

Even Rebekah!

(ok....it's hard to hold her and take a picture at the same time!)

Mostly, Rebekah just hung out in her stroller


It was a great Mommy day with friends and we are looking forward to hanging out again soon!

Here's all the pics:

2010.12 - Park with Meili and Karen

All the World's a Phase

My latest “new mom” revelation is that everything we encounter with little Rebekah is probably a phase. I had this revelation a month ago when we were at a friend’s baby’s baptism. I was looking at my nephew – who is so full of energy and always trying to explore everything – and I looked at the older kids who were calmly sitting in the pew attending to what was happening at the baptismal font. I realized that nothing lasts forever, that these little kids get bigger and more mature and more self-sufficient.

With Rebekah, we had an interesting phase about a week ago. She had been so good about sleeping from day one – well, once we could get her to sleep she would stay asleep for a long time. Then, during my second week back to work, she started waking up at 5…then at 4:30…then at 4… Once I discovered she was hungry (and was eating about 10 times during the day too!), I thought “Must be her 3 month growth spurt…this too shall pass.”

And pass it did. One morning we woke up for work and she was still asleep! Adam went to check on her and everything seemed fine. Ever since then her sleeping through the night seems to be back on track…for now. :)

As true as this this phase idea is for the phases we want to pass quickly, it is true for the ones we want to last! I know one day she will be mobile, and as much as I got excited when she rolled over that one time (she hasn’t done it since…), I’m appreciating how easy it is right now because I know she won’t move too far from where I put her down.

And I’m trying to cherish and enjoy the little baby things she does everyday. Like her new obsession with making spit bubbles:

Or her little giggles and baby noises that come when I just look at her with a funny face or make a funny noise:

Or her being able to sit up, but not quite…

Or her being able to push up, but not quite…

I cherish all of this because I know, one day, this too shall pass…

A Week of Firsts!

We had some new firsts over this Thanksgiving week!

Adam and I cooked our first turkey! We had a great mix of family over - Adam's parents and sister, and my brother and grandmother. It was a fun time and the food was yummy!


Rebekah had her first turkey leg! (ok, just kidding) :)


Rebekah rolled over for the first time! I didn't get the whole thing on video, she did eventually get the other arm out and everyone cheered in excitement - which kind of freaked her out! (click on the image to see the video)



Rebekah slept in her own room for the first time! She had been going to sleep in her own room for awhile, but we always moved her into our room when we went to bed. Of course, I had a harder time with it than she did. :)

And we decorated the house for Rebekah's first Christmas!


It has been a great weekend so far! I've just loved having all 3 of us at home without many plans so we can just enjoy being together!

You can see all the pictures here:

2010.11 Thanksgiving

Rebekah Ann is 3 Months Old!

I can’t believe you are already 3 months old, Rebekah! You’ve grown and changed so much since we first met you. You are no longer our little squishy, floppy little baby, but you are growing bigger and stronger every day. Your arms are strong and your hands can hold some things fairly well for a few minutes if we put them in your hand for you. And you are strong enough to give your Dad or me a surprise squeeze on the throat or tug of the hair every once in a while!

You are still working on rolling over. You can get all of your body turned over except that one shoulder! You are so close!

Your eyes take in everything. I love to watch them watch. You are so serious and pay such close attention to everything going on around you. I know you will be keeping your eye on us for many more months to come.

You love to lay on the floor and play and kick! This is when we see you the happiest – smiling, talking, giggling. We have lots of fun talking with you!

And you are almost strong enough to hold up your head when we are holding you. I can pick you up and do airplane with you (my favorite!) and you hold yourself up so well! I’m sure you will be able to sit up with some help soon!

The most amazing thing to me is that I’ve been able to feed you all the nutrition you need for 3 whole months! I wasn’t sure we were going to be able to do it at first, but you got better at it every day and I got more comfortable with it every day. We are a great team now!

I can’t believe how much we love you, Rebekah Ann! You have been such a blessing to our little family over the past 3 months!

Some progress photos of Rebekah and the Bee

Rebekah and the Bee

Random photos over the last month

2010.11 Rebekah Month 3

Get Back to Work!

So, I started back to work this week. I’m so thankful that I can work part-time, otherwise this would be much harder than it already is! It was pretty tough on Monday, even though I only went in for 4 hours, picked her up for about an hour, then went to an evening meeting. I think the hardest was getting home from my meeting at 9:30 and only getting to rock her for 10 minutes before bed. At least I had all day Tuesday to play with her!

Wednesday was my first full day back – 9-5. The morning went by fast, but the afternoon dragged. At least I’m getting back into the work that I do enjoy.

The adjustment is hard, but I’ve decided it’s just a matter of getting used to a new “normal.” It got progressively easier as the week went on, so I guess we are adjusting.

My biggest concern is that I’m going to miss her doing something big for the first time. Like finishing this move:

She’s so thinking about turning over and it is funny to watch. I hear it kinda freaks out the baby the first time they actually roll the whole way, so I’m always watching carefully, waiting for it to happen so I can take in her reaction. I just don’t want it to happen while I’m away! But I guess it is just one of the many things about our little girl that I can’t control…

My Favorite Things

Last week someone asked me about my new life as a mom, “What is your favorite thing?” I hadn’t really thought specifically about my favorite thing, so I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it since then. Here are my top 5 “favorite things” about our new life with Rebekah (in no particular order).

1. Kisses. I never knew I could give away so many kisses! I love kissing the side of her head, the top of her head, her belly, her feet, and smack on the lips. Sometimes I worry she’s going to prune up with all my kisses, but she is just so sweet and soft and I can’t help it!

2. Her hands. I love her little hands. The little palm of her hand is so perfect, such a soft little baby hand. They are soft, but so strong as well. Each day she can grip more things, and grip them harder! Her little squishy fingers just grab on tight to my finger or my shirt or her dad’s neck or arm. Her little hands are just amazing.

(thanks Adrien!)

3. The way she looks when her dad is holding her on his chest. He puts her up to his chest, rest his chin on her head, and she just turns her head on his shoulder and simply relaxes. She just hangs out there and watches the world go by as he walks around the house. She is so content and peaceful there, and I can tell she knows she is safe and loved.

4. Watching her wake up. I’ll lay in bed and watch her in her cradle. I can’t really see her, just her feet kicking up when she is in one of her active sleep patterns. Then I’ll pick her up and lay her on the bed next to me. She’ll blink those little eyes, stretch out her loooong body (I think she’s 2 feet long already!) and move that little head around. Her arms will move around involuntarily, then she’ll actually start stretching them out towards me and find me with her eyes. Some days she’s really hungry and starts getting fussy, and other days she is just as happy as can be to see me! Either way, all of her moving around trying to get herself to greet the day is very fun to watch!

5. Making her laugh. Ok, so there hasn’t been any laugh noises, but she sure does light up and give us a big huge smile while bring up her legs and her arms like she is laughing with her whole body. She LOVES (most of the time) getting her diaper changed, so the whole body laugh sometimes makes that difficult, but I just stop and laugh back at her and enjoy her enjoyment. She will laugh at our face, at toys, or at these little animals that hang over her bouncy seat. I love having such a happy baby!

Babies, Babies, Everywhere!

Today the girls from my childbirthing class all got together with our babies. We were supposed to go to a park and have a picnic, but we just didn't time it right with the weather. So, we all came over to my house instead. 4 girls, brought together by nothing more than signing up for the same natural childbirth class...it is such a cool thing! We had a great time talking, eating, and taking care of our babies for the better part of the afternoon. We talked about everything mommy and baby, and it was so wonderful to share our stories and talk about what we've all been experiencing over the last 2-3 months.

One thing I realized is how we each have slightly different parenting styles...slightly different ways of feeding our babies, slightly different ways of holding and carrying, slightly different ways of nurturing, and slightly different routines/sleeping patterns. We also all have slightly different babies who eat differently, sleep differently, and have different needs. I did quite a bit of reading books and articles about parenting styles and took in lots of suggestions, all have given me ideas for things to try. But what I've realized is we all figure out what works best for ourselves, mostly driven by what works best for our babies along with our lifestyles and personalities. It was great to hear new ideas from the other girls and be comforted by how we are all just trying to figure parenting thing out.

Above all, there was no shortage of love in the room with all of us there. These 4 little babies are so blessed to have wonderful parents trying to do everything they can to make sure that little one feels so much love that he or she won't even know what to do with it! No matter what the feeding style or nurturing style, it is all done with more love than one could ever imagine.

We tried our best to get a photo of all of them together...hard to do with 4 little squishies. Here's a pretty fun one:

Halloween Week!

Our Halloween week was tons of fun!

We carved a pumpkin! Rebekah helped, but Adam did most of the fancy carving.

We went to the Holy Trinity Fall Festival with our friends Matt, Meili, and Benji


And Rebekah went trick-or-treating to both of her grandparents houses!



Rebekah made an adorable little Baby Bee and everyone loved her!



To see all the pics of the week of Halloween fun, click on the image below:

2010.10 Halloween

A Day in the Life of Rebekah

We had a great, busy day yesterday!

We went to White Rose to drop off the donations from Rebekah's baptism...thanks so much to all who donated! They were so excited and thought it was a wonderful gift!

Then we went to Wal-Mart to do some grocery shopping. I wore Rebekah in the Beco instead of leaving her in the carseat - some extra bonding time and a bit of an extra workout carrying the additional weight around!

Rebekah helped me do a Wii workout by being fussy when I wasn't moving around, but being quiet when I was working hard! She loved watching me do that dance/step workout!











We read some books in the afternoon, then she helped me do the laundry. She loves to help hold the socks!












Then we watched the Rangers in their last World Series game. Hate to see them lose, but it was definitely a fun season/post-season! We've never seen the Rangers playing in November, so I'll say it was a good year!








No real naps were taken today...except for a little snooze in the Beco at Wal-Mart. But she was in bed before midnight! All-in-all a good day with the little girl!

Picnic at the Arboretum

Our friends Karen and Grace invited us to a picnic at the Arboretum last week. It was Rebekah's first picnic! (She had the milk...)

We walked around a bit and we took some pictures with the pumpkins.

Thanks Karen & Grace!! :)

See all the rest of the photos here:

2010.10 Fall at the Arboretum

Rebekah's Baptism

So, I've been meaning to start this blog for awhile now. I guess Rebekah's baptism is a good way to kick it off!

We had a big day on October 16!

Waking up for the big day.

Mama's got me all ready to go.

All the Godparents stood with us.

Deacon Grandad blessed the water

And poured it over Rebekah's head

The smeared her head with LOTS of chrism!

We all accepted the light of Christ to guide Rebekah on her way!

Deacon Grandad introduced the newest Catholic!

She's such a little angel!

And has such a proud dad!

And all the grandparents were there

It was a beautiful celebration of the sacrament. We are so incredibly blessed to be part of a close-knit faith community that was there to welcome our little girl. We celebrated with them after the baptism, then spent the afternoon with our wonderful family! You can see all the pictures here:

2010.10 Rebekah's Baptism