Dance-off Between.....Baseball Players?

Yes, this actually happened.

5 Weeks Old

Today Grace is 5 weeks old. She's been doing a lot of new things this week. She has doubled the amount of noises and coos that she makes and she is definitely smiling. It is so fun that she smiles at us now. She is no longer just a blob that I feed and change. She seems to appreciate the feedings and diaper changes. She has also started sucking on her hand in the last couple of days. Sometimes this helps a tiny bit when she wants a pacifier and we can't get to her. Her biggest accomplishment has been sleeping 7 hours straight the past 2 nights. I'm not sure if she was just extra tired from all the activity over the weekend or if she's ready to sleep that much but I'm not complaining. I'm sure she is 10 lbs by now and I've heard once a baby reaches 10 lbs they can more easily sleep that long. So maybe we are really really lucky to have a baby sleep through the night at 5 weeks. I guess we will see what the next several nights bring. Tonight we are going to try to introduce a bottle to her. I'm a little nervous she won't take it but it would be nice to be able to pump every once and a while and give her a bottle. So I finally figured out how to pump and there is a bottle waiting in the fridge for her. My camera ran out of batteries today so I don't have a 5 weeks picture.

Photo Shoot

My sister came to visit Grace and me today. We had a lot of fun running errands and hanging out. Matt and I have been blessed by numerous people from our church bringing us meals the last month but they are pretty much done and I have to start cooking again next week. I feel ready and I kind of missed it but I just don't want to put the energy into planning meals. So Laura planned 4 meals for us picked out all the ingredients while I just pushed the cart and she wrote out basic recipes for me. So now my fridge is stocked and I have a plan for next week. It's a nice way to ease back into cooking. The other fun part about our day was doing a photo shoot with Grace. Laura has a great camera and and artistic eye so we dressed Grace up and had a fun time. She even seemed to like it:)

4 Weeks Old

4/20/09 - 4 Weeks Old

Today Grace is 4 weeks old. I cannot believe it! We went to the doctor today for her 1 month check-up and everything looked great. She is up to a huge 9 lbs. 11 oz. I was very excited about that! The doctor also said we could let her sleep up to 8 hours if she wants at night. I'm not expecting the 8 hours yet but we've been waking her up after 5 so we're hoping to add and hour or two to that every once in a while. I think she's well on the way to sleeping through the night. She also has a blocked tear duct but that should just work itself out sometime in the next 9 months so we're hoping sooner than later. Other than that we've got nothing else to report.

Meeting Cousin Jenna

Grace got to meet her older cousin Jenna this weekend. Jenna was born on March 7th so her and her mom Yvonne weren't able to make it down to the hospital to visit Grace. Yvonne provided the matching outfits.

Grandma Ahrens with her baby grand daughters!

Congrats Grad!

Matt's sister graduated from the U of I this weekend so his whole family was in town celebrating. It was a little chaotic with 3 kids now but it was fun to see everyone. I missed the ceremony because I stayed home with Grace but Rachel didn't trip:) Anyway here are a couple good pictures.

Rachel with her parents, the one's who funded the college education. As my mom says the college education is her dowry:)

Siblings. Matt, Rachel and Jared

3 Weeks Old

I know I'm not going to be able to keep up posting every week for Grace but I really want to for at least the first 4-6 weeks of her life. Then it will probably be a little more random. Today was Grace's 3 week birthday and we celebrated by inviting Grandma to come visit for the day. It was nice to have company and my mom helped me work on a quilt I've been meaning to make for a friend who is having a baby soon. Grace is still doing wonderful. She has such a good temperament and I'm hoping that since she still has it at 3 weeks it is here to stay. Here are a few pictures of today and the last week...

Just got done with a bath and smelling nice.

My 3 week picture in the Boppy pillow.

There really is a baby in there. See her legs.

Our 1st Mother's Day

Today was our 1st Mother's Day and we had a great day. We took Grace to church and then stuck around for a potluck afterward for which the men prepared the food. This is the 2nd year Quest has done it and it is wonderful. It's just fun showing up and knowing that the women did nothing to plan or prepare for the great meal. There were lots of noodles, chili, and meat dishes in crockpots but that is right up my alley. One of the best treats was the best chocolate chip cookies in the world that Eric made and then he even gave us a bag full of leftovers! Yummy!

Then we came home and Matt played with Grace for a while so I was able to get in a 2 hour nap. It was wonderful. Here are a couple of pictures from our day...

Ready to leave for church

Trying to wake up from a nap. I really just took this picture to show off the cute Mother's Day shirt.

2 Weeks Old

5/6/09 - 2 Weeks Old

I thought I would put up a picture I took of Grace today at 2 weeks old. She is already changing so much. To celebrate her 2 week birthday today was our first day without Daddy, my mom, or any visitors. It went really well. Grace had her first diaper blowout, tried Poly-Vi-Sol (vitamin supplement) without much success, took a few good naps, went through a couple bibs, and went for a long walk with Mommy. I'm pooped right now and should be resting while Grace naps for another 30 minutes but I wanted to blog instead. I'm thankful for a friend from college who offered to bring over dinner tonight (she's pregnant with twins due in July and moving into a new house tomorrow so I'm not sure who deserves to have dinner delivered but we're thankful for her generosity). Tonight I think we are going to attempt Grace's first real bath. Her cord stump fell off last Thurs. but I still have been giving her sponge baths. So we'll see how she does with a bath tonight.