Anniversary Celebrations

On July 29, Gary and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary!  Gary took the day off from work and we spent the day visiting Eliza's future day care provider (she starts Aug. 15) and the pediatrician for Eliza's 2-month well child visit.  I'll give a full update on the 3rd in Eliza's two month post, but she's quite the string bean!  At the appointment, Eliza got her first major round of immunizations.  That was rough.  She got stuck in both thighs and had to drink a vaccine as well.  She hated it and screamed and cried.  Mommy cried, too.

Eliza has never cried that hard before, and it was so difficult to experience.  :(  There's a huge tear on her cheek in that picture.  Poor poor baby.  We had a bottle ready to go though, and were thankfully able to calm her completely down in about 5-10 minutes.  She wasn't too cranky the rest of the day, but we did give her a small dose of baby tylenol at the pediatrician's suggestion.

Later that night, Eliza went to visit with cousins Amanda, Quinn, & baby Gia and Aunt Jill while Daddy and Mommy went to Ruth's Chris for an anniversary dinner.  We stuffed ourselves and had a great date!  At the end, we enjoyed complimentary chocolate-covered strawberries and champagne.

Today, Grandpa and Granna Troutman are visiting to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary!  We went to Harry & Izzy's for lunch.  All but Eliza and I enjoyed the famous St. Elmo's shrimp cocktail.  We all stuffed ourselves again!  Mom and Dad (Granna and Grandpa) received a free dessert for their milestone.  We visited Nordstrom's for a quick look and the men kept Eliza entertained.

It's been a fun-filled weekend!

First Pool Trip

On Monday of this week, Granna, Jeralyn, and Karman & Alyssa came to visit.  We played at the house, went out to lunch and dinner, and played at the pool.  Eliza had never been to the pool (and to be honest, she really hasn't been outside much given the rain in June and the 90+ temps in July).  We went in the evening, so while it was still hot, it wasn't too bad.

Eliza looked so cute in her swim suit!

She dipped her toes in the pool and liked it!

So did Daddy.

Then we put in the bouncy seat under her sun shade!

It was a fun-filled and busy day!

hand-me-downs

Where Eliza sleeps,

is where her mommy used to sleep!

I'm 7 Weeks Old!

As promised, here is our 7 week old update.  We have several pictures to share!  Eliza and I have a bit cabin fever, so last night we met cousins Amanda, Quinn, and baby (and sure-to-be bff) Gia, and Aunt Jill for dinner in Carmel at Pizzology.  We love Pizzology and it's Naples-style brick oven pizza.  Everything we've had there--3 kinds of pizza, the mussels, breadsticks, and salad--have been fantastic.  It was also a fun excuse to dress Eliza up.

As for updates, Eliza is getting good at holding up her head (we'll get a video soon). She is also so smiley!  We love being greeted by her gummy grins each morning.  And Gary loves to be welcomed home from work, too.  Last night, Eliza slept for almost 6 hours in a row!  That was really great and we hope it's a sign of things to come.  Just the night before she awoke every 3 hours like clockwork.  She's still eating well and only breastmilk.

We've learned we need to limit the amount of time we are away from home.  When we start going over 2 hours away, Eliza has incredibly fussy evenings/nights--whenever we get home.  It isn't fun for us or her, as we all just get sad and tired.

We can't believe she's nearly 2 months old!!

Daddy and Mommy picked out this dress before I was born!

Practicing sitting up

Mommy and Daddy thought I'd look cute in shoes.  I do, but I kicked them off right away!

I love my pretty outfit with lace!

Smiling at Daddy after work!

More videos, yay!

I went a little crazy with the video-mode on my digital camera.  Taking nearly 10 videos of a 3-5 minute time period is what happens when alone with the cutest baby ever.  :)  I'm just uploading two of those, though!

And, since this video thing is working now (knock on wood) here is an oldie but goodie!   

We've come a long way since the hospital!  Today Eliza is 7 weeks and a special 7 week update post is coming later today.

Second video attempt

I hope this works!  Now that Eliza is getting older she is starting to enjoy her bouncy seat!  She stared and stared at the toys hanging over it this morning.  She'll also stare at her toys in the activity play mat.  It's so neat to see her version of play!

6 Weeks Old!

Today, Eliza napped, ate, sat in her bouncy chair, and had a bath.  She's all dressed up now and ready to run errands with Daddy and Mommy!

Yesterday, we met Daddy and friends for lunch at Potbelly on the Circle downtown.  It was fun!  We then went to the Statehouse to visit the Supreme Court again.  

Headband fail--she was asleep though, and didn't notice!

Waiting on sandwiches

Posing at the Rotunda

In Mommy's office!

Holy Cuteness, Batman!

Just look at this girl:

Just hanging out.

I love snuggling with Uncle Adam.

I'm smiling now!

Oooh, I like these bright colors!

I may look like a baby doll, but I'm all real.

yummmm.

How you doin'?

All dressed up with Daddy!

Look at my big eyes!

Hi!  I promise I have more hair than this bad lighting shows!

We're biased, of course, but Eliza might just be the cutest baby ever.

I'm five weeks old!

And still not so sure about the bouncy seat! 

1 Month Well Visit

As promised here are Eliza's stats from her 1 month well-child visit with our amazing pediatrician this morning!

Weight: 9lbs 0oz
Length: 21 1/4 in
Head circumference: 38.4cm

According to babycenter.com's online calculator, Eliza is in the 25th percentile for weight and length, but between the 50th and 75th percentile for head size (thanks for that, Daddy!).  So our girl is still a little one!  We go back in one month and she'll get some immunizations then.

Here is our sweet girl after the appointment:

This morning was the first time we had to wake up, shower, get the baby ready, and be out of the house fairly early--our goal was to leave around 9:10 to get to our 9:30 appointment---we didn't leave until after 9:30!  oops!  We now know hat we need about 1.5hours to get ourselves and baby ready, if we bathe.  The Dr. office didn't care, thankfully!  They don't expect new parents to be on time.  :)

Independence Day

Happy Fourth of July!  We're very thankful to be Americans and are so thankful for our armed forces who fight to maintain our freedom.  Especially Gary's big brother, Bill, whose family is stationed in England for the next couple years.  Bill goes on his third tour to Afghanistan later this summer/fall.

We enjoyed Eliza's first Fourth of July by attending a family cookout at my cousin's house.  Several family members were there and we had a great time!

edited 7/5: added new pictures!

Eliza is 1 Month Old!

Really?!  yes, really!  Today is July 3, 2011.  One month ago at 3:25am Eliza was born!  We can't believe she's this old already--to us she seems so big and grown up even though in reality she's so little and doesn't do much.  :)  As a present to us, Eliza smiled several times for both Mommy and Daddy this morning on separate occasions!!!

Yesterday Eliza had her first shopping trip to the Fashion Mall and Babies R Us.  I almost got a picture, but she started to cry and we wanted to fix that as quickly as possible.  Thus, no picture.  But, we did get a cute North Face t-shirt for her to commemorate the trip!  She was great and mostly alert during dinner at P.F. Chang's, and several of the workers came by to see the cute 4-week old baby.  :)  By the time we got to Marsh for groceries, we picked up our pace as the evening fussiness was setting in!  All in all, it was a fun outing and Eliza did wonderful.

We did our first monthly photo shoot of the next year this morning.  Thanks to Aunt Alissa, we have cute monthly stickers for this purpose.  On the 3rd of every month we'll put Eliza in a onesie with sticker, and we'll snap away!  We went a little overboard today and I'm excited to share just a few pictures of Eliza's cuteness!

Diaper baby!

Thanks, Melanie, for the personalzied onesie!

No more pictures, please!

Aw, man, stop kissing me!  

That's better :)

Seriously, mom, no more pictures!

Thinking baby.

Eliza loves her swing

I plan to do a stats update of Eliza's growth and development each month, much like my pregnancy updates.  However, I don't know her weight or length at the moment.  We go to Eliza's one-month well child visit this Wednesday, and I'll do my update then!  

In the meantime, just know that Eliza is usually a quiet baby with several alert periods each day.  She usually eats about 3 oz every 3-4 hours and we give her bottles of breastmilk.  Eliza sleeps heavily during the late morning, not so much late night--like between 10pm-2am.  But, when she does sleep at night, it's between 3-4 hours (like last night she slept between 2am-6am).  This week we're going to start instituting a nighttime routine.

Most importantly, Eliza has made this last month of our lives fuller than we could have ever imagined.  We're so lucky to be her Mommy and Daddy!