p, m, m, a, & p2

-She's a little under 12 lbs and she is 21 inches long... fitting into 0-3 month tops and newborn bottoms. She's a shortie just like her mama!
-She's loving bathtime (as long as we keep it nice and short so she doesn't get cold)
-She eats 4-5 ounces every 3-5 hours, but the couple of feedings before bed tend to be more 6 ounces (we always have to make another bottle!)
-Smiles a lot in the morning (especially when she is naked or being changed... punk) and talks/coos a lot in the evening
-Liking belly time more and more... getting stronger all the time!
-Has a fascination with ceiling fans
-We are down to one feeding a night! Between 3 and 4am... then she gets up about 7, 730... I don't consider that "night" anymore, sadly!
-Straightens her legs and holds herself up when we practice standing
-Everywhere we go people stop us to tell us how beautiful she is!

Well we are finally in Canton after a nightmare-ish 17 hour drive... never ever ever again will we do it all in one day. Maya was great-I just have insane anxiety when it comes to trips so when it came time to (try and) sleep last night my stomach was still literally turning. I was psychotic, I will admit to it, I am just thankful I have a husband who puts up with me. Here are a few shots from our journey though:

Well we're about to see how good of a traveler Maya is-we'll be taking the 14-ish hour ride home tomorrow. Note that it is 73 degrees here right now and I have all the windows open, and at home there is a major dumpage of snow. Joy. I love snow but am rather terrified of driving in it, so this should be fun.

I've gotten nothing done today. Maya's been a pill the past 2 days, and though she's at the tail end of her cold I think it's because she's about to go up to 6 ounces of formula. She did this right before she moved up to 5. She won't fully finish a bottle (usually only 4 ounces, sometimes she'll finish 5 though and want more) and then 2 hours later she's wailing for more. If she does this tomorrow we'll never get home.

Also, today has been the prime example of why it's a good thing I am pushy and get my way when things go wrong. If you remember awhile back when I had the issue with my car tires and then got a $250 credit from Honda... well it came in handy. I sent Patrick up to the dealership (last minute, oops) to get our oil changed, new wiper blades, and to get the tires rotated... surprise, the back tires were bald (one of them was an original from when we got the car and the other was when the one blew on our way home from MI last year-so it had a good 18,000 or so miles on it... short life if you ask me, but whatever). So we got everything done and 2 new tires for only $41-if we hadn't had that credit though, let me tell you what, our trip would have not happened. I would NOT have driven baby girl home on those tires, and there's no way we would have been able to afford to pay ALL of that out of pocket. So-woohoo!

So Michigan, here we come... pray for safe travels, and I'm sure I'll post lots of pictures while we're there!

I'm allowed to be obsessed.

Well it's a week later, and Maya is still sick. We thought she was improving but then it took a turn for the bad again yesterday... her eyes have been really watery the whole time, but then yesterday the green goop started and I can't tell you how many washcloths I have gone through throughout yesterday and this morning cleaning her poor little eyes off. So... she's headed in for another appointment today at 3, poor little thing. She needs to get better fast... I'm already nervous for all of us, as we'll be heading home next week-the weather here is in the 70's and the weather at home is... um... about 60 degrees less so it will be a shock to our systems... lets hope we don't ALL get sick right before Patrick is about to deploy.

Even though she's still not feeling great, she has been a doll most of the time. I got some smiles so huge out of her when we were getting ready yesterday that I though she was going to start squealing:


And then last night we decided to take the "hammock" feature out of her bath and just put her in the regular part since she is getting so big (11lbs 5oz and 21 inches yesterday at an appointment we had! 10th percentile for her height... my little sweetie is taking after me!) ...she LOVED it!

Maya was baby Jesus at the church Christmas play on Sunday night. She was great! She was awake the entire time she was out there except for a few minutes where she was being sung to... you could see her pretty little eyes wide open and looking around at everything. I don't have but a couple of pictures because Patrick was backstage holding her before she went out there, and I was out in the congregation recording... but we do have a DVD of it!

Well. Since I'm a little obsessive about my baking stone, I was going to write a post about how I was so excited to get my new one (UPS brought it a couple of days ago) and celebrate by making Broccoli Cheese Braid (our fave) today. So I get out my camera and I was thinking oh goodness, I have SO much work to do... you can see, comparatively, how much just a year seasons it (imagine my Grandma's... she's had hers since the late '90's).


So I mix up the braid, put it all together, stick it in the oven... I'm doing the dishes and all of a sudden I hear a familiar POP... I opened up the oven door and sure enough, just what I thought, the stone had broken. There was still about 10 minutes to go on the braid so I just kept it in there and stuck a pan underneath it in case any pieces fell down, I mean there was no need to ruin our dinner... (its not burnt the picture is just dark.)


Brand new stone. I am so puzzled. I've cooked on them a million times before, so it can't be user error that two have broke in a row... I really think it might be my oven. My other one broke, then on Thanksgiving the heating element wire thing on the bottom of my oven got all freaky (the maintenance man changed it the next day) and then this one snaps. All of this in what, a two, three week period? I'm antsy for Monday to roll around so I can go talk to Larry... it's no secret that I hate my (OLD as dirt) oven, and now that TWO (not cheap) stones have broken something has to happen. I'm going to call Pampered Chef on Monday as well and explain what happened... hopefully they'll send me another replacement, but I'd understand if they wouldn't again-we'll have to see.

So... to be continued.

Maya had her first cold this week! It got to the point where she was throwing up a ton of moucus... I felt so so terribly bad! It started on Wednesday morning, when she woke me up at about 5am crying... she was coughing and swallowing a ton of sinus crap. So she and I cuddled up on the couch and slept a bit and progressively through the day things got worse-We got a humidifier, tried the saline drops and the nasal aspirator (which I was TERRIBLE at so it was pretty worthless) and then called the nurse advice line to see if we could get her an appointment (because I, of course, being overly psychotic, worried that it would turn into pneumonia or RSV or something). We went in Thursday afternoon, and the doc that we saw was awesome-he got SO much snot out, and she was a much happier camper! I learned how to properly nasally aspirate so it's not as traumatic for her now. Its taken a few days of lots of love and cuddles, and us sleeping on the couch, her sleeping (so she's sitting up) in her swing, but we're now on the upswing. Here's a few pictures of the poor little thing... she looked so terrible!

That's right, folks... Maya has hit the 11 pound mark (as measured by the visiting nurse)! She said that Maya looked great and right on track where she is supposed to be.

Here are just a few random shots we took today:

Apparently Grama's recipe for microwave peanut brittle was meant for a microwave with less wattage than my beautiful, brand new powerhouse. There goes my favorite mixing bowl...


Lets hope that was my only screw-up of the day!

Jeesh she's getting strong already! She can hold her head higher than this, but of course in the two seconds she'll practice before getting really mad I couldn't get a shot of it:

And then this is her sitting in Bradley's (her betrothed) Bumbo chair (I can't wait to get her one of her own! She was confused at first, but ended up loving it!):


And then here she is just being a sweetie peeking over her daddy's shoulder.

I know I'm a few days late but... with Grama here and a little one who hasn't let us sleep the past few nights, things have been a little hectic. Here's some shots of our day:

Wow... the past month has FLOWN! Everyone told me that once she arrived time would fast forward... and boy is that true. It has been the most wonderful month though!

Nicole, I'm sorry, I kind of "borrowed" your idea with the bear... and totally didn't do it as well as you do, but I thought it was so cute! There are a few shots I like, but Patrick and I can't find one to agree on... so, opinions please?




Other tidbits about my little sweetie:
-She's up to 5 ounces of formula... piggie piggie! Though we love her little rolls that she's getting-they are so cute.
-She continues to be an angel at night. I know a lot of people will completely hate me for this, but since she's been born we've had great luck with it. One night last week she was up till 1 and one night she was up till 4, but that was after a busy week with lots of visitors so she was a little off her schedule. Usually she goes to sleep between 8-10 and she's up for 2 feedings, and she wakes up between 5 (UGH) and 8am.
-Hates tummy time. HATES hates hates. We're working on that.
-Starting to smile more-it's so sweet! Especially the big gummy ones.
-She's grown out of a couple of newborn things-namely long sleeved Gerber onesies, because she got too tall for them-and is fitting into the smallest of her 0-3 month clothes. Mostly she's still in newborns though, but I'm guessing for not too much longer (I tried to measure her and I think she's about 21 inches now).
-LOVES watching Jepoardy and Wheel of Fortune with us every night.
-She's great in the bath till she has to get her hair washed (which has NOT fallen out at all-it's even grown a little longer in the back!)