She loves to smile now....

I caught the tail-end of a smile...


But here's the real one :)

Meeting Grandma Gail...

Last night we drove down to Milwaukee to pick up Gail, who had flown into the airport down there. It was kind of funny; Kate was really hungry, so I found (what I thought was) a secluded spot to nurse her, while Dan went down to the baggage claim to find Gail. But as I was feeding Kate, five or six people decided that they wanted to peer out of the window that was right in front of me. And they would not leave, even though Kate kept latching off and I was trying to get her to latch on again since I could tell she was hungry; not exactly the easiest thing to do! And when several people are right in front of you, it makes it that much more difficult. Why, when there are plenty of other windows to peer out of, do people think it's necessary to peer out the one window that is right in front of me? ;)


On the way to meet Grandma Gail





Today for my birthday, Dan took me to the Blue Marlin, which is this really good restaurant downtown. I ordered the lobster, but I misread the menu; I thought it was lobster tail. Ummm, nope. They brought out a whole lobster, much to my dismay. I even told Dan, "It has eyes!" I was so disturbed, so I told Dan to get the meat out of it so I could eat it. Unfortunately, aesthetics aside, it tasted horrible. It was spongy, rubbery and completely overcooked. Luckily the waitress was good about taking it back, and I got the crab legs instead, which were very good (I had those on my birthday last year too). Dan had cashew-crusted Norwegian salmon, which was excellent, so overall it was a really good meal. Gail stayed home with Kate while we were gone, and she said she was so well-behaved; I'm so glad! Gail also made me a delicious orange chiffon cake for my birthday; I'm lucky to have such a great mother-in-law!


The beautiful flowers that my mom sent me; I absolutely love them! (Notice in the background our Valentine's house that Dan and I made on Valentine's Day; we had a gingerbread house kit, but we never got around to making a gingerbread house around Christmas, so we decided to make a Valentine's house instead.)






My first birthday as a mom! Our little family...


After Dan and I got home from the Blue Marlin, we watched our Netflix movie, Up in the Air. Little Kate fell asleep on Grandma as we were watching. :)

One month old today!

I can't believe it's been one month since Kate was born! It's 3:30 right now as I write this post, and exactly one month ago at this time, I was just finishing up some work so we could go to our 5:00 appointment at the birth center. Who knew that just 8 1/2 hours later I'd have a beautiful baby girl?





She still seems so little to me (and she is!) but look how she's grown and changed compared to this newborn picture taken in the birth center!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We had a nice St. Patty's Day--Kate's first! It was very low-key; we just made some corned beef at home and hung out with Kate. It was fun!


Decked out in our green outfits, although Kate's hand is covering her face! She was sleeping and stretching (which she does a LOT; she stretches so much when she sleeps and grunts as she's doing it; she's a very loud sleeper!)




We had to go to Target to get diapers, and when we got home she was sleeping so peacefully in her infant carrier that we didn't want to get her out. So we let her sleep for another half hour or so in there.


During the day, if I have work to do on my laptop, she often just lies by me on the couch; she looks so peaceful. :)


Isn't she cute? I may be biased, but I think she is just adorable!

Yet more pictures...

Tonight we went to Red Robin with Kate; below are two photos of her sitting in her car seat, waiting for us to get ready to go. We always get comments in public about how good and calm she is, and she is--in restaurants/other public places! Our house at 2 am? Well, that's a somewhat different story.... ;)

We went to our first post-partum appointment with the midwife on Wednesday, and she's gained some more weight; she's up to 7 lbs 12 oz, a whole pound up from her birth weight! She still seems so tiny to me, though :)


All decked out in her St. Patrick's Day onesie; I want her to get as much wear out of it as possible, so I figure the whole month of March is fair game for her to wear it! :)

More pics

Some more Kate pictures...


I got this outfit on sale at babies r us for seven dollars; the little sheep on the shirt says "Hug me."



My mom gave her this outfit; I think it looks so cute on her!

Two weeks old!

I can't believe Kate is already two weeks old! How time has flown. :) She still basically just eats and sleeps, but she is a lot more alert now, and she is even smiling a bit (although I don't know if she knows that she is smiling).


I got this bear for our baby shower, and Brenda (the woman who gave it to us) said we should take a picture of the baby by it every month for the first year, so we can see how she is growing. Here she is at two weeks and one day, in her St. Patty's Day outfit from Grandma Patty (how appropriate, haha).




She is so darn cute when she sleeps.


I love how she scrunches her little feet up when she sleeps sometimes; she'll lay like that for hours.