1 Month old!

Our baby girl Elliana is 1 month old (yesterday)!  I know that people always say that the time flies and they grow so fast, but man they weren't exaggerating!  I really can't believe it's been a month since I've given birth.  (I still haven't written down my birth story and still do plan to do that)  The first two weeks after she was born were really a blur for me, not sure about Michael, and then the 3rd week my mom was here with us, which always goes by too fast, and then last week was kind of another blur again trying to figure things out on my own every day.

I really had no idea how demanding a little tiny person could be!  I mean, I knew she'd need to eat often, every couple of hours, and that I wouldn't get much sleep, but I guess I just wasn't prepared for exactly how little else I would be able to do during those few non-feeding moments, especially the first couple of weeks, and the feeling of being a human feeding machine--though I am happy that I can feed her conveniently what she needs (after a LOT of work to get that going well).  Although she was sleeping more the first couple weeks, mostly just waking up to eat, now she's up more during the day (sometimes MUCH too long! she really fights going to sleep during the day), but she does still sleep pretty well at night--3 to 4 hour increments (which is amazing after getting only 45 minutes between feedings the first week and then 1 or 2 hrs of sleep at a time the next week).

Being a mother is really an amazing blessing, but MAN is it hard work!!  I honestly feel like I haven't spent a lot of time sitting and reflecting on it because I barely have time to catch my breath sometimes.  It can be so very frustrating when she is screaming and crying and we have no idea how to get her to fall asleep because she is overtired, but it is all worth it once she finally goes to sleep and is just a peaceful little angel.  :)

Sometimes I still can't believe that Michael and I are parents and that we somehow produced this amazingly adorable little girl!  We have been given an awesome gift and responsibility by God and every day I try to remember to thank Him for it as well as ask for wisdom to be able to raise her well, and I pray for her to come to know Him one day.  Every day I talk to Elliana and I try to remember to tell her about Jesus and that one day she will get to know him and that is why she is here.  It is something that is very easy to forget to do with all of the chaos that goes on right now, but I hope that when she is older, she will remember Michael and I telling her about Jesus and bringing her up to know her Savior.

Here are some photos I took yesterday of her.  I made a little 1 month sign to put on her shirt but it was too big so I just had to kind of set it on her.  You can also see she lost the pants after getting frustrated and taking a break from photos for a while.

These first two were from a shot I was taking

 to say Happy Birthday to my mom.

   

 

Sort of holding up the sign!

Here she is at 6 days old with the bunny                      

(it is 19 inches, just slightly longer than                      

she was at birth--18.9 inches)                                       

Now she is longer than the bunny!! 

 I tried to measure her with my tape 

and estimated 20.5 inches.

I thought maybe I could get some cute shots of her sleeping but she did not nap at ALL yesterday!  She's going through a growth spurt because the past few days she has been eating increasingly often, from every 3 hrs normally to 2 and then the past couple of days every hour or less and refusing to go to sleep besides the times that she falls asleep while she is eating.  That is exhausting and sort of puts me into this Twilight Zone kind of feeling, like it's never going to end and all that will ever happen is she will eat and cry!  Its amazing what kinds of things run through your head and you start to believe when you are sleep-deprived and listening to a baby cry.

Today was already getting better, praise God!  She is still eating a lot but not quite every hour, and she actually fell asleep for a couple of hours when I put her in the Ergo carrier, which was a huge relief because I could actually walk around the house and do some picking up, drying my hair, etc.  I am hoping that this is a magic cure for us. :)

Well, a fun milestone just happened today--Elliana has realized that she can grab things with her hands!!  We gave her a bath and we usually get the little washcloth wet and lay it on her chest to keep her warm, and she grabbed the washcloth in her hand and would not let go! Then, Michael put her on her playmat and she started kicking and grabbing for the different hanging toys on the play mat.  It's amazing what she can do it a matter of days!

Here are some photos of her on the playmat:

 Here is a video of her on the playmat, and hitting things with her hands!

She can also lift her head and turn it from facing one direction to the opposite when she is laying on her tummy.  She has done it a few times but when I tried to actually video it, she got tired and gave up. :)

I guess that's all for now!  Can't wait to see what the next month holds. :)

--Leslie

Happy Easter!

I knew that Elliana would be born sometime before Easter, so I had been planning to get her all dressed up and take her to church on Easter Sunday.  We got a really pretty dress at a baby shower from my friend Julie that I thought we would use for an Easter dress, however Elliana is so small that she doesn't quite fit into the 0-3 month clothes yet.  She fits best into the Newborn outfits (and could probably wear preemie clothes too!) right now, but hopefully soon she will be fitting into the next size.  Anyway, when I was home at Christmas we looked through a box of baby clothes that my parents saved from all three of us kids, and I found one of my favorite dresses that I wore as a baby (I used to dress my Cabbage Patch doll us in it too), so I brought it back to put on her.  She wore it home from the hospital and we also decided to dress her in it for Easter.  Here is the dress that we took photos with during our maternity photo shoot.

 I was a little worried about the timing on Sunday, that we would not make it to church in time (it usually takes us about 45 minutes to drive to church, with little traffic, and longer on the way home) or that Elliana would wail and cry and just make it a miserable trip.  However, God saw it fit to make it a smooth morning!  Actually, we ended up leaving 40 minutes later than we had planned, but we ended up with no traffic and only being 10 minutes late to church!  Elliana did well sleeping in her carseat for most of the service but woke up about 30 minutes before the end of the service and wanted to eat, so I took her to the nursery to feed her.  I got to meet several other moms, which was kind of nice.  I also met another little baby named Eliana who is about 2 1/2 months old.  :)  We discussed the fact that we did not think it was a very common name when we chose it, but now we keep hearing about more of them.

We forgot to take a photo at church, but we did go to lunch afterwards with our friend and co-worker Clare, and had yummy Thai food, so we got a few photos at the restaurant.

Happy and pretty girl getting her diaper changed!

We met this lady and her daughter on the street who were handing out these little tiny baskets with an egg in them for Easter, I think advertising their church.  So, since we didn't have an Easter basket for Elliana, we tried to get some photos with them and her...they didn't turn out quite like I was hoping. haha

She's like--what are you guys doing to me?

This is kind of fun!

I'm adorable!  And yes, Mommy Loves Me! 

The day that I went into labor, by BFF Amber sent me a package in the mail with a little newborn outfit that said "My First Easter"--so sweet.  I was really excited to put it on Elliana and take photos, and then we were actually able to use it when the photographer, Heather, came on Saturday, the day before Easter!  We got some photos of her in a basket, with a homemade blanket we got as a gift from some friends of Michael's family, which I thought turned out pretty cute. :)   Here is a link to Heather's website to give credit to her for these photos.  http://heathermeinen.com/

Thanks, Auntie Amber for the cute outfit!!

All in all, it was a great first Easter with our new little family!  And most importantly, remembering the amazing sacrifice that Jesus made for us by taking our sins to the cross and raising again so that we can have life and have it more abundantly, is the greatest gift we could ever be given.  Praise God!

Grandma comes to visit!

When we found out I was pregnant, my mom, Karen, started making plans to come visit us in Korea to get to meet her first grandchild.  Since my due date was March 18, we decided it would be best for her to come two weeks later, in case I was overdue (the natural birthing center won't induce until you are at least 42 weeks!) to not chance her coming and missing out on the baby.  Plus, Michael would have 5 days of paternity leave and then the last week of March was our school's spring break, so if she came on time, we'd have two weeks at home with Michael and then my mom would come and be here the next week when he'd have to go back to work.  Of course, Elliana could have come early, but thankfully she came right on time, just one day before the official due date!  So the timing could not have been better.  And I actually honestly was glad that she was waiting to come and wouldn't be here for the birth (well, I mean if she lived here I would have been happy for her to be around but since she only had 9 days, we had to pick a good time)--just because I really just wanted to have time with Michael and Elliana and just be a family, without anyone else being around, so we could have some time to bond as a family, adjust, and figure things out for our little family on our own.  Plus, I thought that if my mom was going to travel across the world to be here, we could at least let her wait until we were a little more settled and sort of getting the hang of things so we could actually enjoy the time we had together and maybe my mom could actually get a little sleep at night. :)

Well, the timing was seriously perfect!  Mom got in to Incheon airport on Sunday night.  We borrowed a school car and drove to pick her up (our car is really small and there would be no space for the luggage that she was bringing--she was bringing us a duffel bag of stuff and a piece of art for Elliana's room). 

 Snug in her carseat on the way to the airport.

With Mommy.

With Daddy.

Sleeping peacefully waiting for Grandma.

 We had Elliana all ready so that when Grandma walked through the exit of the terminal at the airport, we could just hand her over. :)

I think this was Grandma saying, "oh my goodness!  You are so small!" :)

 Grandma is in love!

We had a great week together.  Mom picked up where Michael had left off...changing diapers, sometimes multiple times before I would feed Elliana (she was in the habit of pooping about 3 times in a row, over a span of about 10 minutes, so as soon as you'd get a new diaper on her she'd need another one!)...

Look at that happy face!  Elliana loved Grandma!

..burping her afterwards for me, changing her again afterward since she poops before, during, and after eating (haha)...entertaining her while I showered and/or ate breakfast, and just talking and snuggling with her as much as she could.  Grandma was really great at calming Elliana if she got upset or worked up.  They really got to bond, spending lots of time together on the couch! 

Grandma talking with Elliana.

Cuddling together.

Sleeping on the couch while Mommy stayed up late 

one night trying to finish a big project for work.

Burping her.

 One of Elliana's favorite things to do with Grandma was to lay on her tummy on Grandma's lap!  This would always calm her down and relax her.  I am still trying to get her to do it with me...but it just isn't the same. :)

Happy Grandma!

 

While my mom was here, we had a visit from our doula, Lisa, checking in to see how things were going.  Another doula who works with Lisa and was also at our birth, Donna, came with her.  It was nice to get to introduce my mom to the people who helped me through my labor and childbirth!  My mom was really thankful for Lisa helping to bring her granddaughter into the world!

Lisa stamped Elliana's feet in the baby book for us 

since they didn't do it at the birthing center.

Donna, Lisa, me and Elliana

 Then, our good friend Ji Yun came over to spend some time with us on Thursday evening.  She brought us Papa John's pizza and some homemade lemon shortbread (YUM!) and hung out with us for a bit.  She had met my mom and hung out with us two years ago when my mom came to visit us in the summer time and we went shopping together and stuff, and she was excited to see my mom again, as my mom was to see her!  Ji Yun is seriously the most awesome person on the planet. :)  Here are some photos that she and I took that night.

Happy Elliana!

 

Okay, so Ji Yun has this fear of babies that are not Korean. :) She normally thinks they look like aliens and is afraid to go near them until they are like a year old...but she somehow decided that Elliana does not look like an alien with huge eyes and she wasn't scared of her!  So, Michael decided to just put Elliana in Ji Yun's arms, and she didn't freak out!!  She was nervous, but she did great.  We were so proud of her. haha

What do I do??

Hanging with Grandma again.

Resting with Daddy.

Comparing the baby girl's tiny size to a 1.25 liter bottle of Coke!

Bouncing on the ball with Mommy.

Sleeping beauty.

We love you, Ji Yun!

 

We had a really great 9 days with my mom here.  She and I got out a few times to do some grocery shopping, went to Costco, took Elliana to the doctor because her belly button wasn't looking good, and took her up to school to meet Daddy one day so he could show her off.  She cooked for us and helped us freeze a bunch of food, and baked around 8 dozen cookies for my sweet tooth cravings!!  We Skyped one morning with Grandpa, Great Grammy, and Uncle Andy & Aunt Serena in San Diego.  We also took Elliana to church for the first time on Easter Sunday, which we honestly probably wouldn't have ventured out if Mom hadn't have been here (we drive about 30-45 minutes to Seoul for church, without traffic).   We also had the same photographer who took our maternity photos come over and take some newborn photos for us, which I'll share in another post.

On Monday, the sad time came for Grandma to leave.  Here are a few photos of the last times hanging out at home before we left for the airport.

I drove us to the airport and my coworker, Michelle,  joined us so that I wouldn't have to drive back by myself with the baby (Michael had to work).  I'm thankful she came along because I honestly had no idea that I would be so emotional saying goodbye to my mom!  She saved me from having a breakdown on the way home because I had someone to talk to about things.  Then after I got home, I just cried and cried. 

 I love my mom so much and I am so thankful she was able to come out and spend a little time with us.  It was just really good to have her here, not only to help us out, but also to just see an experienced mother to model how to take good care of a baby.  She was so calm all the time, even if Elliana was fussy, and she interacted with her so well--she was just a great model for us to have here at the right time.

Thanks, Mom/Grandma, for coming to visit us!  We love you and can't wait to see you again this summer!

Here's one last photo of Grandma and Elliana...I think Elliana had been crying, but its still a cute photo.