5 months old!

Elliana was 5 months old on August 17.  I can't believe how quickly it is going by!  She is such a joy to our lives.  She's such a happy, smiley girl and she loves everyone and pretty much everything around her. At 5 months she is 6 kgs/13 lbs, 61cm/24 inches.  She is petite but keeps growing well along her growth curve at the 25th percentile.

Here are some photos from her 5 month "photo shoot."  I took a few different ones because I tried making a 5 from some cute paper but it didn't last long enough for our trip outdoors, so I printed another one from online. :)

Such a sweet girl.

She loves sucking these two fingers!

Getting a lot bigger than the bunny!!

She's interacting with the bunny now. :)

This beautiful face melts my heart!

Loves playing with her feet.  These adorable little kimono slippers came from Auntie Chris...they are newborn size and still fit her little feet!!

Inspecting the blanket beneath her...working on sitting up but still leaning forward. :)

Spitting bubbles!!

Ooh, this green stuff looks fun!

Mommy adores Elliana!

Elliana LOVES her daddy's shoulders...

one of her favorite places to be. :)

We love our baby girl!!

Elliana's First Day!

Today was our first official day back at work...meetings and such before school starts a week from today.  So, today was Elliana's first day at the ELC...early learning center, on campus.  It is the daycare that our school provides for children of faculty members for free!  Such an amazing benefit!  All of the ladies that work there are very sweet and this year there are already 7 babies in the baby room, under 2 yrs old!  By the end of the school year there will be 11!!  Oh my!  It is a baby boom here at GSIS. :)  But I think it's going to be a lot of fun having all those babies around.

So, I thought I would have a hard time dropping Elliana off at the ELC but it went pretty well.  We took her in a little after 8.  Here are a couple of photos from this morning!

With the ELC teachers:

Mrs. Lee, Mrs. Jung, Allie, and Mrs. Moore

Elliana seemed to have a good first day.  Luckily my day was not too stressful so I went over during my morning break to check on her and was able to nurse her and she went to sleep.  Then Michael went to get her at lunch time and she was still sleeping!  After lunch I went back, fed her again, and then she was awake for a couple of hours and then napped for an hour until we picked her up!  She never naps this much at home!  I think she is still jet-lagged and she also got a shot yesterday which sometimes makes her sleepy.  I am just thankful I didn't have to pump at all today because she ate every time I went to see her!  Soo much easier. :)  Hopefully that will be more of the norm!  We'll see how the rest of the week goes!!

Months 2, 3, and 4 photos!

Here are some photos of Elliana from her 2, 3, and 4 month old photo shoots!  I've fallen behind in my blogging over the summer but plan to restart it and try to keep it up during this school year, so our families can keep up with all things Elliana. :)

2 months:

3 months (in Arkansas):

4 months (in San Diego):

You can see I forgot to bring the bunny rabbit to the US with us over the summer so we missed the photo op for two months.  Oh well!  Our little girl is just growing and growing (though she is still small)!  At her checkup/shots yesterday she was 4 months 2 weeks old and was 12 lbs 13 oz.  She has officially doubled her birth weight!

My First Mother's Day

I was really looking forward to Mother's Day when I realized on Wednesday that it was coming up in a few days!  I knew that Michael would be planning something, and of course he told me he was planning something on Friday I think.  So I was looking forward to a nice day with my family celebrating the blessing of being a new mom.  Then on Saturday night I started feeling really tired and dizzy around 8 pm and felt like I was running a fever, so I took my temp (100.4) and decided to take some tylenol and go to bed...hoping and praying I'd feel better the next time I woke up and really hoping that it wasn't mastitis again (I had it 3 weeks earlier and you also have flu-like symptoms with that), and that I would really prefer the flu to that.  Well, I fed Elliana a few more times before I went to sleep about 10...woke up about 4 and it was definitely the flu.  I have never had such painful body aches in my entire life--I think every cm of my body was sore and achy, and I could hardly move or get out of bed.  My shoulders especially and neck were killing me, so Michael had to bring Elliana to me so I could feed her because I really couldn't even lift her up (and she's still a little thing!--maybe 9 lbs or so by now? not sure...we go back to the doc next week I think).  Anyway, I was feeling pretty miserable. 

Michael had decided on Saturday night to go ahead and give me Elliana's present to me when I started feeling sick...he said she told him she wanted me to have some really comfy pajamas, so I put them on Saturday night (and am still in them on Monday morning!  haha--eww?  need to do some laundry today).  He also had decided that for Mother's Day this year he just wanted to pamper me and take care of me, make me feel special and get to relax.

When I got up again later on Sunday morning to feed Elliana again, he made me breakfast in bed.  It was so cute and yummy!  Mini pancakes with syrup and fresh cherries on top, a Starbucks mocha frappuccino, and two cards...he even held Elliana's hand while signing her name to the envelope. :)  So sweet.  Definitely a great way to start an otherwise miserable day.

 

The morning was a combination of feeding and resting, whenever I wasn't  nursing Elliana he would take her for me and entertain her.  Then around lunchtime she wanted to nurse again so it was the perfect time for him to make lunch.  His original idea had been to make lunch and have a picnic on the rooftop of our apartment (they are really pretty all decorated with lovely flowers and a great view!)...however, it ended up being "lunch in bed" as well.  I was just miserable and could barely move, but it hurt to lay on my body too.  Just no fun.  So here is what he made me for lunch.  It was delectable!  Whole wheat pasta with broccoli and tomatoes over a thin cut of steak, with the tastiest butter-olive oil-soy sauce-vinaigrette.  I can't describe how yummy it actually tasted!  Oh man, I was in heaven (I have cut back on meat for health reasons and only a couple weeks ago had a steak for the first time in maybe 9 months--and I am a huge fan of steak)--and really enjoyed eating that steak.

 

Then, in the afternoon, we were both sooo tired.  We kept trying to get Elliana to go down for a nap after each feeding but every time she was not having it.  She was just awake!  Until about 4:00 she finally napped for a good two hours!  She fell asleep on me and I just sat up with her on my chest because I thought we could at least both rest that way.  She ended up letting me put her in her rocking sleeper and we all three napped during the afternoon.  Michael got up before she did and started cooking dinner, which he was so proud of and I was just amazed by (you can tell he likes to cook :)!  Look at how beautiful the presentation is!!

 

It was (another!) steak, this time cooked in an amazing red wine sauce with mushrooms, onions, and tomatoes and fresh grilled asparagus on top. Doesn't it look worthy of being served in a restaurant?  Man, my husband has mad cooking skills.  :)  You can thank both of his parents for that, plus Jamie Oliver and all of the other cooking shows he likes to watch. hehe

 

 I think I've gotten my quota of beef now for the next few weeks/months. :)

For dessert, a little Haagen Dazs ice cream.

Here is a horrible picture of me in bed in my new pajamas and Elliana looking rather uncomfortable.  This was Monday morning when I was starting to feel a little better than the day before.

All in all, it was a great first Mother's Day, even though I was feeling pretty horrible.  I am so thankful for Michael who takes care of me, and now our daughter too, when I am sick.   Its really tough being sick when you are a mom!!  Man.  

Also wanted to wish all other Mothers a great day.  I'm very thankful for my mom, my grandmothers, and my mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law.  I have wonderful women in my life who have set an example for me and are lovely, nurturing women.  I certainly appreciate my mom so much more now that I've become a mother and realize how much work it really is!!

Here are a few photos of Elliana in her dress that she would have worn to church if I hadn't been sick and we had made it.  We sent them to our mothers too. :)  She is getting so much bigger!!  She was 8 weeks old on Saturday.  This Thursday she will be 2 months already--I can't believe it!