Week #2

Things have settled into a nice, quiet routine around here. Luke went back to work on Tuesday, which was sad for all of us, but Allie and I are enjoying our days--and nights--up together. Right now, we tend to sleep through the morning, getting up around noon. Allie tends to be more awake after her naps, staying up for a good few hours before finally going back to sleep. I think we've got the basics down with feeding and changing diapers, but I'll admit, I have no idea how to entertain her while she's awake. We make funny faces and swing in the swing. We also do some tummy time, and she's getting very strong trying to hold up her head.

She's also got a range of faces when she's awake. Here are just a few of her expressions:

Some of her best faces are when she's lying on my chest, which makes it kinda hard to take a photo. My favorite is when she opens her eyes wide and wrinkles her forehead and her little mouth forms an "oh" like "oh my gosh! Look at all this amazing stuff to stare at!" Hopefully I can capture that in the next few days. The sad part is Allie's lost her sad cry. When she first arrived, she had this breathy little cry that she'd let out after a few screams. Now she's just got an angry, frustrated cry. We're both hoping that little cry makes a reappearance from time to time, because while heartbreaking, it's adorable.

Things have been pretty mellow around here. Last week, we took Allie to FotoFly for some newborn shots. It was her first adventure out of the house, and boy was it an adventure. FotoFly has a great setup, with three studios that have multiple walls of textures. When we came in, there were multiple babies waiting to get their first professional snapshots. Our photographer took us back and wanted to start with Allie curled up on her stomach on a bench. She was still asleep at this point in her car seat. I got her diaper off, and as soon as I picked her up, she immediately peed everywhere. I'm pretty sure she thought this was hilarious. About 4 people were suddenly in the room with paper towels and 409, so I think it's safe to say this kind of thing happens a lot.

Now that Allie Bear was awake, she was not real happy to be photographed. We fed her a little, and that calmed her down for a while. The great thing about FotoFly is that all the photographers are trained to deal with newborns, including how to soothe and calm them down. But even their best efforts don't always work. Allie pretty much cried through the majority of her photo shoot. The good news is we could hear another baby screaming in another studio, so again, comforting to know this probably happens a lot.

Thanks to Allie's crying, the photographer only got about two dozen shots in an hour. But wow. I'll let the photos speak for themselves:

We'll definitely be going back as she grows.

Monday we headed to Grandma's house for Katie's birthday celebration. And of course, Allie decided to sleep almost the entire time rather than show off her pretty little eyes.

That's about all the excitement so far. We're still loving getting to know this little girl. My favorite time of day is when we wake up in the morning. Allie and I will just lie in bed for a while waking up (after her feeding of course) and she'll just look around and smile. This is entertaining for hours :)

That's all for now!

Love, Cindy