Random Musings

As many of you know Nick and I decided (well mainly I decided and then he agreed) to use cloth diapers for Annabelle and everyone asks how it's going ... so far so good! Currently she is wearing Kissaluvs Size 0 diapers with Thirsties covers. Once she gets a little more meat on her we will switch to BumGenius 4.0.  I happen to think they look quite cute with her tiny feet and in Daddy's arms.

Thanks to a sling Annabelle enjoys being in the kitchen with me. Nick said I was more careful with my knife, so he enjoyed it too. He wouldn't like to take me to the ER again for trying to chop off my finger.

I'm starting to realize that Annabelle will soon be growing out of some of her clothes, so I'm on a mission to get a picture taken in ever outfit. So the new rule is diaper change = new outfit change. I'll work on posting the photos later, but so far this is my favorite:

In very exciting news, on June 5th - 6th Annabelle slept through the night!! 6 hours and 25 minutes to be exact. She slept more than I did only because I'm a night owl and stayed up to get some things done. When she woke me up in the morning I had to triple check the time to be sure. But unless I started sleep walking and can perfectly swaddle a baby during this sleep walk I think it's fair to say she did sleep though the night!

The other exciting event for June 6th was that Annabelle smiled and it was caught on video!

And in final exciting news Aunt Steph is on her way to Iowa to spend the summer with Annabelle ... she is looking out the window every moment awaiting her arrival ...

One Month

Plain and simple ... not quite sure how it happened, but on May 28th Annabelle turned one month old. 

Here are some pictures from her photo shoot.

Trying to be artistic.

For comparison next to her bear, next month we will work more on proper posture.

And now she's tired of all the photos and decides her bear is a comforting shoulder to lean on.

Annabelle attends a wedding.

Holy moly time does fly when you have a baby! Where did the entire month of May go? As of today Annabelle is 5.5 weeks old, Nick and I agree that we can't believe she's only that old.

Annabelle has had a busy 3 weeks since the last update, so to be fair we will break up the posts by major events.

On May 21st we attended the wedding of our dear friends Dave and Andrea Scott.

Nick was the best man and Melissa was the personal attendant. Thankfully Nick's mom and grandma attended the wedding also and took care of Annabelle during the day. The one thing I've never noticed before is the parents of babies always sit in the back and on the end of the pews at weddings, which now included Annabelle and I. Thankfully she was like this the entire wedding ceremony ...

And of course we had to take a family photo - courtesy of Annabelle's new friend Madeline's mom Jamie.

And here is a picture of the two girls and their mommies:

Annabelle enjoyed the wedding and dancing at the reception. But I think most of all she just loved being held by almost everyone in attendance and of course her pink dress!

Updates, updates, Updates!!

So it's been 18 days since Annabelle joined us and to say that we have learned a lot is an understatement, but more on that later.

Last Thursday at her two week appointment Annabelle weighed 8lb 4oz and was 20 3/4 inches long. So she's growing and despite all the questions we had for the doctor, the answer was she's gaining weight and growing so you have nothing to worry about.

Annabelle sometimes sleeps 3-4 hours at a stretch during the night, but sometimes she doesn't. One nice thing is that once she is asleep she is out and no sound can wake her, dogs barking and the vacuum are no problems at all.

With her new sleep buddy - Gizmo 

 

Asleep at church - not an indication of Pastor Doug's message :)

 

One of her favorite places to sleep

 

She is like her mom - hates having things on her feet while sleeping, so here she kicked her way out of her swaddle and scooted down to block the light and fall back asleep.

 

Taking an afternoon nap with the pups.

 

But then every once in awhile - instead of sleeping, she does this.

Last weekend was Mother's Day weekend and we were privileged to have 4 Mothers (now including myself) for a brunch at our house. So of course we had to take a ton of photos with everyone here.

My Grandma Glenna Mae and Aunt Peggy came up from Kentucky to meet Annabelle. So we got the 4 generations photo. My dad Mike is still in town helping around the house and with Annabelle. He soon will be heading back to work in India.

Then Nick's mom Jami, Grandma Betty, and Grandpa Ed came from Independence to get another dose of Annabelle. (Terry came down as well, but for some reason we didn't get a photo of everyone in all one photo). Jami also stayed the whole first week with us and made sure we always had yummy food on the table. Grandma Betty also was able to stay for a few days to help with getting adjusted with Annabelle. 

   

Of the lessons Annabelle has taught us here are the top 5 lessons:

1. Hair and Annabelle can not reside on the same shoulder, this is even more so once a shower has been just taken.

2. Socks must be removed during diaper changes.

3. Quite often all bodily functions that go rogue at the same time and you just have to laugh.
4. Spit up is the new black, pacifiers are the new fashion rings, and cries are classical music.
5. No matter how many places you put burp cloths, most of the time they are never close enough. Shirts are good substitutes, by default.

In other news, which is quite obvious and cliche of new parents, we love taking photos of Annabelle. To help use technology to our advantage we have set up a shutterfly account where everyone can upload photos they have taken, download photos on the site, and also order photos. Here is the link http://theshaferkids.shutterfly.com/ with all the photos.

I now have to go through the checklist to see what Annabelle would like us to do for her now.

Best wishes for 3 hours naps tonight to everyone,

Mommy Melissa

P.S. Soon Aunt Steph will be here for the summer - Annabelle can't wait.

Dear Blog,

I am sorry for neglecting you. Annabelle is to cute to neglect. Have you seen pictures of her? Oh, not since the day after she was born? Well, she has changed a lot. I promise to update you soon. She's been asleep for 3 hours already and if you can convince her to hit 6 my shift will be over and then I promise to update you this weekend.

<3,
New Mommy Melissa

Annabelle Lyn is here!

After 41 weeks of pregnancy, 28 hours of labor (apparently Melissa has a high pain tolerance, as she went 14 hours until her first round of meds) and a c-section Annabelle Lyn Shafer is finally here!

 First official family photo

Family photo after some sleep.

She sleeps, eats, crys, and repeats very well.

Melissa has learned how to do many things one handed and Nick is starting to learn how to function with no sleep.

Annabelle, or Belle if we are sleep deprived and lazy, has crazy long fingers that have put the death grip on Melissa's hair, her IV, and everything else in reach. As you can see from the pictures Annabelle has a ton of blonde hair, thanks to all the heartburn she gave Melissa during pregnancy, seriously we should have bought stock in tums.

We are planned to be out of the hospital on Sunday afternoon, 96 hours in the hospital is long enough for  Melissa, the person who hates hospitals. As you can see she loves visitors. So far she hasn't spit up on anyone with out warning and only screams a few decibels louder than normal when visitors are around.

Grandma Jami 

Grandpa Mike

Aunt Steph

 

Mommy enjoying a sleeping baby.

  

Daddy enjoying an awake baby.

In other kids news, Gizmo had surgery on her left knee again last week. We figured it was the most convenient inconvenient time to have it done. She is still quite precocious, the vet said she would have to have her cast re-wrapped once in the two weeks she is supposed to have the cast on, she has already had it re-wrapped 4 times. Thankfully our vet is really awesome and doesn't mind the two emergency calls that we have made to her late at night. Also super thankful that Mike, Melissa's dad and Stephanie, Melissa's sister are in town. They spend most of the day at the hospital spending time with Annabelle and then go home and take care of the pups.

Princess Annabelle has requested some more attention, so we must oblige!

still. no. baby.