The artist in me

I have finally gotten back to my painting! It feels so good and I am anxious to crank out all of the ideas I have in my head. I have set up a studio in our basement and am painting as much as I can while Leila sleeps. Eventually I will set up a shop on etsy.com and plan on showcasing my work at my friend's store, Evangeline, in downtown Frederick...visit: http://www.francestuf.com/. More to come!

Merry Christmas

We had so much fun decorating our Christmas tree this year! TJ went out and cut it down while Leila and I stayed warm inside. We hung the photos from our wedding centerpieces as ornaments and I made a homemade star for the topper! Merry Christmas

Leila Smiles!

In the last few weeks Leila has learned to smile, coo, laugh...so much more...its simply the best. She now knows our voices and will turn her head in search of us. She loves to be tickled and stares at us in wonder when we make funny faces, she's probably thinking who are these crazy people who can't stop smiling at me? Little does she know she is stuck with us. There have been moments lately where I just sit back and look at what we have created...I try to take it all in, soak it up...because I know one day she will be all grown up and all I will be able to say is "remember when..."

The Loyalty of Dogs

We have two dogs, a 17 lb. female beagle/terrier mix named Aida and a 75 lb. golden retriever/lab mix named Max. Aida is very much the queen of her domain and Max, he has become our big, giant protector since Leila's arrival. He is by my side, or by Leila's side, at all times. He will sit at the door and guard it with all his might, he will run to Leila when she cries and most recently I've noticed he has taken to drinking out of our upstairs toilet bowl, even when there is a full bowl of water downstairs. I find this to be quite disgusting, but the more I paid attention, the more I realized he was not NOT drinking out of his regular bowl downstairs out of laziness. He was simply drinking out of the bowl upstairs so he didn't have to leave our side.

I've always had a dog and can't imagine life without one, especially Max. He is with me at all hours of the night when I am up feeding Leila and instinctively knows that she is a precious, new part of our lives and it is our job to protect her. Truly a girl's best friend, and now Leila's.

Gaining Weight Never Sounded So Good

It has been 6 days of intense nursing every 2 hours after our doctor let us know last week that Leila was not gaining enough weight. After a lot of hard work and determination, we were relieved to find out she has gained 6 oz., putting her that much closer to her birth weight! I've never been so happy to see a scale in my life :) Aside from that, the doctor said Leila is thriving and doing wonderfully! We are proud parents...here is a taste of some photos we had taken of her last week.

Flying solo...

My parents left yesterday. They were an incredible help and it was bittersweet to see them go...TJ and I were ready to jump into parenthood on our own though and see how an entire day would go just the three of us, and 2 very confused pups. What a day it was! Our A/C went out and Leila and I were pretty exhausted after the technician finally arrived at 5:00 to let us know it would be a few days until the part arrived. Ugh. Thankfully is was unseasonably hot yesterday and today is a beautiful day!

Life is good. Taking one day at a time and thankful for our little family and our healthy baby (who slept until 5:30 this morning!)...we'll see what tonight brings.

Leilani Maxine has arrived!

After an incredible labor and delivery which began with my water breaking while on the phone with my sister (discussing when we think my water will break!), our little slice of heaven arrived at 7:31 am on Monday, October 4th. The last few days have been filled with overwhelming joy, lots of learning and much help from our family, helping us adjust to our new life as proud parents to our little girl. Thank you to all of our friends and family for the outpouring of love and well wishes...it means the world to us! A few snapshots of baby Leila...more to come as she grows!