A little Husky pup in training.

Madeleine turned 1 month old today!!

Nick is going to introduce the bottle to her (with breast milk) tomorrow! I'm excited about it and am hoping that it goes well. I've read that it's best if I don't feed her with a bottle so that she knows me as the "boob" and will still continue to breastfeed while she is with me. I've been pumping so that we have a pretty good stock pile when I go back to work on March 1st and I'm really hoping that pumping is going to go well while I am at work. I'm pretty nervous about it.

Things that we've noticed with Madeleine during the last month:

She's VERY strong. A lot of people including our doctor has made comments on how strong she is. She's already doing a great job at holding her heavy little head up for 5-10 seconds!

She's tracking more and more each day with our faces and the toys that I hold up for her to see while we are enjoying "play time".

We're going through 12+ diapers (newborns) a day right now.

Day/Night time is getting better each day. We still have ROUGH nights where I'm lucky to get 3 hours of sleep but it's getting better.

We've noticed that she's fussy at night between 6pm and midnight and it's because she's SO tired that she will fight (really fight) going to sleep. We learned this week that swaddling her with a sleep sack really helps and before we used that, she was waking herself up with her hands that she LOVES to keep up by her face. We were using blankets to swaddle her but she could work her hands up and out of it.

She busts out a smile every once in a while, even when she is sleeping. I haven't gotten her to smile back at me yet but I know that's just weeks or days away.

My little sister Ashley was here for a visit this last week and it was wonderful! Her daughter Jordyn will be 2 this coming March. Ashley helped me get out of the house and I even breast fed Madeleine while we were at the mall in a dressing room. (I'm still really nervous about breast feeding in public). Ashley helped me with the day time and night time routine including playtime after I'm done feeding her. Also about self soothing and how putting the pacifier back in when Madeleine is falling asleep is not necessary. Thanks Ash for all of your help and inspiration.

My mom is coming over tomorrow and staying with us until next Wednesday. I'm looking forward to it and I'm sure she is too!

This picture goes out to her Uncle Mitch. This one's for you!

GAME DAY!!

This was Nick's shirt when he was a baby!

We have a few others that I'm planning on having her wear soon including a Sonics t-shirt with 1979 on it (the year Nick was born).

Too cute!

Our little Cupcake!

Nick went back to work this week. It wasn't easy getting back into a sleep routine himself and had a few late nights with Maddy and I.
This is him enjoying some "Maddy time" before bed time.






Play time with Aunt Ashley!!

In her infant seat that vibrates.

These days we'll try anything to keep her happy!

Raisin' the roof. ;-)

I'm also happy to tell you that Maddy is no longer sleeping in her car seat in her crib! Thanks to Ashley, we were able to get Maddy to sleep in her crib with the help of the swaddlers. YAY!!