Catching up on AJ

The past few weeks we have been shooting pics, but neglecting our blog. Brace yourself, we are making up for the past few weeks.
AJ is growing quickly, beginning to smile more and recognize us (her mom more than me, but we are working on it). She loves her car seat, anytime we put her in it she knows she is going somewhere and calms down. We will get home from anywhere and she will be fully asleep until we get to the front door and she will wake up and not be happy to be back. Needless to say, we have taken our fair share of walks around our neighborhood.

We have been a little behind on our weekly pics, but this one is officially week 6, she is going to dwarf the bunny pretty quickly. She loves sleeping on her side, especially if she is snuggled in against either one of us.

Last Friday both Kara and I were gone for the day and so Eric and Tatum babysat (you guys are serious rockstars, thanks again). For Tatum, this became the perfect opportunity for a photo shoot. I didn't know what we would with the tutoo we got when she was born, but Tate found the perfect solution!

I don't know what these two are looking at, but they are both fully occupied. AJ is out for the count.

Kara's friend Jill came down from Fresno to meet AJ. She has a lot of women who love her!

The other morning I had AJ all to myself, again it was time for a photo shoot. She does really well with picking up her head moving around on her stomach.

This weekend Lyndsay and Morgan, AJ's aunt and cousin, came down to see us. It was great having them together and for the cousins to hang out. Morgan is now 7 months old (the two are 5 months apart). We had a great time with them.

So this morning Kara and Lyndsay were getting dressed and I had AJ on my chest and Morgan next to me. One of my favorite songs to sing to AJ is Jack Johnson's "I can tell that we are going to be friends." It is about two little kids walking to school together and doing everything throughout the day together. I like it because it is a cute kids song, but as I sang it today with the two of the girls together it got me a little choked up thinking and hoping the two of them will be friends as they grow up. It looks like they are off to a good start.

Annika in our favorite sweater of hers.

Everytime we put Morgan and AJ next to each other they are happy to be together.

Aunt Lyndsay and the girls.

Three binkies, three happy kids.

I'm a month old already!

Its mommy's turn to post an update! (of course Eric still had to upload all the pictures and show me exactly how to do this...its amazing that I've gotten through an "online" nursing program...technology...) We missed last weeks update, so we're throwing weeks 4 and 5 together. The picture above is Annika's 4 week pic. On Saturday she was one month old. The other day I tried to put her in the bjorn after I hadn't used it for a couple of weeks and I couldn't get the clasps closed. I asked Eric what was wrong and he just said, "babe, she's grown!" Though I say I don't want her to get any bigger it is really fun to see her interact with us a bit more. She smiles now...but its still a little too sporadic to capture with the camera. The best thing in the world is in the morning when we get her up and lay her in bed with us and she just coos and smiles at us for a while. It is so fun having a little girl! It makes me think about when I was little and my mom would take me and Lyndsay everywhere with her running errands or visiting people...just hanging out...I'm excited to have a little buddy like that!

Our little girl is pretty alert. When she is awake she just looks around at everything and takes it all in. Annika is either really happy or really not. We've recently discovered that she has quite the set of lungs... We were hoping she'd have Eric's temperment, but I'm not so sure that happened...My sister assured me that the fussy evening phase fades out by about week 6, so we've got one more week to go. Hope she's right!

Week 5! The picutre in the card is supposed to be our nephew Ethan. We were talking to my sister and Ethan last night on Skype and he told us we needed to draw a picture of him with his new helmet and kneepads on Annika's week 5 card. Ethan and Morgan are Annika's only cousins and we are so excited for them to meet! When I was pregnant Ethan would always ask me, "where my cousin?...i wanna meet my cousin."


We swaddle Annika every night so that she'll sleep better, but she always manages to get that right arm out...it cracks me up.

Eric took this picture of us before I took Annika to school with me. Everybody wanted to see her so I finally took her down. For those of you who don't know I am finishing up a 14 month accelerated BSN program. I had Annika about 6 weeks before I was finished with the program...yep, that means I only have about a week left! Eric has been a saint around the house keeping everything in order and taking care of Annika when I'm gone. I am finishing up my clinical hours by doing night 7 am to 7 pm shifts at the hospital...only 3 more to go!!! I am so thankful to everyone that has helped us through this crazy month and a half.
It seems like every time we put this "happy" hat on Annika she is anything but...there's that little stubborn streak she gets from me again..."what you want me to be happy? I'll show you happy..."
My friend Katie told me that she'd watch Annika anytime (even though she has 3 kids under 5) because she just loves holding babies when they still scrunch up their legs when you're holding them. I have to agree, it is the cutest thing to see her sleep like this with her legs all scrunched up under her.
Baby tiny feet!
Our friends Joel and Nicole and their kids Drake and Alexis came over one evening to see Annika and bring us dinner (thanks to EVERYONE who has done that by the way!). Alexis liked talking to her and getting her to smile. She is quite the little writer and wrote a couple of poems for us while she was here too. Thanks alexis!