I vow to help you love life, to always hold you with tenderness and to have the patience that love demands, to speak when words are needed and to share the silence when they are not and to live within the warmth of your heart and always call it home.

Friday, June 26, 2015

First Father's Day

Since I blogged about my first Mother's Day, it's only fair to blog a bit about my husband's first Father's Day.  We started the weekend off with an early morning blueberry picking trip!  My husband saw the sign while driving through town and thought it'd be fun.  We've never been so we thought why not!  Since we have Norah now we had to go at the ass crack of dawn to beat the Florida heat, but we didn't mind.  The farmer marked down his price to only $1/pound so we went all out and collected about 3 pounds worth.  So delicious and fun!  We are definitely doing this again next year with friends in Tulsa, new family tradition possibly?




First time to nurse standing AND baby wearing! My husband was proud and insisted on a photo

McFamily <3



Afterwards we gave Norah her first actual bath!  I know it sounds silly, but we were both really excited to see how she'd handle the water.  She loved it and we really enjoyed bathing her!  Ah the little joys of parenthood.




Sunday morning we were both missing the beach badly, so again we got up at the ass crack of dawn to beat the Florida heat and headed to the beach.  It rained on us briefly, but then the sun came out and it was gorgeous.  We had the beach completely to ourselves.  Probably due to our 6am arrival time, but we soaked it in.  Norah even got to put her cute little feet in the ocean for the first time.  Her first beach trip was a success!




Safety first!

That hat...

First dip in the waves at 6 weeks!


We also put those blueberries to use and made a blueberry cobbler from scratch.  So delicious!



Father's Day gifts from his girls.



I can't express enough really how damn lucky I feel to have this man father my children and be my partner in parenthood.  I experienced a whole new level of love for my husband when he held our daughter for the first time.  He brings tears to my eyes sometimes when I witness their special moments {giving Daddy kisses or chest cuddling sessions}.  We're only 6 weeks into this parenting thing and already he's such an amazing Dad.  He's helping me become a wonderful Mother too, and that's worth so much.  We're so lucky to have him here with us this summer.  We are looking forward to celebrating with you next year in Oklahoma.

Happy First Father's Day my love!

Friday, June 19, 2015

Norah June: 1 Month Old





Weight and Height: 8 lbs 2 oz, 20.5 inches long

Eyes and Hair: Dark blue eyes and long brown hair

Diapers: Newborn

Clothes: Finally filling out her newborn clothes

Eating: Breastfeeds for about 4.5-5 hours a day, 8-10 times

Sleeping: At night sleeps a good 4-6 hour stretch then 2-3 hour stretches after that until Mommy decides to start the day.

We can't believe a month has passed already!  We absolutely love her to pieces.  I still can't believe she's ours.  I ask my husband all the time, "When are the real parents going to come back and get her?"  It just doesn't seem real to me that we made this perfect tiny human.

This month has been crazy, exciting, frustrating, and an absolute joy all at the same time.  In the beginning we had a hard time putting weight on her.  Before she was a week old the pediatrician had me pump before each feeding for 3 days to try to stimulate my milk production and put more milk in her.  Luckily I only had to continue that for 3 days because during that time she put on 8 ounces!  She didn't quite meet her goal of being at her birth weight by 2 weeks, but she was only 3 ounces off.  She's mostly a happy baby when she doesn't have awful gas or isn't hungry.  We started doing tummy time with her as soon as we brought her home from the hospital (upon my MIL's encouragement) and she took to it immediately.  She can hold her head up and just stare into our eyes for minutes at a time.  She hates being strapped into her carseat, but what newborn doesn't?  We started using a nipple shield a few days after we came home from the hospital because she wouldn't stay latched and it was such a fight to get her to eat.  I was on the brink of giving up when my MIL suggested it and it actually made me not dread bfing her anymore.  We finally got her weaned off that right before she hit 1 month old, huge accomplishment!  It was a pain to clean and carry around all the time, especially in public.  She rides really well in our K'Tan which my husband is addicted to.  She won't take a pacifier yet, but that's fine with us.  She self soothes already quite a bit without needing something in her mouth.

Here are just a few things we LOVE about her: she has her Daddy's blue eyes (so far), her raptor squeal when she gets frustrated, when she curls her toes around our fingers as she eats, her sleepy milk drunk smiles, her sleepy yawns (is there anything cuter to watch?), when she stimulates my nipple before she latches she'll thrash her head side to side and it reminds us of a Chihuahua with a dog toy (weird but so cute), how alert she is and has been from almost day 1 and how she stares into our eyes...

Here are some of our favorite photos from her first month!





Going home with Mommy!


He LOVES to wear her

Go home baby, you're drunk!

First bath

First bath

Not amused..
6 days old and had to have her first bottle

Nana snuggles

Pops came to visit

Bored with tummy time

Meeting her Uncle Dakota!



Fun with Grandma Stacey



Drunk smile! 

Sleeping on her arms...again


Her first blow out...all over Daddy


I kiss those toes everyday

1 Week Old

Always sleeps on her arms!

First time dining with her, she slept through it all

First family walk at 10 days old


My most favorite picture to date



Wrapping those toes around my finger while nursing

It's funny because at this point most parents say things like, "We can't remember what life was before the baby came".  Well we can, and I don't think that's a bad thing.  Date nights are non-existent for the time being but that's ok.  We remember what life was like before Norah was born, and we can't wait to introduce her fully to it.  We still want to travel the world, but we want her by our side when we do it.  We love slowly folding her into the life we've built together and enjoying the things we love now as a family of three instead of just us two.

Norah June we're completely obsessed, in love and smitten with every 20.5 inches of you.  You are ours and we are yours.