pictures from the past week

On Saturday, Lincoln came over to play while Shell and Dan went to a holiday dinner. Linc was excited to play some Wii and Wren was excited to watch!

 All she needs is some popcorn!

 Unfortunately, our extra controller wasn't working (okay, so I'm not so battery literate), so I couldn't play with Linc, but we cheered him on. Wren had a little tummy time and slobbered all over me. She's been such a little slobberbox lately! It just so happened this was one of the nights that she had a meltdown. I felt bad for Lincoln and the dogs...I think we were all over the crying baby!

 The next day, we visited Daddy at work and then Wren took her first (of many many many, we hope!) trip to the library. She got a minute of snuggle time with Auntie but they closed an hour earlier than we thought so it wasn't the fun playdate we had hoped for. But she was still a happy baby! 

 And I just love her face in this picture. She's sitting in the glider in her room. SUCH a big girl!



11 Weeks!

It seems like Wren is learning something new every day. She is such a Daddy's girl! She is so in love with her Daddy, it's the sweetest thing. It's so funny, she just follows Josh around wherever he goes. She doesn't watch anyone else like she watches him. I love it! But I'm definitely jealous.

She's been learning to find her hands and we've been working on having her grasp her rattles and different toys. She's also much more interested in her books and actually will spend time looking at the pictures.

She is also so close to laughing! She's given us a giggle here or there, but more often than not, it's almost like a silent laugh. She gets very tickled and covers her face with her hands but no giggles come out. I think we should be hearing them on a regular basis by next week!

For the most part, she is really a happy baby. She went through a rough few days where we thought she might have had colic but I think it was a growth spurt. She was getting really upset around the same time every night and I couldn't comfort her. She was fighting sleep so bad and I'll be honest, we had a rough couple of nights! But luckily it would only last for an hour or so and then she'd fall asleep and she'd be fine for the rest of the night. ::knock on wood:: She hasn't had an "episode" for the past three nights.

In other news, I snagged the steal of the century this week when my friend Laura got 2 of these Baby Bjorn carriers for her baby shower (1 was from us!), so when she went to return it, they were only going to give her $21 for it. Instead, I went with her so she could get the full amount that I paid and we were able to return it for her and I bought it for us! I've had my eye on it but we already had an Eddie Bauer one that Shell used with both of the boys, so I could never justify it, but at $21, I couldn't pass up the cuteness! Plus it sort of matches Wren's stroller and carseat.

On this day we took a big long walk around the neighborhood and then that night, I bundled her up and we went out in the garage and walked on the treadmill. She loves it! And I love it...working on those last 3 pounds of baby weight! Then we start on our new goal! During our walk, she was asleep before we were out of the driveway! And the dogs liked running off some energy, too.

Seriously, cutest baby eeevaaah!

snuggle bunny!

First, almost everyone who knows we use cloth diapers always asks how they're going, so I thought I'd show a cute little picture of Wren that I took last week. I'm going to work on a short post about the cloth diapers, because I don't think people expect them to be this easy (and cute!). I've had several friends ask for advice and information about them and I'm always happy to answer questions. We're really actually loving it! We do 2 extra loads of laundry each week for the diapers. To us, that's absolutely worth the waste that we're saving and also the cost savings involved. Once it warms up, we'll be able to hang them to dry in the sun which will not only save from having to use the dryer, but it also sun bleaches them.

Anyway, here's an adorable picture of Wren with her Bum Genius diaper and Babylegs! Babylegs are a huge obsession of mine!Next, after our very busy weekend, Wren needed to relax, so she got cozied up in her jammies and slippers. Are these not the cutest little slippers from Grammy?!

She's clearly thrilled about the snuggles from Mommy & Daddy!

10 Weeks!

Wren is 10 weeks this week! She has spent a good portion of the week SLOBBERING! She loves blowing bubbles with her slobber! And if you remember that game you used to play when you were little where you'd spit as far as you could before sucking it back in...yeah, that's her new favorite game!

Other fun things she's doing this week:
*She's found her tongue! We play a fun little game where I make a noise and stick my tongue out at her and she makes a minor attempt at mimicking me.
*We're working on finding her hands. I've been trying to get her to push buttons on her little toys and she loves trying to grab the rings on her playmat.
*Bumbo time is still really fun! She's gotten much better at holding her head up and though she doesn't like it for too long, we do the Bumbo a few times a day and she always looks so pleased with herself for sitting up.
*We've spent a lot of time letting her "stand" and bounce on her feet. Working on building that leg strength!
*Finally, we have been working on pulling her up to a sitting position. We hold her hands and pull her to a sitting position and try to get her to feeling more steady while sitting. She's got a pretty strong neck, she just needs some help with controlling herself when she gets to moving!
*She's been waking up and just chattering away instead of waking up and crying to eat. It's funny to come in and hear her talking up a storm, then when she sees me she gets the biggest grin on her face. Melt!! I might have to record it sometime soon.

So...that's what we're doing these days!

social butterfly

Wren has had quite the social calendar this past week! What can we say, she's a popular little social butterfly!

It started with a playdate with Uncle Danny and the boys on Wednesday. Shell was in Ohio for work all week, so Danny asked if we'd like to have a playdate. We thought about going to the Children's Museum but it snowed quite a bit on Tuesday night, so we decided to stick closer to home. We met them at the mall play place (umm, ewww germs. Mommy wasn't a fan...it felt a little bit like Walmart with all the dirty kids!) and she snuggled with Dan for a while, then we got a little Gymboree retail therapy in, had lunch with Dan, Caleb, Griff and Linc at Applebee's, and then visited Daddy at work for a while. Thursday, we celebrated Wendi's birthday with my co-workers.
It was so sweet, Wren was a little restless and Travis asked if he could hold her. She stared at him for a few minutes...I'm thinking the beard reminded her of Daddy...before zonking on him! She fell asleep in no time flat on his chest, so adorable!On Saturday, we had lunch with some friends. Wren was passed around like a hot potato! But we had to leave a little early to head over to Laura's for her baby shower! Little Owen will be here in March and Wren can't wait to meet him!! She was also passed around like a hot potato at the shower. We're definitely working on making her sociable...no snobs allowed here!

Here she is with Laura (and Owen):

(Daddy thought she looked like Pebbles in this outfit and suggested that we try to find a little bone for her hair instead of the bow!)

Next, she played with Wendi for a while...great picture of Wendi, not so much of Wren!:

Then she cooed at Robin and Margarita for a while:

And she slobbered on Annette for a while, too. Love those chunky cheeks!: She needed a little catnap after all of that entertainment, so she passed out on Annette for a while:

Then she woke up to snuggle with (a different) Laura, though she was obviously still sleepy! Such a rough life!:

Finally, Auntie was able to sneak a few snuggles in. I am so in love with this picture!: This morning, we went to Kennedy's birthday party and she got to visit lots of people there, too! We forgot the camera though.

We're taking full advantage of the full social calendar before I have to head back to work in a few weeks.

so grown up!

We took Wren to the bank to conduct some serious business...opening her own savings account! She had done her research and knew exactly what she wanted.

She made a deal with the banker and they shook on it:

Then she got a little antsy because she likes to do her business swiftly and the lady was taking a little more time than she wanted...so we had to stand up for a while! (Is this outfit not so incredibly adorable? She looks like a little piece of neapolitan candy!)
And then she decided to take a seat. She was so tickled with herself that she nearly fell over! Luckily Daddy was there to catch her.

2 Month Shots

I forgot to post this during the weekly update, but Wren had her shots at her 2 month check-up. We also got an update on her growth. She is now 11 lbs. 7 oz. (11/7-don't we love that!) and 22 inches long. So she grew 1 pound and 5 ounces in the last month and a quarter of an inch.

Here are some pictures from her appointment...

Getting measured: Getting weighed:
Talking to the nurse:

Poor baby! Like everyone says, I think it was harder for us than it was for her. She did so great...stopped crying about 5 seconds after I picked her up. She slept allllll day long and then had a bit of a rough night, but we spent a lot of time cuddling and giving her lots of extra kisses.

Wren Rolls Over!

I know pretty much everyone has seen this (if you're on Facebook), but I wanted to post it so that we can remember it later on. This is Wren rolling over at 4 weeks like I mentioned in her weekly update.

Newborn Photo Shoot

I never posted all of the pictures together on here, so even though it was 9 weeks ago, I wanted to be sure to share all of the pictures from Wren's newborn photo shoot with my very talented friend, Annie. It's so hard to believe that she was 5 days old in these pictures and when I look at them now, it makes me so glad that we captured our sweet girl when she was so small and new. Even if we'd waited one week, she was changing so much by the day at that it wouldn't have been the same.

Oh, they're sooo cute!!

This one is her dramatic pose:
And everyone saw this in our Christmas/Announcement cards. We were so excited to see her big bright eyes. Many people have said they don't believe she's 5 days old in this picture, but we promise she was! Just goes to show how great Annie is to be able to capture her like this. Especially considering the number of *minutes* that her eyes were actually opened at the time...

In her daddy's hands:

Love those lips!

Auntie Shell's favorite:

Absolutely love this closeup. I call this her "thinker" pose:

One of Grammy's favorites, such a cuddly little bear:

One of Daddy's favorites:

And our little birdie in her nest:

Shell was just telling me that we should probably think about pics at 3 months, too. Hmmm, I guess she's probably right...

QT with Grammy & Pappa

On Monday, Grammy came over to watch Wren while I got out of the house for a couple of hours and had coffee with a friend. It was so nice to get out and not have to worry about getting Wren into the cold, and even just not having to worry about her waking up or needing to eat while I was out and about. Thanks, Grammy! It was also really sweet to walk into the house expecting her to be ravenously hungry, and instead she was fast asleep in her Gram's arms.

Here she is waking up: Then Pappa brought us all pizza on his way home from work. Wren sat on his lap while we ate and I think she was eyeballing his food!
She's really lucky to have grandparents who love her so much!

9 Weeks!

We both love this picture! She really has a lot of funny little faces. And she always keeps her hands like this. It's almost like her little comfort to have her hands all curled up against herself.

Bumbo!

We finally got Wren's bumbo out tonight and she loved it! I've been working with her the past week or so and trying to get her used to holding her own head up while sitting on me. She still has some work to do and obviously won't be sitting up anytime soon, but we're going to add the bumbo to our daily routine along with tummy time and trying to get her to roll over. Here are some pictures: This is mostly how she held her head, kind of tilted back. We only did it for a few minutes because I d0n't want her to hurt her neck. But she grinned and looked at us the whole time. She loved it...this is her getting ready for a grin:

And looking up at Daddy, love how she's holding onto the side...

...and again Mommy Kowe watching over her baby to be sure nothing happens:

Fussy Girl

Last night was an odd night for us. Wren usually sleeps pretty well at night and doesn't mind going to bed, but for some reason she had a bit of a rough night last night. I think she might have been having a little growth spurt or something because she would wake up every 10 minutes or so and cry. I felt so bad, it's hard not knowing what to do to help her! Thankfully, it only lasted a few hours and she zonked for a couple hours at 2, then for several more hours after she ate at 4. Then she slept almost all day today, so I'm pretty sure it was a little growing spell.

Here is a picture I snapped during one of her calm periods last night. I loved how she had her left hand up holding onto the pillow. She always likes to have ahold of something. You can see that her storkbites are a little red since she had been crying. She is such a sweetie.

And poor Kowe Sue was a little ball of stress. She hates when the baby cries and she couldn't figure out what was wrong last night. She kept checking on Wren and after she fell asleep in her swing, Kowe curled up on the blanket, like "Okay, let me get a little sleep now that I got the baby to go down." Such a sweet little Mommy. Unfortunately when we finally went up to bed, she was so tired that when Josh got too close to her she snapped at him. Oooops! Being a little momma is stressful!

8 Weeks!

Two months already?! I know I say it all the time, but it is going sooo fast!! If you look close, you can see her little tongue sticking out. She has started playing with it and sticking it out all the time. So cute!