1 month old!

Our cute little Kaitlyn is 1 month old today. We have grown to love her more than we could have ever imagined. Time is flying by fast, and soon I will be going back to work. That will be a hard day for me. In the past month Kaitlyn has grown a lot and so have Steve and I for that fact. Some of the milestones we have hit are:



Kaitlyn can:
*follow people with her eyes as they move across the room
*take a pacifier (that took 3 1/2 weeks)
*smile
*hold her head up for the most part
*coo and makes noises at people
*take a bottle (breastmilk bottle)
*gained almost 2 1/2 pounds in 4 weeks with rolls in her thighs, arms, and neck to show for it
*9 pounds 12 ounces at 4 weeks

Steve and I have hit the biggest milestone and that is to learn to calm her down when she is crying. This has been a struggle for us since she has been a crier. She has cried for hours on end through the day and night for days in a row. When we finally went into the pediatrician at 4 weeks for a weight check and she told us she wanted us to buy this DVD called "The Happiest Baby on the Block" by Dr. Harvey Karp. She told us that this would help us with our crying baby to calm her down. Sure enough we watched it that night and we can now get her to stop crying in less than 10 seconds rather than hours. No more unsuccessful car rides anymore because this DVD works! I would recommend it to anyone that has a baby. Even if they aren't excessively fussy. I feel so much more sane now, and Kaitlyn feels more comforted. Steve loves it because he feels like he can be a real help now with calming her down, and he is.

Enterprise sucks

We finally took our car into get fixed from the biker that hit us last month. Just as a side note we are not going to get any money out of that biker which makes me kind of mad, but I expected it. Anyway, our insurance set us up with Enterprise for a car rental while our car is in the shop. When they set us up with it a couple of weeks ago I specifically talked to Enterprise car rental about how I wanted a smaller car that is more economical with gas. They said they would make note of it, but to remind them when we came to rent the car. I did this because last time we rented with them they didn't even have a car to rent that was within the price range our insurance would pay, so they gave us a yucky ford taurus to drive. When we returned it they tried to charge us for the difference, but I had to stick my ground and tell them their lack of cars was the reason that we had the ford in the first place. So, when they came to pick up Steve at the body shop the lady pulled up in a big white van with all the seats out of the back. It just had the 2 front seats and that's all. She told Steve that they were out of cars and so he could either have the van or they had one small SUV left at the Murray location. Steve decided on the SUV since the van didn't even have enough seats. When he got there they refused to take my credit card because I wasn't there. I threw a fit about it because I sent my ID and everything and didn't want them to use my debit card since they actually have to charge it. After all that I found out about the SUV and so I told Steve to just wait while I called insurance to find another place to rent from since they didn't grant my request of a smaller more economical car. While I was on the phone calling insurance Steve called back saying they were willing to give us a gas credit of a half a tank to compensate the difference if we would just take the SUV. Steve and I decided to do that. It was so annoying that they rent out all their cars knowing for a couple weeks that we were renting from them. Maybe Enterprise should figure out how to rent out cars and have enough in stock or not overbook their rentals, especially when I called a couple weeks in advance!

Kaitlyn's First Bottle

Kaitlyn's first bottle

This past weekend Steve's two sisters were in town visiting. Holly left for South Africa with an unknown return date and Martianne is actually still here in town until Wednesday. It was fun to see both of them and have them meet little Kaitlyn. Well, she is actually not so little anymore. She is growing to be a big chunk. She is fully into her 0-3 month clothing, but I am sure will be out of them in the next month if she doesn't stop growing so fast because they fit absolutely perfectly right now. On Thursday she will be 4 weeks old! I can't believe 4 weeks has already past by. She has definitely made some huge strides in the past 4 weeks.

Along with Holly and Martianne being in town, we all came down with a cold/flu bug this past weekend. Mostly it has been Steve, Judy, Randy (in Colorado), Justin (in Phoenix), and my mom. Steve has been wearing a mask on the few occasions that he has held Kaitlyn. I have been on the border of coming down with it, but it looks as though I am not going to get the worst of it. That is good because I have been trying so hard to keep Kaitlyn from getting this yucky bug too since she is so little. So far we have been successful.

ESPN in HD

So today Melanie called Comcast because I guess we haven't paid our bill since July. While she was talking to them I asked her to talk to them about how much it would be to upgrade our package so we can get more HD channels because I wanted ESPN in HD. Well to my pleasant surprise they told Melanie that we already had ESPN in HD and apparently a lot of other channels that we didn't know about. It made me so happy because if any of you are a big sports fan like me you know how much better watching sports in High Definition is than on regular TV. It is so cool, Monday night football is on tonight and the picture is so clear I love it. I am so excited to now be able to watch all my favorite sports and games in HD, it is going to be awesome.

Kaitlyn's First Real Bath

Here are some pictures of Kaitlyn taking her first real bath. Her umbilical cord fell off this week, so now there are no more sponge baths for her. She seems to really like it because she is in the water and it keeps her a lot warmer. We also went to her two week appointment and the doctor said she is perfect. She weighed in at 8 pounds 5 ounces, which is great because she is gaining 1 and a 1/2 ounces per day. Melanie is also excited because the doctor said that this coming week we should start to introduce the bottle to Kaitlyn as well since Melanie will be going back to work. This means that when I don't have early school I get to do the middle of the night feeding (lucky me).

Pajama Day

Tonight we had a pajama night because Melanie was told to take it easy obviously and just stay in pajamas for two weeks. Melanie and Kaitlyn were in their pajamas the whole day but I joined the fun later in the night. Last night was a very hard night, Kaitlyn kept both of us up crying and demanding her food. Although we are very tired we love having our beautiful daughter in our home, there is such a peaceful feeling with her here.