Four Weeks Old!

We are officially one month old as of today! My baby girl is looking older and older all the time. The theme of her fourth week was definitely traveling far from home on some fun adventures :) Daddy's first Father's Day is coming up on Sunday, and Lizzie is ready to par-tay!

Weight: Proud momma right here! Lizzie and I went in to the clinic last Thursday for a simple weight check, to make sure she's getting enough to eat and is, in turn, gaining weight appropriately. My sweet baby continues to be an over achiever in the weight department, because she gained 18 ounces in 13 days... woohoo! We are now seven pounds, one and a half ounces!

Sleep: Lizzie has given up her middle-of-the-night alert hours this last week, which I can't complain about :) She tends to sleep for four solid hours for the first part of the night, and then wakes up once every one and a half to two hours to eat and goes right back to sleep. This is typically her nighttime schedule, although we've had a couple of nights where she's let me get two four-hour chunks of sleep instead. Those are mommy's favorite nights :) Although, I do have to say, that I'm not bothered by her waking every hour and a half to two hours. I know this might not last a whole lot longer, so I try to enjoy it as much I can. So I get in my snuggles and gaze at her sweet little face in the dim light and say some pretty hefty "thank yous" to the Big Guy upstairs for giving me this wonderful reason to be awake at three o'clock in the morning.

She's not a big fan of being swaddled while she's awake, but if she's not swaddled, she doesn't sleep... so I try to wait to swaddle her until she's extremely drowsy. She still fights it, but she gives in to mommy's lullabies and falls asleep shortly thereafter.

On Sunday morning, we had a slight sleep hiccup that I'll take responsibility for. I didn't change her diaper earlier in the night (er, early morning) when she woke up to eat because she didn't feel wet and didn't smell much, but then she woke up pretty sad at 4:45 in the morning. As it turns out, she had a slight blow-out... which could possibly be attributed to a very full diaper since I didn't change it a couple hours before. This meant we needed not only a new diaper, but new jammies and a new sheet in her bassinet as well. All of this commotion resulted in a very alert baby who didn't feel like snoozing again until 7:00 that morning :) Unfortunately, the alarm rings at 8:00 on Sundays now for mass since I have a little one to have prepped and ready to go by 9:40. Luckily, my husband is a stand-up guy and took his turn with Lizzie at 6:30 so I could get a little more sleep.

Clothes: Still hanging out in all of our newborn things! Nothing is too small yet, and we still have lots of newborn things that are still too big!

Socialite!: Ah, the life of a social butterfly! Lizzie is still buzzing around and hanging out with lots of fun people. I mentioned last week that we were waiting for the arrival of our new nephew, who was supposed to be due right around the time we were due. Well, Michael Patrick arrived a couple of days ahead of schedule (and was 10 1/2 ounces heavier than Lizzie!), so we had to go meet sweet baby Michael Patrick on Saturday. Lizzie did a fabulous job riding to and from Fargo and only had a few tears on the way home. While in Fargo, we got to hang out with Auntie Desiree, Uncle Jake, cousins Brayden, Noah and Mykenna, and Uncle Josh, Auntie Tracy and cousins Rachel and (brand new!) Michael. Michael and Lizzie bonded over being almost the exact same size, swapped stories about womb life, and even held hands (that one actually did happen... it was ridiculously sweet)!

And those strangers are still loving our little girl :) I think it's because she's so tiny, so at four weeks, she's still looking like a newborn... and apparently people love newborns.

Diet: Milk! Still has a good appetite.

Baby Gear Love: Our new favorite swaddlers are the "SwaddleMe" sacks, which I bought in St. Cloud at their Target yesterday. They're pretty awesome, as they help out moms and dads of babies who don't care much for being swaddled but still need to be. They have velcro on them and make swaddling extremely simple. We tried them out for the first time last night and they're keepers!

Crying: The crying still remains pretty easy to solve by either changing a diaper, feeding, or snuggling her. She's a pretty sweet baby girl!

Mommy News: This momma remains on cloud nine. I am loving every single day with my sweet girl! I didn't go through a "transition" time, really -- I was ready to have the role of "mommy" and have embraced every aspect and tried to appreciate every moment. I look at Lizzie now and can honestly hardly remember being pregnant at this point -- it's still so surreal to me that she came out of me and had been living in my tummy! God is so amazing. Babies and the gift of life are proof of miracles.

Something I've found that's really odd now that I'm no longer pregnant is I'm starting to crave junk food like nobody's business! Cookies, candy, ice cream... you name it, I want to eat it. And not just a few times a day. But all. The. Time! Which is strange for me, especially because I had zero cravings while pregnant (well, aside from OJ, milk and Oreos). I'm trying my best to keep it under control :) I assume that this will pass, but we'll see...

Last week one day, I did yoga again for the first time since Lizzie was born and it was glorious. It felt incredible to be all stretched out again and to just be quiet. I was glad to feel this way, because I wasn't sure how I'd feel about going back to teaching it again in a few weeks -- but I feel like I could teach again now!

I also got to go shopping in St. Cloud yesterday. It was my first shopping trip in probably 10 months that I felt like I could really buy things that weren't maternity-friendly (and I tried not to buy much of that!).

Milestones: Our first shopping trip was yesterday at four weeks, two days old! She was a fabulous shopping companion :) She slept the whole way to and from in the car, and only woke up when her tummy was hungry.

Lizzie also met her new cousin, Michael Patrick, which I would consider a milestone :)

We think she's starting to smile for us just a teensy bit. She seems to get this slight smirk on her face when we clap her hands together really fast and say, "yay!!!!" with a big smile on our faces. Don't we sound like such cool people now? :) Babies change everything.

She is also doing some "ooh" and "aah" noises. Cutest sounds we've ever heard!

Lizzie also has a talent for being able to hold her body weight on her little legs when we hold her on her feet... maybe she'll be an early walker? Or maybe this mommy is just thinking her little lady is amazing and an over-achiever all-around ;)

We're looking forward to those smiles becoming for sure smiles and getting bigger and more frequent :) We also can't wait for her to be able to hold up her little head, just because she would love to be able to look around on her own so much!