This girl is 1 month old!

Well now it’s actually 5 weeks.

I truly feel like we just brought you home yesterday but we’ve had you for a month. These are some of the things we have learned about you.

You love to cuddle. You are often happy just to be held and displeased to be set down or even transferred to another set of loving arms. Now you’ve started to get upset when you’re hungry,lonely,  need a diaper change or have digestive issues. Sometimes the loud dogs startle you.

You started smiling very early. We even got a couple smiles while still in the hospital. We weren’t quite sure if they were real or not but they’ve just kept coming, in moments when you’re full of food and satisfied, when you’re cuddled and starting to fall asleep and when your dad asks you nicely to smile for him.

You weigh over 9 pounds, maybe close to 10 by now. You gained weight fast in the first several days after birth, then you slowed down a bit and we worried you weren’t eating enough but it seems you’ve caught back up.

You’ve started holding you’re head up much of the time within the past couple days and have started to notice things around you a little more, tracking them with your eyes a little.

You’ve gone out to eat with us, shopping, to church and of course to the grandparents’ homes.

We love the way you curl up and tuck in all you limbs when your sleepy.

We love how you will sometimes give us big open-mouthed smiles.

We love to look at you and watch the daily changes with joy and a little sadness that it’s all happening so fast.

Birthday-Cyan Renee Campbell

She came on her Daddy’s birthday, August 12. We really thought it would be on August 11 since I went into labor at 1:30 on the morning of the 11th but she held out ’til 4:28 am on the 12th. She weighed 8lb 1oz and was 20 1/4 inches long.

She was greeted by tired but joyful family members. More on the labor/birth details later. Here are some pictures to tell the story.

Preparations

 It seems like it’s all happening so fast, and yet its still hard to believe that we’ll be holding our baby in a couple weeks. In 2 days I’ll be 38 weeks into my pregnancy.      

 

We’ve been doing lots of things to get ready. The nursery is coming along but we still need to put some things up on the walls so I haven’t taken the final pictures yet. I hope those make it here before baby Cyan does, but then again if she wants to come tonight I’m sure she won’t mind that the pictures aren’t hung yet.

One thing I have done is a lot of sewing, my mom and I both. I’m planning on using cloth diapers and decided to sew my own.

Here are some of the results of our efforts:

    

Catch Up

There are some things that have happened and I’m going to try to catch up on some of the main events before getting to the real reason I decided to write again.

Last spring we took a trip to Chattanooga.

We saw Rock City

  

And Lookout Mountain

 

Wes grew lots of peppers and tomatoes from seed as well as other veggies in our garden.

I made this afghan for our new niece, Kara, and we helped with a baby shower for her.

    

Last fall we took a long weekend vacation to St. Louis.

Events included Forest Park and the zoo.

  

A hockey game (Preds won!)

The Missouri Botanical Gardens

  

And Crowne Candy Kitchen. This was scrumptious and we will be back.

I also had a 32nd birthday!

That kind of sums up 2011. Now onto the bigger news.

Progress

Here are a few pictures of the growing process:

12/27 about 2 months

1/31 3 months

2/28 4 months

Our Pack and Play. It’s just about the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.

Gifts, old and new, that we’re collecting

We’re having a baby!

Yay! I can hardly believe it, but it gets more real every day.

And it’s a GIRL!

We got that news last Monday night when Wes’s dad did an ultrasound on me. We’ve got a very active little gal in there, but I can’t say for sure that I’ve felt her move yet. I’ve had some suspicous feelings but nothing definite yet.

Here’s the little person you’ll all get to meet sometime near the beginning of August if all goes as planned.

2/23

Her face is on the right, tummy on the left and hand held up by her face on the top of the screen if you couldn’t tell. I’m not a pro but I’ve been looking at a lot of ultrasound pictures lately.

And one more…

2/23

Visions of my Christmas

We enjoyed lots of hot cocoa

Mom and Dino’s Christmas tree

Mom made Christmas scarves for the pups

Christmas animals hangin’ out in the cabinets

Christmas brunch

Opryland Hotel

My favorite wrappings

New game!

Our Christmas Tree

I was very excited to get started with Christmas this year. We got our tree the Saturday night after Thanksgiving. It’s our first normal-sized Christmas tree. In years past we have decorated a Norfolk pine but this year we went all out with lights, apple strings and ornaments old and new. I love it! Now the challenge is keeping the pets away.

Birthday Boy

Wes turned 32 last week. We spread the celebration out from Thursday thru Saturday, making it a birthday extravaganza. I actually don’t have many pictures of the events so I’ll just give you the run-down. On Thursday evening we struggled through horrid down-town traffic to meet Wes’s family at Maggiano’s where we struggled valiantly through a 6 course meal! I’m never really prepared for that place. I think it was all Wes had hoped for.

Friday night we celebrated with my family at Mom and Dino’s. Mom made Wes’s request, fajitas. We finished the meal off with a vegan chocolate cake and soy ice cream.

After church on Sabbath we went over to his parent’s house where we had yet one more feast. His mom made the birthday boy’s request, burritos and pistachio cake. Yum.

Saturday night Crystal came over to hang out and celebrate. She brought an interesting culinary gift.

Homemade chocolate-covered jalapenons!

Happy Birthday Wesley!

Sisters

The other day Wes and I walked from our house over to my sister and Michael’s house. It took about five minutes. That amazes me because since I left for college 12 years ago my sister and I haven’t lived in the same town for more than a couple months at a time.  For the past 4 years we’ve lived a 12 hour drive away from eachother.

She and Michael had a contract on another house that was about a 10-12 minute drive away from me. I was excited about that and sad for them when it fell through. Then they looked at this house in our neighborhood, loved it, made an offer, moved in last week and now I live just down the street and around the corner from my sister.

I am thrilled. I can walk over to see their new decor. We can borrow cooking ingredients and tools from eachother. If I lock myself out of my house I can go get the extra key from her (I still need to give that to her). We can all watch movies together and eat meals together on a regular basis.

I think my life happiness quotient has just been bumped up a couple notches. I am so blessed.