A Day in the Life of Eliana: 4 Weeks Old

This is mostly for the grandparents, but I'm sure others will enjoy. I plan to write "A Day in the Life of Eliana" every month or so, to see how she is changing and growing.

7:30 am- Daddy came home from PT. Mommy and I were sleeping in bed together, but waking up

7:40 am- I'm awake, I think

7:50 am- Daddy and I take a shower. It was fun, I didn't cry once! But after I was cold and Mommy couldn't get me dressed and warmed fast enough.

8:30 am- When she finally did and I got all warm and toasty again like I like I feel asleep

9:15 am- I didn't sleep very long, I realized I was hungry. Here Mommy caught the end of my post eating smile. After eating I played a little on Mommy's lap. No pictures of that because Mommy can't take a picture when she is using both hands to play with me. We played "Up and Down" and " Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes." I really like "Head and Shoulders," it's fun!

9:45 am- After some playing, Mommy tried to trim my nails because Mommy and Daddy keep complaining about me scratching them, she only got to trim one hand so I guess I know one thing we will be doing later in the day

10:00 am- Time for a diaper change and then a quick snack, because I'm sleepy again.

10:15 am - 12:00pm - Nap time! Waking up is hard sometimes.

12:15 pm- Another post eating kinda smile, I do like to eat.

12:50 pm- Poopy face, Thanks Mom

12:55 pm- More playing on Mommy's lap, she also trimmed my other hand

1:00 pm- Time to take my vitamins, I don't mind at all. I think it tastes yummy

1:15 pm- After mom changes my diaper, again, she put me on my tummy time mat. I'm totally fine with that...

until she puts me on my tummy. I can't see anything! It's too hard to pick my head up.

Okay, I'll try to pick it up a little, but then I'm done!

1:40 pm- After all that tummy time "fun" I need another nap. When it's nap time, Mommy bundles me up into a little burrito.

And then we get to snuggle for a bit

2:00 pm- Aunt Tammy calls and I think I'd rather listen to what she has to say than take a nap

2:30 pm- Okay, I'll go to sleep now

4:00 pm- I'm hungry! Like starving, I'm pretty sure Mom hasn't feed me in forever.

4:30 pm- I'm not really sure what I was doing here, maybe pooping again?

4:45 pm- Daddy calls to say he is on his way home, I decide I better eat again now so we can play right away!

5:00 pm- Daddy's Home! First we play peek-a-boo, I don't really get it, but Daddy seems to like it

Then Daddy lets me hold on to his ID for him

5:30 pm- While Mommy made dinner, Daddy and I got on Skype to meet Aunt Becky and Uncle Joseph

6:30 pm- More playing with Daddy!

7:30 pm- Going to take a quick nap before bedtime, I have been up since 4 you know.

8:00 pm- Mommy wakes me up to get ready for bed. Diaper change, put on PJs, and a quick feeding.

9:30 pm- I go to sleep for the night, or at least the next couple of hours

2 weeks old

Eliana had her 2 week check up last Thursday. She is doing great! She weighed in at 7 lbs 6 oz and 20 inches long. They told me the percentiles that she falls into and I think they were 18% and 35%.

The past 2 almost 3 weeks have been wonderful. I was very lucky to have my mom and Dave home with me and Eliana for most of that time. Mom went home on Fri and Dave went back to work yesterday. We haven't really done much exciting, just spent a lot of time loving our little girl.

She is such an amazing baby. She hardly ever cries (only when she is hungry or cold) and stops crying just as soon as that problem is fixed. She is also sleeping pretty well. She seems to know night and day. Last night she actually slept for 5 1/2 hours straight, ate for awhile and went back to sleep for another 4 hours. During the day she takes shorter naps and enjoys spending her awake time cuddling or eating. She is starting to get used to her swing and her tummy time play mat, but usually won't stay in either for too long.

Today her umbilical cord stump fell off and she has a beautiful little belly button. To "celebrate" the fact that Eliana doesn't have to take sponge baths anymore, she took her first shower with me. She really likes the warm water running over her and I think it relaxed her because right after we got out, I nursed her and she fell right to sleep. Looks like making bath time part of our bedtime routine will only help our wonderful sleeper sleep even better.

And now for some pictures!

This is Eliana's milky face, right after eating

Napping in the swing

Napping in her bassinet

Eliana Loves having her hair brushed

Eli was waking up, but I set her down on the couch
for a moment and she went back to sleep

Holding on to Daddy

Holding on to Daddy's finger

She put both of Daddy's fingers into her mouth to suck on

Sunday afternoon naptime

Laying on her play-mat and holding in her binkie

Stretched out on the couch

And finally... Eliana's brand new belly button
Our little Eli Button!

Two Projects Down!

Well, just mere hours after talking about the projects that were on the slate to help us further nestle ourselves in...on my last day off, I knocked out two! Our income tax return hit and we were able to manage them.

I started with the garage. Got a couple of heavy duty shelves
and moved the one we already had (which is broken and will
be replaced) into the corner and placed the two new ones
along the wall at the one end of the old shelf. My Army gear
now has a place to live where it isn't clogging up closet
space!

Project #2 was our storage closet. Previously
all you would see when this door was open was
my Army gear on the floor, as well as a number
of boxes, my gun cases, and a few shelves
peeking above the mess on the floor. Now,
thanks to the shelves in the garage and these
new shelves, we have a lot more horizontal
surface on which to spread our extra stuff!
Lisa actually helped me out hanging these
shelves, she even drilled a hole or two!

We are supposed to get our ceiling fans tomorrow and the maintenance guys are supposed to come and install those for us. Not far behind that will be our bedroom closet...which the maintenance guys will also do, since it involves removing the old shelving in addition to putting in the new ones. It's so exciting to have everything coming together!

A Tour of the New Home

So, here's a look at our new place. It took us a while...but, we've got it to a point that it really feels complete. There are still a few things we are working on to further make the place our own. But, here is the tour:

Here's the view of the exterior of the home. Our bedroom is
the window you can see on the right.

This is looking in the front door. To the left is the living
room, to the right is the kitchen/dining room.

Here's a corner to corner walk through our living room/
office area.
Our living room is easily the most used room in the house, as this
is where we have the TV and the office. It is a very comfortable
room, but still very spacious!
I love my office! We found this beautiful L desk at Office Depot
and it fits the room very nicely. Now...we just need a newer
computer that will actually allow me to work online without
the computer freezing up every few seconds!

Our kitchen.
One of the things that we both really like about this setup
is how the kitchen opens into the dining room. It really makes
the area feel bigger than it really is...it also helps with clean up
since the sink is right there!

Our dining room, with our beautiful, new table!
We don't eat many meals here just yet, but we have already
decided that it is our goal to try to establish a family tradition
of eating meals at the table where the entertainment comes
from talking to each other, rather than from watching the
television.

Our back porch and back yard. Eliana's bedroom is the
window on the far left in this picture.
Yet again, an area of the home that doesn't see much use.
But, once we start piecing together our home in greater
detail, we will decide what we want to do with our porch
and yard. Eliana will certainly want to come out here to
play at some point.

A look down the front hallway (from the front entry.)

Our utility room, complete with our new washer and dryer!
This is the door to the garage.

Our garage. Notice the new bike! This will be my new
primary mode of transportation to and from work to
help me get in better shape, save money on gas, and allow
Lisa to have the car a bit more.
This is one of the areas of the house that is going to be
improved upon. I'm planning on getting a couple more
shelves to put in the little alcove so that we have some
more shelves for storage.

More a point of reference than anything. But, notice the
clever storage of our iron and ironing board?

Our bedroom with the beautiful bedspread and pillow set
that my sister gave us for Christmas.

Our closet. This is yet another project in waiting. There isn't
as much shelf space as either Lisa or I would like, so we're
planning on getting some wire shelving to put in here to
give us a bit more shelf/hanging space.

Our tiny, little bathroom. There is an entrance from our
bedroom (top) and from the hallway (bottom). Special thanks
to Mickey Mouse for taking that first picture for me!

The hallway between our bedroom and Eliana's room. There
is, as you can see, another door between the bathroom and
Eliana's room. This is a walk in storage closet. No pictures
of this, though...it is a complete disaster! The only a shelf space is a
1' shelf along the back wall in this 8' x 3.5' closet, so it is mostly floor
space. Naturally, most of the things that are presently stored in
it are on the floor. This is yet another project that we have in mind.
We are going to put some shelves in here as well to get things
off the floor and on shelf so that we have access to whatever
is stored there and not just whatever is closest to the door...so, no
pictures until we've put more shelving in to make the space a little
more usable/presentable.

Finally, we have Eliana's room. Believe it or not, I actually
helped arrange and decorate this room. Not sure if you can
see it, but I installed new hardware on the little chest of
drawers that's sitting under the window. They used to be
these really loose handles, but we found the silver ones
that were one solid piece. We both really like how it looks.
About a week or so before Eliana was born, I went in, put the
crib sheet on and arranged the stuffed animals on the crib
because I was so excited for my little girl to finally come!

Hope you enjoyed the tour!