College blues.

Lately I forget that I'm still a student. Like, a lot. So I've been super close to missing almost every deadline for every assignment. But somehow I remember at the last minute and have yet to turn in anything late. Wanna make bets on how long my lucky streak lasts?

Last Friday night I horribly underestimated the difficulty of a paper I had due by midnight. Then I also had to squeeze in an exam before midnight, as well. So, I started both around 6pm and crammed and stressed for a few hours while Sterling tried to handle Brynleigh during her fussy time where she is inconsolable for about an hour. And I ate pretzels for dinner and had a baby attached to my chest while trying to frantically figure out what the heck APA formatting is. Ah, now I understand why people say to do college before babies.

Then I checked my grades today. 88% on the paper and 98% on the exam. Somehow we pulled it off amidst the chaos that a baby brings. 

I graduate in 10 months. Oh, December, you cannot come fast enough. I'm seriously considering making one of those paper-link countdowns like the ones kids make for Christmas. Except this is even more exciting than Christmas.

Valentine's

Last Thursday was our third Valentine's Day together! And our first with the little lovebug :)  Sterling had 18 roses delivered to me. I've never had flowers delivered to my door before! For his gift, he got to get an extra ounce of silver this month (he's on a silver collecting kick, he usually gets one ounce a month to build his stash), plus a couple little treats, too. Brynleigh already had some V-Day outfits, but they were all too big on her so I had to buy a new one so she could be festive :) Then I picked up some curry from our favorite Thai place in IF and got a Redbox. It was a nice little V-Day in!

We were supposed to start packing up the apartment this weekend. I can't really pack during the week when Sterling's at work because a certain little girl demands on being held 24/7, so packing can really only be done when Sterling is home to watch her. This left us with two weekends to pack, which was already a little stressful of a timeline. On Friday, we tried to find some boxes behind the stores here in Shelley (we forgot when we were up in IF), but that produced nothing. We said we'd search IF on Saturday, but that never happened. SO, the weekend came and went and there's still not a single thing packed. Whoops. Now we're left to packing up the entire place next weekend, because we're moving the Friday after. Fun, right?

Brynleigh had another weight check at the doctor's today. She's up to 8 lbs 9.5 oz! Up from 8-1 last Monday. She's a little chunker! But we're so glad she's finally healthy and gaining weight. She has to get her shots and 2 month checkup in two weeks now, but we'll be moved by then so I need to hurry and find her a new pediatrician in Preston or Pocatello or somewhere.

Anyway, we really aren't all that interesting right now, so I'll just close with some pictures!

Valentine's outfit!

My pretty roses :)

yawns!

My attempt at catching her smiling.

I was trying to get ready this morning and she was throwing a fit and didn't want to be put down. My solution? Propping up a bottle for her and letting the Friends DVD intro play over and over (she loves TV, btw). It worked!

Trying to get a picture with her smiling. This was the closest we got.

This is how she sleeps in the carseat.We try and try to get her to keep her neck straight but she won't. So we get worried strangers thinking we're bad parents wherever we go haha.

First Smiles & First Houses

My baby smiled her first real smiles this morning. Oh, melt my heart! Last night, I probably spent close to an hour making faces at her, trying to get her to smile. We got close, but not quite. Then this morning when I laid her on our bed and was talking to her, she started giving me this big grins! So we spent some time smiling at each other while I snapped away with the camera. Now, excuse me while I be a new mom and post a dozen nearly-identical shots ;)

"Kay, Mom, I'm done now."

 

 

 

Ahh, I just love that little face. Anyway, she is doing great! She's finally gaining weight, and a lot of it at that! Between her weekly weight check and meeting with the doctor about her acid reflux (a Friday to Monday) she went from 7 lbs 5 oz to 7 lbs 9 oz. Then we went back a week later to see the doctor to check if her reflux meds were working (that was this Monday), and she was up to 8 lbs 1 oz! So she's gaining more than an ounce a day, which is great. And we're not even giving her that much formula lately, she's mainly breastfeeding. We just give her maybe three 2-3oz bottles of formula a day to supplement her, usually mainly when we're out running errands or something (I can't bring myself to do the whole public BF thing. I see these women with these cute nursing covers, but I just don't think I'm coordinated enough. I'm sure I'd end up flashing some poor, innocent people while trying to mop up the milk Brynleigh thinks is fun to spit out down my stomach every single time.) and at night so she'll stay fuller longer, then I'll nurse her to sleep. We think her meds are helping her acid reflux, though now she's into a phase where she has a super fussy time every evening. Fun stuff, I tell you.

Aaaaand, we bought a house! Well, we haven't closed on it quite yet, but everything is all sorted out and taken care of, so we feel pretty darn safe calling it ours now. A couple of months ago, Stoddard Farms asked Sterling if he'd want to come back and work for them. So we went down to Grace, talked it over with them, and decided that's what we want to do. So we started frantically looking for a house to buy (since there's nothing to rent in that town). We fell in love with one, then it sold before we even put in an offer. Then we actually put in an offer on another one, but we didn't get that house. Then we started freaking out a bit because there wasn't really anything left in Grace that wasn't either a shack or double our budget. Then we heard about a house that wasn't listed yet, and it sounded great and we got super excited, thinking we found our new home. Buuut, we went and looked at it and it was awful. Great potential, but currently awful and would be until we spent a looong time renovating. So we felt super defeated and stressed (this was only like 2 weeks ago, btw) because we needed to find a place ASAP but there was literally nothing else.

 THEN my wonderful father-in-law remembered that there's this elderly couple in the ward that had been thinking for quite awhile they wanted to move down to Utah to be closer to their kids, but there house wasn't even for sale or anything. So he called them up and asked if they wanted to sell their house to us (it sure helps having a bishop dad who knows everyone in town). They said they were interested and let us come over to check the place out. So we did, and we made them an offer and they accepted it right then and there. We should be closed by the 1st of March, though we told the couple they could take until the 15th to move out if they needed to. We have to be out of our apartment on the 1st, so it looks like we'll be staying in Sterling's parent's house for a little bit.

I'm super excited to have a house we own and can do whatever we want to! It's a nice house, but it definitely needs some updating. The living room has orange shag carpet, so Sterling promised me that we can get that replaced the moment we move in. And there's lots of wallpaper, so I'm planning on doing some serious painting. There's a bunch of things that need updating, but everything is nice and clean, so it's definitely liveable for now and we'll just do little projects along the way. We don't have any pictures of the house yet, so those will have to wait until we move in. It has 2 bedrooms plus a big loft, 2 bathrooms, a living room & family room, and a really nice mudroom that used to be the garage. So since there's only 2 real bedrooms, this obviously isn't a forever home for us. We plan on it being a starter home for now, then once more kids start coming along we'll have to upgrade to a bigger house.

Anyway, that's about it for now. Here are a few more pictures!

Waiting for Dad at the dentist. She falls asleep in the weirdest positions!

Church outfit!

Nappin with Mom.

One month!

My baby is one month old tomorrow! And already everyday I get a little sad thinking about how fast she is growing up. It's crazy! She's still a tiny little girl, but she seems so much different than that little newborn we brought home! She has a little personality now and all of these facial expressions and mannerisms and whatnot that she didn't have when she was brand new.

So let's reflect on the past month of new parenthood! Man, it is a crazy thing. Obviously, you know you're life is going to change when you have a baby, but you can't ever really comprehend just how it is.

We were in the hospital for a few days after she was born, then when we came home my parents were here visiting for the week. Having a newborn is so stressful at first! You suddenly have this little person who you know a little bit, but at the same time she's a stranger who you have to learn everything about. I was pretty confident in my abilities to take care of a baby, but it was still so nice to have my parents here to help those first few days while we got situated.

Then once my parents left, Sterling also had to go back to work. So I was alone with Brynleigh for the first time! That first week of being a stay-at-home momma was a blur of trying to clean the house while she was asleep (that never worked too well), attempting to do normal things like shower (this resulted in me leaning out of the shower, dripping wet, every 30 seconds when she started crying) and apply makeup (this was actually successful, but was done with one hand while holding Bryn in the other), and trying to figure out things like breastfeeding.

Oh, breastfeeding. Nobody tells new moms-to-be how INCREDIBLY HORRIBLE it is. Like, wow. I knew it would hurt some at first, but I had no idea it would make the first two and a half weeks of being a mom a living helllll, both physically and emotionally. First, we had trouble in the hospital with Brynnie latching on. We saw the lactation specialist probably at least 6 times. Then my milk was taking too long to come in, so the doctor told me I needed to supplement with formula. I actually cried when they told me this, because I wanted to exclusively breastfeed my baby so she was as healthy as possible and felt like a failure as a mother.

By the time we got to come home, I was trying to feed baby with a cracked, bleeding, engorged mess (sorry for the icky details). I couldn't talk through the first 30 seconds of each feeding because I was reeling from the pain. It was awful. And she wanted to eat constantly, so that meant constant pain. I really didn't believe that it would ever get better. I seriously considered switching to entirely formula feeding. It was a painful, stressful mess. But we continued, and by week 3, it was suddenly a million times better. And now it's a breeze! But yeah, all you future moms should consider yourselves warned. Breastfeeding sucks at first.

Another issue we encountered was Brynleigh's weight. Like I said before, while in the hospital Brynleigh lost too much weight (I think a whole pound? She was 7 lbs 7 oz at birth, and I think she got down to 6 lbs 6 oz? I was a little emotional and didn't catch the exact numbers) so we were told we had to supplement with formula. After we were home for a few days, my milk was in so I stopped using formula and just gave her breastmilk. When we went to the doctor for her 1 week check-up, she still wasn't gaining weight so we were told to keep supplementing formula along with breastfeeding. And now, at 4 weeks old, she still isn't up to her birth weight (she's currently 7 lbs 5 oz). We've been having to go in for weekly weight checks, and at her last one the nurse told us we needed to make an appointment to see the doctor to have Bryn checked for acid reflux. So we're going in tomorrow for that. I think she has either reflux or a sensitivity to something in her formula. They switched her to a formula to reduce spit up last week, but I don't see it working. Anyway, hopefully we can get something figured out tomorrow. I hate seeing my little girl so fussy and gassy and not gaining weight!

Other than all that, things are going great. We're getting into the swing of things and figuring this whole parenting thing out. We had family pictures and newborn pictures done last week (see a sneak peek below), and should have all those pictures back sometime this coming week. I'm super excited. She's such a cute, funny little girl. She has the best expressions--many of them are 'old man faces' so we've nicknamed her Wilbert (a fitting old man name). She is a super cuddly baby, she has to be held constantly. She won't sleep alone, so she's in Mom & Dad's bed every night (much to the dismay of my in-laws :), and yes we practice safe co-sleeping. She hates the Moby but loves the new Infantino carrier I bought. She also hates baths, which I'm hoping she grows out of soon!

 As for me, I'm pretty much all healed up and doing good. I took the tape off of my c-section incision today and it looks pretty good. Still a little tender and I think I have some nerve damage on one side, but nothing bad. I lost all but 5 pounds of my baby weight in the first 2 weeks after she was born because I accidentally starved myself (I was too stressed and busy taking care of Brynleigh that I just didn't make time to eat). But I realized that was really affecting my milk supply so I've made it a point to be sure to eat more and now those last 5 pounds haven't budged much (I'd like to think that they've settled into my chest, haha).  I think that's a good enough update for now, so onto some pictures!

Yawns!

Our first time going to church!

Daddy testing out our new carrier. Cute little Brynnie eyes poking out :)