one month

(those cheeks)

Everly Ruth is one month old today!  I crafted this little onesie for the big day and she barely fit into the newborn size.  Stop growing right.now.

Happy one month baby.  You are incredible.  

take it easy

Today we stayed in bed.  All day.  Just the two of us.

he's a natural

Our breastfeeding book told us this was the (and I paraphrase) "get your child to shut up" hold.  

For the record, it works.   

Evie (rhymes with Chevy) and Lily time.  

And if anyone was wondering, the animals could really care less about the baby, other than the fact they get considerably less attention and are pretty pissed about that.

so I can always remember what I looked like in those first few weeks....

  Look at that left eye...it's on the brink of tweaking out.   

(complimentary black & white photo editing as to not scare the young children)

a walk to the mailbox

1.  view of the mountains and neighboring church from the top of the hill.

2.  sunlight.  I desperately have needed sunlight and it felt so amazing on my face today.

3.  bumped into Andrew working on building seedling shelves.  hung out for a bit because he had sweet tea and thin mints with him as an afternoon snack.

4.  we had lots of rain this morning that melted the last bit of snow.  snow + rain + march = muddy farm

5.  selfie + everly 

6.  snug as a bug.  she loves being all wrapped up like this.  

7.  high traffic on our road.  

8.  the neighbors sheep dogs come to visit with their friends Hunter & Lily from time to time.  

9.  hey guys, who is watching the flock?  #sheepdogfail

I'm two weeks old!

My baby is two weeks old today!  And yes,  I am that mom that will be counting my child's life in weeks.  Everly is no longer the sweet baby that sleeps 24/7.  Now she is a sweet baby with multiple personalities who likes to sleep during the day and wake up at about 4:00 a.m. every morning.  We are working on the whole time schedule thing.  She is a big eater and is starting to get quite demanding about her dining needs.  She loves to have her hair brushed (lies--I just like to do it) and enjoys not wearing any clothes.  I fear that she will think her name is Baby because that is all that I refer to her as.  I need to work on that one.  

That's my big 2 week update for Miss Everly Ruth.  

a little too quiet

Things were a little too quiet this afternoon and I found this snuggle action going on in bed.  She's already got him wrapped around her finger.  

getting use to fluids

The past 10 days have become a bit of a blur.  Has it only been 10 days?  It feels a lot longer than that.  I've adjusted to living in a zombie like state.  Some nights have been really hard (like breakdown crying on your pillow at 4 a.m. hard because you have just spilled the bottle of milk you pumped, leaked on the bed yourself, and the baby needs ANOTHER diaper change) and other nights have been easy breezy and I feel like, yeah, I got this.  Right about the time I think yeah, I got this, Ev will spit up all over the place or leak this yellow corn poop out of her diaper and I realize I am not in control.  But all I have to do is look at her little face and I get all weepy and mama bear like and tell her that I am so thankful that I get to do all of this for her.  

There were so many things that no one really could have prepared me for.  Or maybe they could have but I didn't listen.  Like, this whole breastfeeding thing.  Day 3 came, the milk came, and I had NO clue what I was doing.  Thankfully I have had some amazing friends who came to the rescue.  They kept telling me that it would get easier and it really has.  

I still get really tired easy.  I'm not sure why I thought I would bounce back and be ready for regular life soon, but I do some light housekeeping and quickly loose energy.  Then when I complain about feeling lazy Andrew reminds me that I just pushed out a 9 pound baby 10 days ago.  Oh yeah...I did that?    

So, I'm trying to take it slow while taking it all in at the same time.  I don't want to blink and miss a thing.   

things that happen when you are 41+ weeks pregnant

I found this video today on my computer.  Andrew and I were a bit loopy at this point in the waiting game and inspired by Beyonce's documentary stylings.  I hope Everly finds this one day on the Internet and is proud of how cool her parents are.  

(warning:  rock star vocals at 46 seconds and the use of the word va-jay-jay)

well worth the wait.

one week

Today marked one week since I went into labor.  My labor started around 2:00 a.m. last Sunday morning and Everly came into the world at 1:49 a.m. on Monday morning.  Twenty four hours of hard, hard work.  

I spent much of the day thinking about how fast a week has already gone by and replaying where we were in labor as I looked at the clock.  I hope to have our birthing story to share sometime soon.  In the meantime, these are just a few photos that Andrew captured when early labor began.