Catching up

We've been a little behind on blogging these days so this will be a catch up entry. On Christmas morning we woke up for our first Christmas as a family of 3 and really the only ones with gifts under the tree were Leah and Abbi. Adam and I didn't really worry about getting presents for each other this year since we had so many other things going on with having a baby.




Leah was sporting her Christmas wardrobe and looked a bit like a candy cane, a cute candy cane, of course.




On Christmas Eve Leah got to meet her Uncle Ryan, my brother, since he hadn't been home from St. Louis since she was born. It was weird that my little brother wanted to hold this tiny newborn right away, but I guess having a child of your own gets most guys over the I'm going to break the baby thing. On the Saturday after Christmas she met her Uncle Chris, Aunt Kacey, and only boy cousin, Nolan. We hadn't seen Nolan since this summer, because he and his parents are now living in Boston, and boy has he changed from a 1 year old to an almost 18 month old. He is a very active little boy and is starting to try and talk more, although his words are a little cryptic right now he can get his point across :)

We were a bit busy over the Christmas weekend and just needed some recoup time after that weekend. Adam said next time we need to have better timing and not have a newborn right at Christmas, as if we have that much control :) The last week of the year we just spent a lot of time together since it was the last week before Adam went back to work.

We didn't really do much for NYE since we didn't know if we would be awake, asleep, or feeding a child, we slept through the ball dropping and I think said "Happy New Years" to one another about 2:00 am when Leah woke up to eat.

Below was Leah's first time wearing her Boiler gear for the game against West Virginia on New Year's day. We think she might be the cutest little Boiler fan out there!



In my previous posts I mentioned some issues we have had with Leah's weight gain. After her 2 week appt where she hadn't really gained any weight and was below her birth weight still we tried a different approach to feeding and she lost another 3 oz, at this point the pediatrician was a bit more concerned and so for the next week I exclusively pumped and fed her all the breast milk I could pump and then supplemented with formula until she was full, which seemed to top off at about 3 oz. She did great with the bottle and it was actually a little bit nice that Adam could help me feed her. In that week she gained 13 oz and went from a sleepy, kind of apathetic, eater to a really hungry demanding eater. She was finally back up to her birth weight plus a little more. The pediatrician then said that I could just pump and feed every other feeding and go back to nursing the other feedings. We visited the office again this week for a last weight check and she is still gaining weight, finally this kid is heading in positive territory. We are still doing the combo of pumped milk and nursing but I hardly have to supplement anymore so its working for now and our baby is gaining weight so we are happy.

Although I definitely want her to have the benefits of breast milk, I'm glad I have been pretty open and flexible to how we are feeding her so that we can do what works for us as a family and not get so wrapped up in success or failure on the breastfeeding front. A mindset I would recommend for any new mommy, everything is new and not easy so feeling like you are a failure at something is just a stress that you as a new mom and your family doesn't need!

And here is just a cute picture of our little peanut and as you might be able to tell she is filling out more, you can see it in those chubby little cheeks!! She was done with me taking pictures of her but I think she is so cute when she gets fussy, at least when its during the day and only last a minute or two :)