36 weeks!

It still blows my mind that if I were still pregnant I would have a month left before she was due. We really are lucky that we've been able to know her and love her for 6 weeks already.
We had a busy weekend... we're trying to have some grownup fun before she comes home so Friday night we had dinner with our friends Matt and Janet and Saturday we had dinner at The 9th Door, then we headed to Elway's and partied with the Lakers (and by partied I mean that we watched them eat ;))

Saturday was also the March for Babies walk, thank you SO much to everyone who came out and for those of you who donated money in Emma's name... we really appreciate it!

Emma continues to get bigger, she's now up to 4lbs 14.6oz. She's still working on the bottle, but she's getting much more coordinated and today was her first very successful attempt at breast feeding (for more than a minute or two)!!

picture on left was taken 4/27, picture on right 3/30

oh, look at how fat I am!!!

Uncle Paul will be so proud, I've already mastered my golf grip!

Since I tend to look like crap when we're at the hosptial, I thought I'd include a semi-decent picture of myself :)

Reading Emma her new book; Emma's Turtle

When I see this picture I start singing Stop in the Name of Love

holding her daddy's hand (which is badly in need of a manicure)

I know this picture is blurry, but she was actually sucking her thumb!

Team Emma!

Marching for Babies

Yep, we really do just stare at her

How many people does it take to change the baby?

Okay, I need some decorating help now. A couple months ago my mom bought me what I thought was the perfect bedding. It's cream with brown, yellow, blue, red and green dots and I was planning on painting the walls of the nursery a light yellow and doing primary color acccents.

Then I went to BRU and found this:

Which I think it maybe the cutest bedding I've ever seen in my life. If I kept it I would paint the walls a light green and do black and white art.

So now my decision is: do I do a fun, primary color nursery like I'd originally planned or a more contemporary, girly nursery? I think the original bedding would go better with the crib (which is a dark brown), but I just love the 2nd bedding so much.
What do you think???

We're making progress...

on both the house front and the Emma front :)
First off... guess who has a new bed??? Emma!! Our hefty (4lbs 12oz) little girl is now in an open crib :) She looks like such a *normal* baby in it, I love it, and the best part is you can just pick her up and cuddle her whenever you want :) We also had our car seat installed today, which means we're one step closer to bringing her home!!
We also stopped by the house today and were super surprised to see how much is done. All the tile is in, though it hasn't been grouted, and the walls and trim is painted! They've moved our closing up 9 days, which is still 2 months from now, so I'm working on having them move it up even more... we'll see what happens :)

Enjoying some snuggle time with Grandpa

and Grandma

dinner time!

and a nice after dinner nap :)

her big girl crib!

it's ready and waiting for her (and don't worry, I'll clean all the crap out of the car before then)

our street, looking south, that is Stapleton's Central Park

our house!



second bathroom upstairs



master bath

shower and tub

the banister

a closeup (I love the dark stain!)



fireplace

a closeup

our backyard (which is actually pretty big by Stapleton standards)

35 weeks!

Sorry I have been MIA! I haven't had internet access since Thursday and it was killing me :) Thank you for all your kind words and support, last week was kind of rough for me, but hopefully this one will be better!

Emma is now up to 4lbs 7.8oz. She's 17.25" long and her head grew another 2cms! She actually took two bottles in a row last night, which is good progress. The nurses claim that one day the lightbulb will go on and she'll just start doing it all the time, I guess we'll see if they're right ;)

She is getting so big, she almost looks like a different baby... I thought it would be fun to compare some photos :)

3/25

4/17 (same onesie, just different design)

2/17

4/17

Emma's new favorite sleeping spot

Mom got a little carried away taking pictures of Emma's face the other day

Emma was so glad when Daddy came back, she just stared and stared at him

And then fell asleep while he read her a story

My husband, the voice of reason.

I know, it's not often that you hear me say that. And if you're here for Emma pictures, I don't have any today, I'm sorry.
I'm having a "woe is me" sort of a day and what sucks is that I know what my issue is and I just can't snap out of this mood. Today's topic: "But I just want to be her Mommy!"
The last couple days Emma hasn't been quite herself; she's a little bit more fussy and she isn't really taking a bottle very well and I feel like we're moving backwards. I'm told this is pretty common with preemies because it takes a lot of energy to learn something new and technically she's not even supposed to know how to take a bottle yet... everyone told me to expect it, but it still makes me sad when things aren't going perfectly. Then to top it off Emma's nurse made me feel more guilty. I know this nurse, she's Emma's primary nurse, and she really knows her stuff, but she can be a little blunt sometimes. I had asked the nurses last night not to try and give her a bottle after a certain time because I wanted to be able to do it when I got in this morning and she can't do 2 bottles in that short amount of time yet. Well she was too sleepy for the feeding I was there for this morning and the nurse kept pointing out that she was VERY wide awake at the 2 previous ones and it would have just been better to do it when she wanted to instead of when I wanted to. I know that, it makes perfect sense and I know that she's not going to do well if I'm "forcing" her. But I really didn't mean to force it. I just thought it would be nice for me to be able to do it instead of the nurses because I feel like there is so little I'm able to do for her.
I just want to be her mom and right now I don't feel like a mom. I feel like I'm playing with someone else's baby that I have to give back after a couple of hours. I want to take her home. I want to feed her and bathe her and love her and hold her whenever I want. I don't want someone else to tell me what to do. I want to be the boss. I want to decide what is best for her because I'M HER MOMMY!!!
And I know that once I have her home I'll probably be dying for a break, but right now I just want a chance to be her mom. I am really, really not a very patient person.
So I went to lunch with Jamie and had a bit of a breakdown and he so smartly pointed out that she shouldn't even be here yet and if she wasn't here I would have to wait to do all those "mom" things. And that we should view this time as "bonus" time because most parents don't get these extra weeks with their child, and we shouldn't put pressure on her or us, but we should just enjoy it and learn to take what we can get and soon she'll be home and then we'll be able to completely be her parents and do everything we can for her.
Evidently becoming a dad has made Jamie a wise, wise man. I am truly blessed to have him by my side and my sanity thanks him :)

Happy Birthday Emma!

I can NOT believe it's been a month already, time is really flying (she's both 1 month old and 34 weeks on Monday)! Emma is up to 3lbs 15oz and 16.5" (her head has grown a couple inches as well). She is so close to the 4lb mark, which makes her "eligible" to move into an open crib (which is kind of sad because we just received the most beautiful blanket to cover her isolette and we'll be sad that we can't show it off every day... if you're looking for a baby gift I highly recommend my friend Laura and her handmade goods http://http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5121660). She's taking 2 bottles a day (out of her 8 feedings) and I would guess she'll move to 3 in the morning. The doctors have even suggested I call and make an appt to get the car seat installed and I also finally found us a pediatrician because everyone thinks she could come home in "a week or two" (hopefully I didn't just jinx us). AAHHHH!!! I know this is what we've been working towards, but now that it's actually here it's a little scary. Basically she needs to keep breathing and work on her eating skills and she'll be home :)

Emma's new blanket!

Daddy giving Emma a bottle





She fell asleep like this today, I thought it was adorable :)

The first clothing item that Emma has outgrown ;)

Not really the best picture of me, but I'm guessing no one will even notice I'm in the picture

Jamie and his girl :)

Once again I got a great picture of Emma smiling :)

Grandma and Grandpa fawning over their little peanut :)

In non-Emma related news (yes, occasionally it does happen), we went to see the new house this weekend and we were very happy to see that the cabinets are in and all the doors and trim is done (though still needs to be painted). Of course then we got to wondering why they still think we can't close until the end of June, but we're working on that :)

Our kitchen, look at all the cabinet space!

Jamie showing off our office door

Our fireplace