Amiable Annalise

There's nothing more rewarding than a baby's first smiles. All of your effort and hours spent feeding/rocking/holding are made completely worth it when she smiles up at you. Here for your enjoyment are some of the smiles we have managed to capture.

Four Years Ago

Four years ago today, Dave and I committed to spend our lives together for better or worse. In the past four years we have been through difficult times (our miscarriages) and wonderful times (with the two of us together and now with Annalise). We count ourselves tremendously blessed to be able to go through life's ups and downs together. It is a special gift to have someone to rejoice with during times of celebration and hold onto when life gets hard.

We praise God for bringing us together and teaching us how to love each other. He has been good to us.

1 Thessalonians 3:12 NIV
May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.

Thanks go to my Dad and Auntie Althea for the photos.

For contrast - Here's us a little less than four years later:

Exciting News

Here are two pictures of my sister holding Annalise when she was born. How many people are in each of these pictures? The answer - 3! Belinda, Annalise, and Belinda's tiny unborn baby who will be arriving in early September. Congratulations Bee and Brandon - we can't wait to see you hold your own little one. Feel free to practice soothing techniques and build baby carrying muscles with Annalise whenever you want. Annalise can't wait to meet her cousin.

6 weeks old and growing like a weed

Annalise is a quickly growing girl. Here is a little update:

1. She tracks faces and loves to stare into your eyes. When someone new holds her, she inspects them carefully.
2. She has been partially smiling for a little over a week whenever we play with her. Her mouth opens wide and the corners turn up a little. She gave a huge smile yesterday for the first time which was in response to a kiss on her cheek.
3. She lifted her head high while doing tummy time two days ago because Daddy came in and she wanted to see him. It was darling. She held her head high and then dropped it and lifted it high again. I can't get her to repeat this - she just isn't as interested in seeing me as she was in seeing Dave. She always lifts her head a little bit and wiggles around, but this was the first time she fully lifted and pushed up her head and chest.
4. She's still not much of a sleeper. The doctor said she has acid reflux, which hurts her poor little throat. She's on medicine for it, and she has to sleep at an upright angle (which is her swing at the moment). She sleeps for 2-3 hours at a time (usually 2) during the night.

Here are some cute pictures so you can see her progress.

This picture shows her future college plans. Her little outfit says "Cal Poly Mustang."

Go Cal Poly!

Here you can see her in her cute summer outfit and knitted booties (the ones I made while pregnant).

Here are some more cute photos. We love her expressions.

This weekend, I went to a baby shower for our friend who is adopting a little girl from Taiwan. I was able to hang out with some long-time friends and Annalise got to meet some of her future friends, including Charlotte, who was born at the same hospital four weeks later. We can't wait to meet Abigail (from Taiwan) in April/May and Jett (who will be born in April)!


Annalise and Charlotte - have you ever seen two such beautiful babies?

More photos from a couple weeks ago:

Tummy time

Her first bottle being given by Daddy

Her first Valentine's Day

Sleeping in what we call her "squirmy wormy" position


After a long night of no sleep, cuddling with Daddy in the morning.

Riding around in the "Baby K'tan"

What a doll!

A time to mourn

Life is full of both joy and sometimes very great sorrow. This week our hearts are very sad over the passing of our good friend's newborn baby boy 3 days after his birth. He was extremely special and loved and he is being mourned deeply. Anyone reading this blog, please take a moment to pray for his parents.

Thank you.

Life with Annalise

Here are a couple pictures that depict our current life with our darling Annalise.

In this photo she's engaging in one of her favorite activities - crying. We joke that her crying has 4 stages. In this picture she just took a huge breath and engaged in stage 4 crying.

This is her receiving a sponge bath (no submerging until that umbilical cord falls off, which it still hasn't).

This photograph shows her post-feeding face. It always makes me laugh. She typically makes this face when she goes into her "milk coma."

Here she is sleeping in her bassinet. She pulled her arms out of her swaddle and we thought it was really cute how she put them behind her head.

Here she is relaxing with Daddy. Their arms match.

We get a few minutes a day when she is awake and happy. Currently they are very few, but we expect their number to increase as she gets older.

This was our first trip out to a restaurant. We went to Dim Sum with Dave's family while they were here. She was very well behaved (slept).

What a precious sweetie she is!

Life with a newborn

I am emerging from the silence. We managed to post some pictures in the last couple weeks for you all, but typing up blog messages was a little more than we could manage (as was returning phone calls - sorry!)


Congrats to the people who guessed the correct birth weight for our not so terribly big Annalise - 7 pounds 6 ounces.

The last almost 3 weeks have been intense. We adore our little miracle baby who has taken over our lives. Everyone said we wouldn't get any sleep, but we thought they meant we wouldn't get much sleep . . . we didn't realise that they literally meant we wouldn't get any sleep at all! We didn't sleep for the first 48 hours. Now I have graduated. I had two 2-hour sleep sessions last night - a new record amount.


Here are some of the things we have learned in the past 3 weeks:


1. Expect the unexpected (like a C-section after fully dilating and pushing for an hour or a fountain of pee from a little girl whose diaper is already pee filled)


2. Capitalize on the moment (if she's sleeping, lie down and if you're lucky you'll get 30 minutes rest - of course, you might prefer to use that 30 minutes to eat or go to the bathroom)


3. Hospitals are a terrible place to rest. As soon as your never-sleeping baby finally falls asleep you can count on IV medication changes, vital signs monitoring (me and baby), visitors, hospital meals, and the birth certificate and hospital baby photo people loudly entering the room.

4. Hospital nuseries can turn away your baby if she is "too fussy." There is nothing more depressing than having your baby brought back to you screaming after 30 minutes in the nursery because their professional soothers couldn't soothe her (although she had been fed and changed and sent to them asleep).


5. You can't drive after a C-section. Maybe this is something everyone else knows, but this took me completely by surprise. They originally said no driving for 2 weeks, but at our recent doctors appointment she extended it to 4 weeks. That's a long time to be carless.


6. You can never take too many photos. I find it funny that I stare at her all day and then when she is sleeping I stare at the photos of her that we have taken.


7. Babies come with an extreme learning curve. It's not just the baby herself, but also working all the of the baby paraphernalia. All of a sudden you have to learn how to do a billion things you might have never done before - things like working a breast pump, strapping a screaming baby in a car seat, nursing (enough said), buttoning baby outfits, and changing diapers. These things become even more challenging when they are being done on less than 4 not consecutive hours of sleep.


8. Diapers with wetness indicator lines are the best. That way you don't have to initiate the screaming sequence by taking off/peering inside the diaper to see if it's dirty.


9. Friends and family are invaluable. Thank you to all of you who have helped out and brought food or helped us take care of Annalise.


And finally . . .


10. You can desperately love someone who never does anything for you except take your time and your sleep and scream in your face. Every time you look at her you can be amazed by how precious and special she is and how lucky you are to have her.



Here are a few photos to enjoy (courtesy of my father)


Our beautiful girl and Dave playing with her

Our family all together (we missed you Auntie Char and Uncle Brandon!)