She's growing! no really!

We had a doctor's appointment today. Luthien got poked and prodded and she got her shots. She screamed, but now she's sleeping peacefully. The pediatrician was very surprised when she looked at Luthien's weight/height. Here are the stats:

Luthien at birth: 6 lbs 4.5 oz
At birth: 19 inches
At birth weight at 10th percentile
At birth length at 30th percentile

Luthien currently: 12 lbs
Current: 23 inches
Currently weighs in at the 70th percentile
Currently measures at the 50th percentile

The pediatrician said I must have great milk :) cool.

Visit

My dad and Silvia visited last weekend. It was sweet.

DC is becoming a frozen wasteland

So the storm has not subsided yet. It has been nuts all day and there have been raids on the tiny grocery store in our apartment building. We are going a little stir crazy, but I have had a chance to try a little cooking. I made stir yesterday, and I'm working on beef stroganoff tonight. I also made some afternoon banana bread which made the apartment smell delicious. We've also taken some great pictures of Luthien the best of which is unanimously...

Peace everyone!

Snow Day!

We had a snow day today! Yes, I am on maternity leave so really, I wouldn't have gone to work anyway, but I have a bunch of errands to do that I wasn't able to do today due to the weather. But, today Andy got to stay home and we had a relax today. I don't think we've had such a chilled day since before Luthien was born. We are starting to get the hang of baby care I think. We certainly aren't experts, but we are learning. If work is canceled for Andy again tomorrow, I think I'll attempt to make banana bread in our moody stove.

Luthien

The baby is here as of sixteen days ago. I suppose eventually I'll have to start counting her age in weeks, but so far its been days. I think we are slowly adjusting to having a baby around. Of course, it helps that every time we look at her we want to make the world perfect for her. Seriously, every time she wakes me up at night, no matter how stupid tired I am, one look at her little face and I'll do whatever she needs.



Yes, Luthien has been and will continue to require a lot of sacrifices from us, but she makes them easy to do with her innocent eyes and endearing helplessness.
Also it is amazing seeing Andy as a dad. He is an extremely caring one. I know he will never be a stranger to our daughter.

The childbirth experience was...well hard, and painful, but also very blessed on reflection. It meant so much to me to have Andy by my side the whole time, and we had an awesome midwife. I loved the birth center and would recommend it to anyone who is not having a complicated birth. I am not a fan of hospitals, but having her at home would have been a little too intense for me. And I am up for having more kids eventually, so that shows it really wasn't too bad. All those years of cross country definitely helped me out!

Squirrels

Our epic squirrel feeding adventure...the squirrels outside of the White House are quite tame, and we decided to test exactly how tame...


This one ate out of my hand, which I tried after Andy tested the waters.


This one loved Andy so much, he tried to go home with us. Another one actually bit Andy, apparently thinking he was made of nuts.

New Year

Happy New Year everyone! I hope 2009 was a good year for you. It was an incredibly eventful and blessed year for me, and I feel the first half of 2010 will be finishing all that was started in 2009. We will have the baby soon, and get married in May. Once we reach June, it's just continuing to figure out how to live, no huge, life-changing things to plan.

Andy and I go back to work in the morning. We are both feeling a little grumbly about it, but it has been such an awesome year, that I really can't complain. We spent a lot of time reading, and just being lazy, doing the things we never have time to do. We went to a sweet New Year's eve party with some of our co-workers as well.

Yesterday, and today we embarked on an intense cleaning/organizing of the apartment. Apparently we both decided it was time to nest at the same time, and we are very pleased with the results. Our apartment is looking great with a few new pieces of furniture. We both feel organized in anticipation of the baby. We even packed our bag to take to the birth center, and Andy installed the car seat base. Essentially, we could have the baby at anytime, and we'd be good to go, although it would be better for her if she waited a few more weeks. We are both quite anxious to meet her.



This is Andy and I hanging out with Emily in a very cold DC over Christmas. This was taken before we fed the squirrels, which was terrifying.