Katelyn's First...

We have enjoyed taking pictures of "Katelyn's first _____" (fill in the blank). Here are some examples!

 First picnic! (Don't worry, we keep the dogs away from her while she's low to the ground like this)

First "real" bath. She had a sponge bath already, but when her cord fell off (at 5 days old!) we were excited to give her a real bath. Unfortunately, we didn't really know what we were doing and didn't put enough water in the tub, so it wasn't any different than her previous sponge bath!

First finger sucking. Or at least the first one caught on camera. With her own finger. Since I'm a stickler for the "rules" we're waiting until 4 weeks to give Katelyn a pacifier, but the girl loves to suck on things! The lactation consultant suggested that I let her suck on my finger, so I'm often stuck with one arm holding her and a finger from the other hand in her mouth. Not a very comfortable position, but it makes her happy! Needless to say it made me happy when she figured out she could suck on her own finger! She isn't doing it consistently, but every now and then she finds it!

First bottle! This was a big one for me, because it makes me feel less tethered to the house to know that she isn't entirely dependent on me for food! Plus it was great for Justin to get to feed her. 

We were impressed that she instinctively knew how to hold the bottle!

First walk! We took Katelyn out for her first walk during our first week with her. She slept through the whole thing, but I think it's a safe assumption that she enjoyed it. Justin, Kelsey, Cooper and I sure did! We started with a really short walk, but we're up to 3.5 miles. Maybe one day I'll be brave enough to take the dogs and Katelyn by myself, but I'm not there yet!

Katelyn is 2 weeks old!

Our sweet baby Katelyn is 2 weeks old! I have a MILLION things I could blog about, starting with her birth and all the events of the past two weeks, and maybe some day I'll go back and "catch up". In all my free time while I'm on maternity leave, maybe :)

Katelyn was 8 pounds, 2 ounces and 21 inches long at birth. At her two week checkup she was 9 pounds 2 ounces and 21.75 inches long! We were so happy to hear that she's growing, so we must be doing something right! The doctor said the goal was to get back to birth weight, so we were doing well. I'm glad to know that my daughter is already an overachiever. What else could I expect?!

She has changed our lives so much already and we are so in love with her!

I've been reading the blog www.younghouselove.com for a while now, and they did a weekly photo of their daughter from 1 to 52 weeks old. I really want to do the same and hope I can keep up with it! I tried to think of ways to make this project a little more unique and more our own, but ended up copying the idea from the blog almost exactly. One change is that I'm including a yard stick in each picture, so horizontally the picture is cropped to 36". Hopefully the pictures will show her growth over the next year! I also originally cropped the pictures to square, but decided that I'd like them to wind up in a spiral bound flip book for the coffee table and those tend to be available in 4x6 formats (although I bet companies will start making square ones for Instagram photos)

Here are the first two pictures of this project. Hopefully I'll stick with it and there will be 50 more to come!

I love this picture for week 2, because it shows how LONG she is and also that she's found her hands to suck on! I don't think she has the coordination to suck her thumb, but she loves sucking knuckles or sometimes the back of her hand! And she REALLY loves to suck my finger. I think it's about time to introduce a pacifier so I can have my finger back!