Letter to Adilyn

My Sweet Little Lady,

You sure have changed my life. I never knew what serving others truly meant until you came into my life. There is nothing more important to me than helping you out. At the moment you sleep most of the day and night, but the times that you are awake are my favorite. Well when you are not crying because you are tired or hungry. I love watching you discover the world and try your best to smile. The other you did smile at me and I am saying it was on purpose.

I have never been so tired in my entire life. I can't wait till you sleep through the entire night. Daddy feels the same way. Let's make a deal you can grow up just enough to sleep through the night and then you can stop growing. You are so perfect and little right now. I can't even imagine what you will be like when you are bigger. I think I have finally figured out how to make sure you are happy pretty much all of the time. At least for today and yesterday. Sometimes I wonder if you change your mind of what you like day by day.

Thanks for letting me be your mom. I love you little lady.

Tutu

I got the cutest tutu from my friend Briana at one of my baby showers. It is hot pink and shiny. Perfect for my little lady. I wanted her to wear it home from the hospital, but it was a little too big for her at the time. Then Life as a mom took over and I totally forgot she had that amazing tutu, until yesterday. I pulled it out when I needed to get a change of clothes for Adilyn. She had peed on herself while I was changing her. I put the tutu on her and it was almost too small! She is getting bigger without me even realizing it.

She was not super happy to be in it because she was hungry. Yep I am that mom who dresses up their baby and takes pictures instead of feed them (at least for a couple minutes).

If I could have her wear this everyday I probably would. I think she looks so cute!

Things that I have learned as a Mom

Let me just start of by saying that the word Mom and me seem strange together. I still sometimes think that maybe I am just watching Adilyn for someone else. In reality I am watching her because she belongs to our Father in Heaven, but in this life she is my daughter. I still can't believe that I have a daughter.

• I no longer matter when it comes to Adilyn's needs. If she needs to be feed and changed at 2 in the morning it does not matter that I want to sleep.
• I am surprised that I am not dead yet from not enough sleep. Getting 2-4 hour stretches of sleep is simply not enough, but yet here I am still kicking. (Well sort of)
• Time sure does fly even if you are not having a lot of fun. It is amazing how quickly the day goes by when you have a baby. Even if all she does is nurse, poop/pee, sleep, and cry. How does that make the day go by so quickly? It will be a mystery forever I think.
• I never knew what true frustration was until I had my little lady. Seeing her crying and not knowing what to do to help her is beyond frustrating. I feel helpless. I also have a hard time not crying when she is crying. I just want her to be happy all the time.
• A held Adilyn is usually a happy Adilyn, unless she decides she is starving even though she ate an hour ago (sometimes less)
• Her little gummy smile melts my heart. Even though she has not mastered smiling on purpose yet I still tell myself she is smiling at me. In reality she is just moving randomly. She mostly smiles in her sleep.
• I apparently make the best bed in the world. 
• Breast feeding has been the best diet for me. I lost all my baby weight and then some less than three weeks after she was born! Actually I lost all my baby weight by the end of the second week. By the end of the third week I had lost 4 pounds more. Sweet! Too bad it comes with nursing all freaking day long. Well not every second of the day, but some days it feels like it.
• Even with all that weight lost I don't think my pre pregnancy pants fit just yet. Blast. 
• Days like today (Adilyn cried most of the morning and eat every 1-1.5 hours and barely slept) are really draining, but she is worth every missed second of sleep and ounce of frustration.

Real Parents

Last night Orion went for a run while I went for a walk wearing Adilyn. During this walk she had her first blow out diaper ALL OVER ME! Well it was all over her leg as well. When we got home from the walk we had to give her a bath because she pooped everywhere. As Orion was taking her clothes off he got poop on her head! Poor little girl had no idea what was going on. Although when we put her in her little bath tub she was in love. Then I washed the poop off her head and it was like I was killing her.

Today when Orion was holding her she decided to share the love. She peed on him. When he changed her earlier her diaper somehow got shifted so it caught now of her pee. Instead it got all over his shirt. What a giving little lady we have. I told Orion that we are now real parents. All that we have left is for her to barf on us. I don't look forward to that day at all.

Pudgy Cheeks

I just love our pudgy cheeks little girl. I swear they just keep getting bigger and bigger!

Also she makes the funniest faces when she is awake and not being fussy. She usually only lasts an hour of being awake before she starts getting fussy and the only thing that makes her happy is to nurse. I am trying to teach her that she can go two hours being awake without nursing, but it is such a struggle! Maybe by the time she is a month old she will master this or I will stop caving in. We will see.

Honestly I can't help but laugh at the silly faces she makes. And check out that double chin! You can't say this this little lady is starving at all.

Here she is trying to be Zoolander. What a crack up she is.

I found this picture of Adilyn when she was just two or so hours old. My sister-in-law Rebkah came to visit us right after our little lady was born. Even though she could only stay for five minutes because visiting hours were almost over. We were so happy to have her come and bring me treats! I had to go 24 hours without eating while in labor. Well I got to eat jello and drink clear juice. Needless to say I was starving by the end of the day.

A Surprise Visit

We may or may not be out of minds, but we made a surprise visit over to the coast last week. My mom was sick (not the kind of sick she could have passed off to the baby) and could not come see us. With the idea from Orion's mom we decided to go visit my mom. We had not even thought about going over to see my mom. We just figured she would come here when she was able to travel. What a great trip it was!

My mom was so excited and surprised to see us. She screamed when I walked into her house and was so excited to hold Adilyn. We did not take pictures because we are silly.

After visiting with my mom we decided to go to the beach. I know what you are thinking you brought a little baby to the beach? Yep. Don't worry we made sure she was completely covered and we were only there for a tiny bit. We really needed our beach fix. It is very sad for us to not live near the ocean anymore. We constantly talk about moving back.

All snuggled up for our little stroll. She did not actually look at the ocean at all. She mostly slept while we walked.

You can only see Adilyn's hat but it's our first family photo.

I sure do love this man.

It is our tradition to collect sand dollars every time we go to the beach. This time we found a little baby one just for Adilyn.

It was a long day because we drove over in the morning and back the same day. Everyone was very tired at the end of the trip, but it was very much worth it. We got to see my mom, my sister-in-law and her children, the beach, and our good friends Kylie and DJ. I can't wait till our little lady is bigger so she can actually interact with people instead of sleep or be fussy because she is in a new environment.