Is Elsie's head small for her age?

Why are the hoods on all of Elsie's jackets so large?  Does she have a small head?  The jacket seems to fit the rest of her just fine...

Visit from Grandparents

Here are some great pictures of Elsie with Grandma Jan and Grandpa John during their visit last week. Elsie really enjoyed spending time with her grandparents, showing them a few nice big smiles (and a few good cries!).

Elsie is 6 weeks old

Elsie hit the 6 week milestone on Tuesday. It is amazing to watch her learn to do new things every week. This week, she has become interested in the mobile that hangs on her crib. In the mornings after she eats and gets dressed, the mobile entertains her while mom gets dressed for the day. She talks to her "friends" on the mobile - her favorite is the butterfly.

She has also learned that her fingers are pretty tasty! Elsie really enjoys sucking on things, like her pacifier, so we are very excited for Elsie to learn to use her fingers as her pacifier. She has conquered sucking on her fingers or thumb a few times, but it only lasts for a couple seconds. The other times, Elsie just licks her fingers and then smears the drool all over her face...


Elsie also enjoys playing after a nice meal. She lays on the blanket in the family room and looks around at all of the great sights, including the outdoors, the ceiling fan, and a large green and red tulip painting. During this time, she also likes to give mom and dad great big smiles! I enjoy these smiles too much to pull away and find the camera. Next week, I will try to capture some smiles to share with all of you. In the meantime, here she is hanging on the couch:

Jack's birthday!

On Sunday, Jack celebrated his 32nd birthday. We started off the day by going to church - Mom and Elsie were excited to get dressed up for the big event.

Then we celebrated with Jack's favorite birthday cake - yellow cake with chocolate frosting. You can see Elsie is quite scared of all of those candles!! And then much happier once Jack blows them all out.

On Saturday, we took Elsie downtown for the first time to visit Jill and Scott. Jill and Kristi enjoyed a nice afternoon getting our nails done. Meanwhile, Elsie hung out with Jack and Scott enjoying some march madness. Here, Jill is amazed by all the poop and spitup our tiny daughter generates!

Elsie is 5 weeks old

On Tuesday, Elsie turned 5 weeks old. This week, Elsie has added a new trick to her bag - eating from a bottle! (This means mom has also added a new trick - pumping). In preparation for her daycare days, Jack has been feeding Elsie with a bottle once a day. She has done great switching back and forth!

Elsie's pleasant times are becoming longer and more playful. She still enjoys the changing table, but I took these photos in the family room. She enjoys watching the fan on the ceiling and the various toys Mom places in front of her.

We have also been going on long walks in the afternoon when the weather cooperates. It was 72F on Tuesday, and we were out for 2 hours! Dad joined us on this particular walk, and we enjoyed root beer floats from Hamburger Heaven.

St. Pat's Parade

Instead of heading to Rolla this year for the big St. Pat's celebration, we attended the Elmhurst parade (third largest in Chicagoland!). Elsie got some beads and we all enjoyed the beautiful weather.

Elsie is 1 month / 4 weeks old today!

Elsie is both 4 weeks old and 1 month old today - thanks to February only having 28 days. At her 1 month check-up today, Elsie weighed in at 10lb, 9oz and measured 22" long. She is now at about the 85th percentile for her age (as opposed to the 99th percentile at birth). I think Elsie is just giving my arm and back muscles a chance to catch up.

This week, Elsie has continued to enjoy spitting up as her favorite past time. She also continues to be most pleasant when on the changing table - maybe because we spend a lot of time there. All of the pictures in this post were taken today, and you will notice that Elsie is wearing three different outfits. To her repertoire, Elsie has added wriggling her way into a diagonal position while sleeping.

I think Elsie may have smiled in earnest a few times too. You be the judge:

Daddy and Elsie

Jack hangs out with Elsie every evening (sometimes stretching well into the night) when he comes home from work. Here are a couple pics of Daddy and daughter bonding time.

New Jungle Gym Inhabitants

Looks like the jungle gym has found some new, furry inhabitants...

Family Play Date

On Saturday, Gerick, Kelly, and Merrill (7 months) came over for a visit. It was a play date for all family members! Gerick and Kelly enjoyed snuggling with tiny, sleeping Elsie and Jack enjoyed making fun faces with Merrill - it is hard to believe that Elsie will be this big in 6 months!

Later that day, we got some more photos of our beautiful Elsie.

Elsie's first play date

On Thursday, Becky and Elly Reuhs came over for a visit. Elly was born 2 weeks before Elsie. Elsie slept the whole time, which apparently Elly didn't like very much - Elly cried during most of the visit. So, while it was not a very successful play date for the little ones, I enjoyed spending time with Becky and hearing all of her Mom stories. Here is the one photo I was able to get during the visit - looks to me like they are purposely ignoring each other...

3 weeks old

Elsie is now 3 weeks old! She has really become a spit-up volcano recently - on Tuesday, she set a new record 3 shirt changes in 5 hours. As you can see from the last picture, I think Elsie really enjoys the frequent trips to the changing table!

Nap time

Here are a few pictures of Elsie napping in our arms. We hope we are not spoiling her too much, but sometimes she is just too cute to lay down in the crib after she falls asleep...

Curtains

J-Ma and Papa Pete "requested" a project during their visit, and we were happy to oblige. They sewed and hung curtains in our family room to give Elsie and Mommy some privacy during meal times. This project included a trip for Elsie to Ikea, Lowe's and Hobby Lobby all in one day! Elsie was great and Mom did OK, too. Here are a couple family photos in front of the new curtains.