{Hannah}: one month old | Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! We have much to be thankful for this year:

- Hannah will be a month old tomorrow!

- Ethan is becoming an amazing big brother - protective, concerned, and affectionate. I love watching him with his sister, even if he is a little rough-and-tumble!

- We have had amazing support from our family (Ethan had a spontaneous sleepover with my parents -- they survived a night without his KiKi/blanket!), and we get to see so many family and friends over the next couple of months and introduce them to our sweet girl!

- I'm thankful that Austin's test is over (no results yet)

- I'm thankful that we have gotten plugged in to our new community so quickly! We love Bayou City Fellowship - Cypress! We even got the opportunity to visit SB at their new campus last week as we commissioned some friends to serve the Lord in planting churches in Bogotá, Colombia, and see some people we love from our small group there!

-My mom hasn't had any new health issues! For such a healthy woman, she sure has faced her share of health issues and surgeries - hopeful that those are over, thankful she has been healthy for a year!

And here are Hannah's 1 month pictures (a day early)!

I love that their arms were (accidentally) the same!

A hint of a smile!

Her dress for Thanksgiving was made by my mama!

Thankful we have survived a month of little sleep together, little one! 🎀

In all these things, God has blessed us beyond what we could've imagined. Thankful to see Him answering SO many of our prayers this last year!

xo,

Elizabeth

{Hannah}: two weeks old!

I'll start this by saying that I will take any tips from mamas who successfully warded off the angry green monster when baby number two arrived. That sums up our last two days (since daddy went back to work). It was pretty manageable when daddy was around because he didn't necessarily have to wait for me to nurse Hannah and someone else could help redirect him.

Ethan needed lotion... Because Hannah was getting lotioned up.

He had grandma hold him the way she was holding Hannah.

Otherwise, Hannah and I are in a MUCH better place with breastfeeding (seriously, it felt like we had every problem in the book!). I finally got antibiotics on Sunday for flu-like symptoms caused by either mastitis or a blocked duct... That was the peak of my frustration, as I could hardly function with the fever/chills/aches. Thank the Lord for antibiotics. Seriously, I'm a new person! I share this not because I just love divulging this information, but primarily because I think people should know that breastfeeding is hard in the beginning, even if your baby seems to be doing it perfectly in the hospital (ha-ha!). I don't love everything about breastfeeding (am I allowed to say that?) and sometimes a bottle seems easier in more ways than one. But, I believe it's good for me and for Hannah... so we persist!

We also (finally) lost the umbilical cord yesterday! Hers was huge and curled over toward her stomach, I was glad to see it had disappeared!

We took a few pictures with our fancy camera, too (we took way more than this, I liked 3 of them).

And today, at two weeks:

Today, we are starting to work on establishing a schedule/rhythm for Hannah. She has an inconsistent routine already but I would like to be able to get out of the house every now and again, and Austin's Grammie is going to be with us for a few days starting today, so it seemed like a good day to (finally) start that. We are also hoping to make it out of the house this weekend so hint of a schedule would help with that.

The rest of our postpartum recovery time has gone really, really well, and we are happy to be at day 15! I go back to the doctor in 2 more weeks, and Hannah goes back at 2 months, so we won't have a weight/height update until after Christmas, though I'll be back again next week with her week 3 update!

xo,

Elizabeth