Snapshots of the Carlin Family: March 2009

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

And the winner is....

Jason and I just got around to figuring out who won "Snoopy's Guessing Game". (For those of you who don't know, we nicknamed the baby "Snoopy" while I was pregnant. It started out because we didn't want people to know we were expecting and since the cats are Linus and Charlie Brown, no one questioned us when we talked about Snoopy. The name stuck throughout the pregnancy. Everyone started calling the baby Snoopy since we didn't know whether we were having a boy or girl, and we weren't sharing the names we had picked out.)

Lesley's Stats

Birth date & time: March 11, 11:30 am
Birth weight: 8 lbs 6 ozs
Birth length: 19 inches

Scoring (fewest points wins)
Wrong gender: 400 points

Birth date: 5 points / hour

Weight: 5 points / ounce

Length: 10 points / inch

Top 5 Guessers

1 Heather, 107.17 points, Friend
2 Lex, 177.50 points, Cousin-in-law
3 Lauren, 184.42 points, Jason's cousin, Abby's cousin in-law
4 Abby, 200.83 points, Snoopy's Mommy
5 Nancy Holtz, 207.08 points, Snoopy's grandma

Heather won by a long shot! I'd also like to point out that there were 39 guesses, I came in 4th and Jason came in 37th. His biggest mistake was insisting that we were having a boy....Mommy knows best!

Here is the website if you'd like to check your ranking. Thanks to those who made a guess, we had fun seeing what people were thinking.

http://www.expectnet.com/game.php

The game name is "carlinbaby".

Training Buddies

Lesley is changing a little bit every day - it's really amazing! I think that we are finally getting into a rhythm with her and learning how to read her cues. She's sleeping about 3 hours at a time which is great! Still not good enough according to Jason, but I have to remind him that she's just a baby and we are the ones that need to adjust. She's also starting to stay awake a lot more, i.e. not just eating and then sleeping and then that all over again. She'll sleep, wake up to eat, and then stay awake for an hour or more. We've realized that she really likes to be awake between 9pm and midnight. She's also started smiling a lot more even though we haven't been very successful at getting it on camera. She certainly recognizes both our voices and turns her head to see what's going on and who's talking to her.

I've started venturing out a bit during the day. It's all about timing! She made her first trip to the Mall over the weekend for a pretty decent walk. I took her again today hoping to get in another good walk with not quite as much success. I thought going during her morning nap would work out well since she sleeps really well in the mornings. Not so much! She did good until I stopped to shop a little. Either her father has already told her to interrupt Mommy's shopping or she's going to be very budget orientated like her father. So, our trip this morning was only about 45 minutes and ended in a quick trip home which calmed her down. I think tomorrow I'll try a walk in the afternoon instead of the morning.

Hopefully the weather will start warming up for good and we can take advantage of outside walks versus loading up to go to the Mall. Jason and I are planning to participate in the MS Challenge Walk again this year so we need to start training - it's only 2 months away. Unfortunately, I've got a little extra weight to lose post pregnancy, but my new training buddy will hopefully help with that, and the Challenge Walk is a great motivation to get back in shape. Be on the lookout for ways to support our walk. With the new baby, our fundraising efforts are going to be quite a bit different this year and we'll need all the help we can find to meet our fundraising goals.

We missed the smiles she was giving Mommy, but she's still cute in her lion shirt.

Our little swaddled girl - this is the way we've found is best to get her calmed down and sleeping. She hates having her hands wrapped up, but if we get her wrapped and settled down, she will sleep so much longer since her arms can't flail around. We think it's funny when we are the process of getting her to sleep and her face gets beet red because she's so upset her arms are wrapped up tight and she can't get them out.

First trip to the mall - she slept pretty much the whole time which was great. I've really missed walking the past month. Even during my pregnancy, we went on many walks (although not as long and certainly a lot slower) so it was great to get out again and back into the swing of things with a good walk at the mall.

Saturday, March 28, 2009

More favorite photos - Week 2

Charlie Brown tries to be Lesley's friend, but here he was just stopping the swing which she didn't like so much. Linus ignores Lesley and pretends she doesn't exist, which is why you won't see any photos with him.

Lesley lost her umbilical cord this week. She also went to the doctor for her 2 week check up and weighed in at a whopping 8 pounds, 14 ounces. She is growing fast!

This is her "I'm trying to fill my diaper for Daddy" face. Jason is getting smarter though and pays more attention to the grunts and moans before picking her up to change her.

After my first sponge bath - she didn't mind it too much but was relieved when it was over.

We had some professional photos taken when Lesley was a week old. We figured she's only that age once and we wanted to try and capture how sweet she is. These are some of our favorites.

Just a few more minutes of sleep, please...

Lesley and Daddy cheered on the Jayhawks as much as we could during the NCAA tournament. Thanks to Caden, she had her very own onsie to wear.

First bath - she was a fan! You can see Charlie Brown's paw in the background, he was trying to help. He's the weirdest cat ever and loves water.

Abby survived the first week home alone with Lesley. She didn't think there was enough time in the day and was thankful if she got a shower by noon and one load of laundry done. Lesley was a good baby and they even took a few trips out of the house - to see Granny and Grandma Cheryl, to the grocery store, Target, and post office, out to lunch with Nicole and Baby Clara, and to meet Abby's engagement team at Harry's for lunch. Overall she did a great job so hopefully these excursions can continue. Daytime television is not good so Abby will be looking for any reason to get out of the house. Once the weather warms up a little (it's snowing today!), it will be great to start walking and training for the MS Challenge walk again which is only 2 months away.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Welcome Baby Carlin!

Lesley Annemarie Carlin

We gave up blogging for awhile but now more than ever we have a great reason to get back on track. With the arrival of Miss Lesley Annemarie Carlin, we want to be able to share some of our favorite photographs and memories of the latest addition to the Carlin family. We will do our best to keep you posted on the events at our household as we know our little girl will grow faster than we can imagine.

Lesley joined us at 11:30am, Wednesday, March 11, 2009. She weighed in at 8 pounds, 6 pounds and has been a bundle of joy since the day she arrived. Her birth was fairly uneventful and quick. Abby went into labor about midnight, they headed to the hospital around 6:30am and she was here just 5 short hours later. Abby was a trooper opting to go without pain medicine. Jason was an awesome coach and was there for every minute making sure Abby remained focused throughout the pain and didn't take his eyes off Lesley from the minute she arrived. We are so blessed to have had such a great birth experience, including some wonderful nurses and preparation/support from the yoga instructor in the months leading up to the birth. We sure love our baby girl!

Lesley's first picture...and cry!