Baby V's Newborn Pics

I know...this is long overdue.  These pictures of Baby V were taken when she was 6 days old.  I got the pictures almost a month ago and tomorrow, she'll be 8 weeks old.  I know...I'm a total slacker.  My mom has been dying to see these pictures and for me to send her copies of them.  Well mom, here they are.  And your package will be in the mail today!

There were so many photos, but these are my personal favorites.  Okay, I love them all, so these are pretty much all of the photos.  The photos were taken by Theresa of Creative Flair Photography.  Check her website out...she's fantastic.

Now I know I'm completely biased, but isn't she just the most precious thing you've ever seen?  I can't believe how tiny she was.  She's still an itty-bitty of a thing, but it seems like that day was so long ago.  And she's been amazing us every single day since. 

The only thing I hate about these photos is the way I look in them.  I'm huge!  Of course, I had just given birth a few days before that.  And...I'm working on it. Last night, I started running.  Um...yeah...I almost died.  It's going to be a rough getting back into shape and I regret letting myself go (i.e. pigging out and using pregnancy as a scapegoat).  I'll keep you guys posted on my progress.

Anyway...enjoy the photos and Happy Thursday!

~One Week Old~

I honestly don't know where the time has gone.  Our baby girl will be one week old tomorrow.  Three days ago, I was holding her and I looked over at Malu with tears in my eyes and said, "She's three days old today.  I wish she could stay this way forever!"  And I do.  Although we've been extremely exhausted getting into a new routine and really just "figuring her out", we have been having so much fun with her.  This particular photo was taken during her first photo shoot--but I'll get to that in a little bit.  Baby V has had a pretty busy week!

On Tuesday, we took her back to the hospital for her 48-hour check up.  Dr. Howze was impressed by how quickly she had returned to her birth weight.  Apparently, some children take several weeks to a month to do that.  But Baby V is as healthy as a horse.  While I was there, I scheduled her two week follow-up!

The next day, we returned to the hospital to get her birth certificate request in and then went on post to get her into the Army's dependent system.  So now she's an official military child! For some reason, I thought that she was going to get issued a military ID card, but that won't happen until she's 10 years old--which makes sense, because I didn't get mine until that age.  It brought back some memories about how excited I was to have my own card.  Funny.

Oh, and the nightly dinners from friends continued.  Yesterday the Rawlings Family brought us pasta for dinner.  But see, I consider this a real Italian meal because Laura is actually Italian and her pasta dishes are fantastic and authentic.  The dinner was delicious!  She brought a salad with a delicious, sweet vinaigarette dressing (with basil and grape tomatoes) as well as garlic bread, and a pasta with bacon, mushrooms, and peas.  Yum!  I'm hoping she'll want to share the recipes for the salad dressing as well as the pasta.  Oh, and of course, white chocolate macadamia nut cookies for dessert!  We love you Laura, Matt and Joey!  Thanks so much for a fabulous Wednesday dinner! 

The dinners will be halting for the rest of the week because we decided, at the last minute, to make the drive up to Colorado Springs to visit my parents.  But thanks so much, again, to all of our El Paso friends for being so gracious and making our first week with Baby V worry and hassle-free!

Today, Baby V had her first professional photo session.  A few months ago, I'd met Theresa at the spring bazaar on Fort Bliss and immediately knew that she was going to be the one to take our baby's first pictures.  Malu and I had such a wonderful time watching both Theresa and Baby V at work. 

Oh, I can't wait for the proofs to come out and to share the final ones with  you guys!  I was just lucky enough to capture the picture above myself as a kinda-sneak peek.  For those of you in the El Paso area (and I know there are some having babies in the near future!), check Theresa out at her Creative Flair Photography website and blog.  She's so sweet, has a beautiful portfolio and was so very patient with Baby V and with Malu and I.  I'm sure she'd do beautiful photos for you and your families!

And that pretty much wraps up our first week!  So yeah, we're heading up to Colorado Springs tomorrow.  We gave into my mom's guilt-tripping (which is extremely easy to do) and are going to spend tonight packing up for it.  Let's hope Malu's able to get enough sleep throughout the night to make the 9-hour drive without difficulty tomorrow!