First Visit to Grandma's

I think a lot of our friends thought we were crazy to travel 9 hours north (driving, of course) with a newborn baby (only a week old).  Trust me, I did too.  But my parents weren't able to be here for Baby V's birth and it's hard for them to take off from work and we didn't want them to miss seeing her at this age.  And I'm so glad we made the trip.  We had so much fun showing her around and having her meet her family and our close family friends.  And the times spent with Grandma, Grandpa and even her Great-Grandma...priceless.

I took so many pictures, but these are my favorites.  We strutted from house to house with paparazzi in tow--it's almost second nature to Baby V strike a pose because she's seen camera flashes for the last five days in a row.  And I didn't know this, but it's Filipino tradition for newborn babies to receive  money from family and friends when you stop by their houses for the first time.  So people were so generous and Baby V made out like a bandit for the entire weekend!

 Baby V with Uncle Jon and Auntie Jolene

 Four Generations of Rosete Women

(with Grandma Ruby and Great Grandma Ines--Baby V is her 5th Great Grandchild)

 With Auntie Rosalynn (Baby V's middle name, Rose, came from her)

Proud Grandpa Mati

Our last morning there

(with Jon, Grandma, Rosalynn, Uncle Ray & Auntie Jeannie, Jolene and Cousin Ray)

Thanks so much to our family and friends for making the weekend so enjoyable.  We miss you all so much already!

Baby V slept pretty much the entire trip both up there and back, although she was a little more fussy on the way back (her car seat is not that comfy).  And woke only to eat and be changed.  We could not have asked for a smoother trip, but won't be doing it again for at least a little bit.  I'm taking the next few weeks to continue getting her into some kind of routine/schedule.  She has her two-week follow up appointment on Friday (I can't believe it's already been two weeks!) and I'm going about it solo.  My hubby is going to Airborne School for the next three weeks.  He's been such a super-dad around here, I don't quite know how I'm going to make it!

Blogging has been difficult to do with a newborn around.  Not that I didn't expect it, but I miss doing it on a regular basis and apologize to many of my bloggy buddies out there for not commenting lately.  I promise to catch up soon!

Flashback Photo Friday & Breastfeeding

Before we head out to Colorado Springs for the weekend, I thought I'd participate in Alicia's Friday Photo Flashback!  If you want to participate and get linked in...head on over to her blog!

Anyway, I scanned this photo from the mid 1980's...

In it (clockwise from left) are my cousin Kathleen, my sister Rosalynn (making the funny face), my mommy, and me (standing).  We were stationed at Fort Shafter, Hawaii at the time.  The good old days!

Anyway, when I saw this picture years back (I was probably in high school), I thought, man, my mom has big boobies and  what happened to mine?  Did the big boobie gene skip a generation?  Which brings me to my next topic of breastfeeding.  It took my baby girl to get my boobies almost as big as mom's in this picture.  But you know what?  I've been enjoying breastfeeding, as crazy as that sounds.  It's been such a great bonding experience for Baby V and I and it just feels nice knowning that she's getting the nutrients she needs in the early stages of her life.

I only felt the pain of engorgement for about a day.  I went and bought a breast pump and have been pumping on a regular basis (every 2-3 hours).  And who says that you have to go out and buy the expensive, almost $300 Medela breast pump?!?  For you expectant or new mothers out there...I bought about an $80 Evenflo brand breast pump at Target the other day and it works like a charm. My only recommendation is that you find a breast pump that operates both on batteries and with an electric charger/AC adapter so that you can easily pump on the go.

And that's my two cents on breastfeeding.  We're heading out in about an hour or two.  We decided last night that we're just going to leave when we're ready and not stress out about waking up early and rushing to get there.  I'm dreading the drive.  We'll see how Baby V does for about 9 hours in a car.  But we're going to visit Grandma and Grandpa and tons of our family and friends in a little bit.  How exciting!

~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!

Great Friends

Baby V with Maddie and her daughter, Madisen

Malu and I have been so blessed with friends in this area who have supported us throughout this entire journey into parenthood.  This week, my girlfriends from work have arranged to bring dinner to us every night just so he and I can focus on nothing else but bonding with our new bundle of joy.  Last night, our friend Joy brought us a fantastic chicken dinner--only, I was an idiot and forgot to take pictures.  Malu and I felt entirely too spoiled. 

Tonight, the Finch Family came over and the spoiling continued.  They literally brought over a feast--a salmon with strawberry salsa dish (which I'm waiting on the recipe--it was sooooooo delicious!) with salad, bread, wine and juice, and a cookie cake for Baby V.  They even brought over fruit and streusel for tomorrow's breakfast. 

As if that wasn't enough, she got us picnic plates and cups, beautiful pink roses, a comfy outfit for me to wear, and toys for Baby V and Lucy!  We visited for a short while and Baby V surprisingly stayed awake to socialize the entire time (we were so proud!).  When they left, we enjoyed our wonderfully prepared meal and just talked about how fortunate we are to have true and generous friends.  We also took a picture of Baby V enjoying her new toy...it's one of the cutest pics we have of her yet.  Looks like she's giving the Finches a thumbs up!

I still have to make my 'birth story' post, I know.  And I will!  But all is going well and we are having so much fun with our girl.  She and Malu are inseperable and I have the best time watching them together.  I am recovering very well, and breastfeeding was a breeze until I started feeling the pain of engorgement a few minutes ago.  Yikes!  And with that, I bid you guys farewell for the evening.

I promise I'll give you guys more details here soon!

Finally...

...and the reason why I haven't blogged in a while...

...she's finally here!

Vaiosina Rose A'etonu

7 pounds 7.7 ounces

19 inches long

We are so thankful to God for giving us our little angel.  She's as perfect as perfect can be.  It was a lot of work--blood, sweat, and tears--but ALL worth it.

I'll give you guys the details once we've completely settled in!

Love,

Another Blog Award!

Happy Tuesday you guys!  Still no new news on our baby girl.  I guess if I were her, I'd love hanging out inside this tummy too.  I mean, she gets a lot of good eats and good sleep in here!  In any case, and on a completely random note before I start on this blog award business, yesterday morning I told Malu that I'm getting a little tired of hearing Jack Johnson's "Better Together" song every time I open our blog.  The song was the inspiration for the new title of our blog and one of the songs I love to hear Malu play and sing.  So he says (jokingly, of course), "yeah, we're together now so you should take it off."  I think he's getting tired of hearing it too :)  What do you guys think?  Should I take it off?  I won't be hurt if you tell me yes.

Anyway, I'm amazed that people find me cool enough to keep sending blog awards my way.  I was actually given this award by two people--Nicole from Life in the Boys' Locker Room and Mrs. Gambizzle from Life as a Sailor's Girl.  So what you're supposed to do is tell everyone 7 random things about yourself.  Since I'm honestly not great at coming up with stuff on my own, I'm going to use 7 of the 8 questions from this past weekend's Getting to Know You Sunday, which is hosted by Keely at Mannland5.  I didn't get to answer this week's questions, so it works out quite well, don't you think?  So here we go:

1. If you were to win an award today, what would it be for?


Probably for being in pretty good spirits with Baby V still hanging out inside me.  We're at 40 1/2 weeks!

2. What is your shoe style?


I'm very casual.  I don't like heels at all, although I own tons of pairs (some with the price tags still on) just in case I need them later on down the road.  And I have flat feet, so the more comfortable the better.  I like ballet flats and flip flops best.

3.  Does your car reflect your personality?


We have a Jeep Commander which is big and rugged.  I don't think those describe me too well, but I love it!

4. If you could take over someones body for a day..whose would you choose?


Probably any body that isn't pregnant!  And one that's in shape too!

5. If you were on death row, what last meal would you choose?


This is a very difficult question...I think I'd like to eat something from Paula Deen's restaurant in Georgia--everything from appetizer to dessert!

6. Have you been on vacation this Summer, if so where?


Unfortunately, we've just been hanging around El Paso.  Hard to go places when we're about to have this baby and all.
7. What is your favorite food related guilty pleasure?


OMG...anything chocolate.  Right now it's Oreo cookies.  I even have the Oreo ice cream sandwiches in the freezer!

So there are 7 random things about me!  I'm also supposed to pass this on to 9 other blogs, but honestly, I'm not going to do that.  Every time I get an award, I'm in danger of passing them on to the same people and that's no fun to me.  So I'm just going to pass it on to one person!


I've recently become a follower on Nicole's blog, The Bingham Tribe.  She has the most darling little family and great stories to tell.  So check her out!


Thanks to Nicole and Mrs. Gambizzle for spreading the award love to me!

~Still Waiting, Hoping & Wishing~

Well, this is probably the most unflattering photo you'll ever see of me, and I'm sure I'll be getting comments from my mom on how bad (and huge) I look.  I made the photo small on purpose so as to minimize the gross "cottage cheese" in my big thighs. Boy, do I have my work cut out for me post-partum, trying to burn all these pounds off!

Honestly, though, this picture totally speaks volumes of the 40 1/2 week benchmark that we have reached as of today!  I am exhausted and so ready to have this child!

Because it's so uncomfortable for me to walk or stand for long periods of time anywhere, Malu and I have pretty much been confined to our house.  The Red Box has become our best friend and we've been renting about two movies everyday.  But it has been so nice relaxing and he is just the best company.  When we're not in the house, we're outside walking, walking, and doing more walking.  And my friend, Jennifer, gave me her medicine ball last night hoping that it'll help induce labor.  We have an appointment on Wednesday and I'll most likely be induced then.  So, it won't be much longer now...we hope!

Still, we're all in good spirits in the A'etonu household!  I'm finding excuses to indulge on a few more sweet treats before Baby V comes into the world (i.e. Oreo cookies) and napping like crazy.  I'm sure going to miss these naps when she's here.

No worries everyone...I'll be sure to post the play by play on the labor and delivery once it actually happens!

Have a great week!