Mommy and Me

Annabelle and I have been having such a great spring and early summer. I love being home with her everyday. This little girl completely melts my heart. We go out to baby stores, walk to Starbucks and visit my friend Elizabeth who has twin boys just a few weeks older than little Annabelle. We attend a play group on Wednesday mornings, which is more like a "mommy group" at this point, since we all have infants. Lately Kyle has been getting home from work by about 7:00 and we are able to walk somewhere for dinner and sit outside and enjoy the evening while Annabelle naps. Then Kyle works from home after Annabelle goes to sleep.

We have decided that I will not return to work. Yep, can you believe I will be an official "stay-at-home mom". The decision is so right for us and was a very easy decision to make once I had some time to be with this little baby, I couldn't imagine having to do anything else. Although, when she turns 2 and the "terrible twos" kick in, I might change my mind. :) So don't hold me to anything just yet...

Annabelle is a sleeping machine...she is sleeping "through the night" which is about 7-8 hours for us. Last night she slept 9 hours!! My new schedule is to put her to bed at 9:00 and then see when she wakes up. I try to feed her and get her to go back to sleep for another hour or so, which doesn't always happen. We have the swing in our bedroom, so if she is wide awake I put her in the swing after she eats in the early morning and she stays pretty content. Annabelle started sleeping a solid 6 hours a couple weeks ago and she gains about an hour a week.

Since we are traveling to Minnesota and Mississippi soon, I am sure her routine will be all mixed up and we will have to start from scratch when we return home, but I am hoping to keep her as much on a routine as possible. Speaking of routines, I started actually putting her down in her crib for her afternoon nap after her afternoon feeding, which is around 2:00. Sometimes she'll sleep until 5:00, which is great and allows me to get a few things done around the house.

We had a great 4th of July break. We went to Latham and Watkins to watch the fireworks - since we knew they were going to be too loud for Annabelle, we watched from inside the building, but they were just as impressive. Annabelle didn't seem to care about the fireworks, next year I think she'll love it.

Here is a photograph I took the other day.