Never Been So Happy........

....to see a BELLY BUTTON!!!! Let me tell you, that umbilical cord thing was not fun. I'm not sure why, but I just had this strange aversion to the umbilical cord. Cleaning it scared me. Bathing her with it worried me. In a nutshell, I am over joyed that it is gone!! And what a cute little belly button she has!

Here's a picture of Alyssa. I couldn't post about her without including a picture. Enjoy!

Congratulations, Dustin!!!

Dustin has a few more tests left this year, but in the event that he happens to not pass one of these tests he has the chance to retake them. All of his tests that he HAD to pass the first time in order to go on to his third year have been passed!! WOOHOO!! He's moving on to the third year. Congrats, Dustin!! Your hard work pays off.


On another note about Dustin (and yes, I did get his permission to post this)....

Alyssa was eating and Dustin decided that he was tired of waiting on me to get dinner ready so he took it upon himself to get the brussel sprouts heated. Well, unknown to him, he turned on the wrong burner and put the plastic cutting board on that burner. The picture is what happened to our poor cutting board. It didn't take us long to realize what was happening. Melting plastic has a really bad distinct smell. Lesson learned!

Growing Feet

The pink sock kept falling off of Alyssa the day after she was born because it was too big. I put that pink sock next to the white one she is wearing today. WOW!! What a difference!! Can her foot really have grown that much in two weeks?!?!?!

P.S. I do appologize to all of the blog readers that are not family. You are probably getting tired of hearing about Alyssa. The bummer is that our family is anywhere from 8 to 18 hours away, and this is my way of letting everyone watch Alyssa as she grows. I promise that Cocoa is not being neglected. She is back to her normal self! Her world was turned upside down for the first week or so, but the old Cocoa is back. She is now getting her walking time outside now that I am feeling up to longer walks.

I Wanna Crawl!!!

Tummy time is recommended by pediatricians because babies are to sleep on their backs. The purpose of tummy time is for the baby to develop their neck muscles and to help prepare for crawling. Here you will see one of Alyssa's first tummy times that we did last week. She is on a tummy time mat complete with a palm tree and giraffe. She is doing a great job of holding her head up and moving around. Just look at those legs....she sure seems to want to crawl. I'm not ready for that yet!!!!

Happy Due Date, Alyssa

Not all babies are born by their due date, and even fewer are over two weeks old by their due date. Well, today is Alyssa's due date....and she is 16 days old. She is doing very well.

Alyssa is awake more and more each day. It is amazing how much more alert she becomes daily. Well, when she is awake she certainly likes to be held and sitting up to look around. So, rather than holding her all day every day or just laying her in her bassinet to look around, we thought we would get her something to sit in and be able to look around. The pictures are of her "rocker seat". We will be able to use it from birth to 40 pounds. It is stationary now so she won't fling forward, but as she begins to hold her head up it gently rocks. She loves looking at the animals hanging above her head. She is intrigued by them because they make music and noise. What a great investment....and it allows me to do the dishes and her to be content. She's not very keen on the idea of laying down flat on her back in the bassinet.

First Church Service

Today Alyssa is two weeks old, and she went to church for the first time. I was sad that she doesn't have any dresses that fit her for church, but this cute froggy outfit worked just fine! It fit her well too!!

Presenting Alyssa!!!