Happy Mother's Day!

Just a quick note wishing all the mothers out there a Happy Mother's Day. Tanja and I are gaining new appreciation for everything our mothers did raising us as we are now in the parent role. I especially want to make sure Tanja knows I appreciate the sacrifices she makes to be Karina's mommy. She has been excited for her first Mother's Day that counted where she didn't have to stand awkwardly waiting for the Young Men to bring her a flower at church (a tradition done every Mother's Day for all women in the church).

For Mother's Day, I got Tanja a plaster mold that is designed to carry imprints of baby hands/feet. Unfortunately, it appears that someone swapped out the plaster in the kit with fast setting concrete. Following the directions exactly led to a hard, brittle mold that we couldn't imprint without applying enough force to break every bone in Karina's hand. We were irritated and we will have to test Walmart's return system.

As for Karina...

We are happy to report that she managed to make it to her second week birthday party without Daddy or Mommy breaking her. In fact, she is thriving - she had gained 3/4 an inch and 12 ounces as of her pediatrician's appointment this last week. Tanja has taken to calling her our little seven pound baby even though she was an ounce shy. I think it's cute, but I have to wonder if we will end up giving her body image issues by focusing on her weight at this young impressionable age... ;-) Just kidding.

She is quite healthy - her lungs are incredibly strong and her digestive tract is functioning perfectly. Our evidence? Her time spent crying and the mountain of dirty diapers filling up our garbage can. It's nice to have a healthy baby, even one that cries so much. We picked up a few tricks to calm and soothe her during our infant care class we took, so we can usually get her to mellow out a notch or two when her crying spells start. The problem is keeping her there (or trying to get her to go to sleep). Swaddling has become our friend and Karina looks really cute when she is wrapped up like a baby burrito. In other exciting news, when we changed her diaper this morning, we noticed she had lost her umbilical cord stump - our best guess is that it fell inside one of her dirty diapers and is now in the garbage can because we can't find it. Upon inspection, we believe that she will successfully develop an innie, so there's good news all over!

Anyway, things are going well and I am glad that I have enough leave and a supportive employer that is giving me the ability to stay home and help out.

Now for a few more pictures. We will try to take some more when Karina is cooperating and being cute. I think a picture or two of her screaming might be kind of funny, but Tanja thinks they are less than flattering. ;-)

I know this isn't Karina, but Snoopy is cute too! He loves rolling around in the grass on our walks.


Here is Karina showing off her beautiful baby blues.


There's just something about this picture that makes me smile... Oh yeah, the monkey face on her butt! My lovely wife and daughter are great too! ;-)


Hello, my name is Nate and I am a proud father!



Happy Mother's Day!