I love this picture

We have a bunch of good pictures and videos from the past few days. Tomorrow, I'll work on getting them posted here and in Shutterfly. Check back soon.

Update: Elizabeth is cute

Justin, Elizabeth, Pecos, and I have spent the past few days relaxing and celebrating at Jay and Linda's house. Somehow, we haven't found time to write a blog in between all of the cooking, eating, game playing, and reading. The Christmas blog is forthcoming (and we hope you all had a very merry day) once we get the pictures off of the cameras. For now, here is a quick update on the amazing accomlishments of Elizabeth.

Elizabeth is now two months and one week old and is doing wonderfully. Just in the past few days, she has become much more smiley, and will smile at just about anyone who will meet her eyes. Sometimes, she gets so overwhelmed with excitement that the smile is accompanied by a jerky head move -- and it just melts my heart. She has also figured out mirrors and will smile at herself and other folks in the mirror. On occasion, she's also had sponatenous smiles where she smiles just out of happiness, and not because someone smiled at her. These smiles have been induced by her favorite rattle and water being dumped on her chest in bath. Every smile, makes me feel so lucky to be her mom.

Elizabeth is doing okay with sleeping. Her daytime schedule is to eat, play, and then nap. She can only handle being awake for one and a half to two hours, and most of her naps are about 45 minutes, so this eat, play, sleep schedule is repeated about once every two and a half hours. I try to get her to take one longer nap during the day, but unless she's in her car seat or being worn/ held, it usually doesn't happen. Ideally, she heads to bed for the night around eight, but this doesn't always work out, and we haven't been enforcing it for the past few days (we'll probably pay for this next week). At night, Elizabeth sleeps one four- to five-hour stretch, and then a couple of two- to three-hour stretches. It's not great, but it's fine and I am surviving. I tend to stress out about her sleeping and am worried that she isn't sleeping frequently enough or long enough. But really, I know she's doing well and any sleep issues can be resolved later.

She's growing out of her clothes quickly and her head has managed to grow disproportionately larger than her body. She's so top heavy that we believe she now floats in the bath.

That's about all on our end. Christmas pictures coming soon!

A conversation with Elizabeth . . .

that dissolves into crying.

It's the best we've got, and trust me, we have shot many videos in an attempt to capture her insane cuteness.

I promise, one of us will write a full blog one of these days.

Getting a grip on things

A Very Special Christmas Nipple Song

By the sound of her voice, our daughter must be Cooish

Just another day with Elizabeth

Like father, like daughter

Justin posted some pics from Thanksgiving weekend, but I just have to add some more. The four pictures posted below are my new favorite pictures. I think I've looked at them everyday since we loaded them onto the computer. It took a real family effort to capture these shots, and I think they're priceless. Enjoy!

And, as an exciting Elizabeth update, she seems to have some mastery of the art of soothing herself to sleep. The past three days I have put her down for her big afternoon nap when she is still a little bit awake. She then lays awake for a bit and then falls asleep on her own. This might not seem like a big deal, but really, it's made my week. It puts us one step closer to her sleeping through the night.