Blessing Day

Garrick gave a beautiful blessing to our Rosie. I'm so grateful that he holds the priesthood. 

Rosie wore my mom's blessing dress. She looked so beautiful!

We had so many friends and family come to support us at her blessing. We had a fun picnic with these guys after church. It's the last time we all were able to hang out before we moved. 

Bits of February and March

Love this little teddy bear!

Waking this baby up is one of my favorite things. Gosh she's cute.

We were a bit crazy and decided to go to Kansas City for Family Day at KCU. Garrick was so excited to show us his campus. Rosie slept the entire 17 hour drive there and the drive back. It was a little rough spending the day on campus though, we had to cut the day early. We decided to spend the rest of the weekend in Iowa so my dad could meet Rosie!

We were also fortunate to spend some time with Grandma Beck before she passed away. Grandma loved holding Rosie, she never took her eyes off her. 

Garrick thinks they look like twins. 

This picture has a story to it. Feeding Rosie was the most stressful part about being a new mom. She was a little baby so she was very sleepy which made feeding hard, she had a high palate so she had difficulty latching, and she screamed every time I attempted to feed her. Anyway 3 lactation consultants later, after two weeks of constantly fighting her to nurse I decided to give up. During this process we fed her a million different ways, and I mean we, Garrick was amazing and was there with me every step of the way to figure out how to feed her. I was determined to give her breast milk so I was pumping around the clock. At her two month appointment the nurse suggested I attempt to breastfeed again since she was a little older and a little bigger. With no expectations we started seeing a new lactation consultant and miraculously she was able to nurse! We were a little worried about going on this road trip because she was still figuring out how to nurse but she didn't skip a beat and did amazing on the trip. I am so proud of the fact that I can breastfeed so here is my photo to prove it!

Our baby girl has learned how to smile!

Rosie's two month shots were TERRIBLE. She did okay at the dr's office, and then fell asleep. They told me that she'd sleep for a while and then might wake up in some pain-that's the understatement of the year! She slept for about 6 hours and then woke up screaming!!! Luckily Kayla was with me so I wasn't alone.  We tried giving her a bath and massaging her leg, tried feeding her, nothing stopped the screaming. Luckily I had bought tylenol on the way home from the dr's office, once I finally remembered that I had pain reliever I was able to stop the screaming. But after the screaming, came the no sleeping. I tried the whole day to get her to sleep but couldn't so we drove around, got donuts while we tried to get her to sleep, which of course didn't work. So we hung out the whole day. Notice her wide eyes haha.

 Rosie's first time in the mountains!

So.. There we were in mountains.. enjoying the fresh air and the sound of the river flowing.. next thing I know there is yellow mustard poop everywhere.. nothing was left untouched.. this is all that remains..

 Somehow Garrick convinced me to do some hiking in the snow...It was actually very beautiful and Rosie slept the whole time. All that mountain air really wiped her out!

Carrie Jo comes to visit!

A highlight of February was Carrie coming to visit! We were so spoiled to have my mom and then a week later Carrie. It was an incredible sacrifice for Carrie to leave her own babies to help me with my baby. I feel so blessed to have amazing women who have helped me transition into this new role. One rookie mistake that Garrick and I made was not realizing there was a newborn size of clothing. Silly me, I thought 0 was the smallest size of clothing so that's what we bought for Rosie. No wonder all of her clothes were baggy on her! Carrie educated us that there was a newborn size and bought her all of these cute tiny clothes for our girl. She also educated me on how to make hair bows and headbands. What would I do without her??

She also took some amazing photos, here are some of my faves!

Rosie's first month

The first month with Rosie flew by! She was a very sleepy newborn so our favorite thing to do was cuddle. There were days where I spent the whole time in bed cuddling and staring at this perfect little baby. We learned early on that she hated being cold, so whenever she cried it was usually because we were changing her diaper, undressing her, or giving her a bath. But once she was wrapped up in clothes, blanket or mama's chest she was fine again. 

She came out looking just like her daddy. This picture is a replica of one of Garrick's baby pictures. They're twins.

One thing that was pretty stressful for us newbie parents was her jaundice. Her bilirubin count was borderline in the hospital so we had to take her in to the dr 3 times her first week where they had to draw blood to test her until her levels dropped. It was miserable. She was a champ but I was a mess every time! She looks like Rocky in her sweat suit and we love it. 

Her Rosie the Riveter pose

Grandma Richardson was in town while Mom was here so she came to say hi to Rosie!

I love this picture of Kayla feeding Rosie. It is so sweet. 

I was so relieved to have my mom come to stay with us. She was a saint and got up all hours of the night to help us with Rosie. We were on dr's orders to wake her every two hours to eat so she could gain weight. So we were all adjusting to little sleep. Anyway, I LOVED having mom come, she spoiled Rosie with clothes, toys, a new bouncer, etc. And she cooked and cleaned. Basically it was amazing. 

Baby cuddles are simply the best thing in the world.

Garrick discovered that she loves to lounge with his hand as her neck pillow. It's so funny to watch her completely relax herself in his hand.

We were pretty conservative on baby clothes, relying mostly on hand-me-downs, but when we saw this bear suit at Old Navy we HAD to get it. I mean look at her, come on! This was also the first time we walked around with her outside. 

Overall we feel relieved to have kept her alive for this long! She's pretty great and we love our new roles as parents.