Douglas and Carol

Yep… It’s my first and the best so far!  So I figured I would share with you all one of the joys of my heart. Enjoy…

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Well we’ve been enjoying the nicer weather we’ve been having lately. A week ago it was in the 90s I think, so we went out to Flaming Geyser state park and enjoyed a picnic and a short walk on the trail by the river. We even found some shade and started to play a game before being kicked out of the park! Okay, well we didn’t exactly get kicked out - they just asked everyone to leave. The park closed early that day due to the unsafe river conditions and lots of river rescues they were having to make with the extra snow runoff in the river that day. We enjoyed our time there while it lasted though! Amina wasn’t too sure what to think of the heat though - it was definately the hotest she’d had to endue in her life thus far! I lathered her up in sunscreen before we headed out, so she’s not actually sweaty in the pictures - just covered in sunscreen! Here are a few fun pictures from our day:
Daddy and Amina

Mommy and Amina

Enjoying the shade

Mommy - It’s too hot!

Then this past weekend we spend Saturday at the Folk Life Festival in Seattle. It was a lot of fun listening to many celtic and bluegrass bands. There were lots of other offereings too, but those were the ones we enjoyed the most. Doug took a few videos that day, but I don’t really have pictures to share. Afterwards we went to cousin Ben’s place downtown and played a game. We were out until 1am! That’s the latest night for us in a while! Don’t worry - Amina fell asleep by 10pm or so - that’s the beauty of her enjoying sleeping in her car seat! The music was a bit overstimulating for her at times I think, but she did really good. I carried her around in my moby wrap when she got fussy and she fell asleep for a while. The moby wrap was a lifesaver! My arms would have been so tired from holding her without it. It was funny how many people came up to me and said that they started brining their kids to Folk Life before they were one, and they try and come every year. I’m sure we’ll make it back there in years to come too.

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I had to put a few pictuers up of Amina today as she is 2 months old today! I can’t believe it… the time has gone by so fast! And I hear that just continues. On Friday she turned 8 weeks old, and she started sleeping longer stretches at night that night. So for 4 nights in a row we got at least 5 hours of sleep in a row! It was so nice! Of course last night she had to let us know that she’s not going to continue with that pattern all the time and went back to her old standby of sleeping 2-3 hours at a time. But I won’t complain too much… she’s definately worth it! And we felt lucky to get 4 nights in a row of sleeping from 12-5am… Maybe there will be more of those nights in the future We love our little girl so much! She is smiling more and more and it is so rewarding to actually know that she’s smiling at us! I’m savoring all this time with her while she is little as I know she’s growing fast!

All smiles

And, just in case you didn’t watch our whole slide show of our time at the tulip fields a couple of weeks ago I thought I’d post a couple of my favorite pictures from that fun day.

Daddy and Amina

Mommy and Amina

Our familiy

Our precious girl

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Wow, I can’t believe how time flies! Amina is already 7 weeks old! We had our 6 week postpartum visit with my midwife last Tuesday. Amina weighed 10 pounds 9 ounces at that visit! I can’t belive how big she is getting!!! She’s got such cute little legs and round cheeks now. And she has begun to outgrow her smallest clothes. She can still fit into some newborn size clothes, but the 0-3 month size isn’t swallowing her whole anymore either! We have been enjoying watching her grow. Her newest ‘tricks’ are that she can now follow us when we move - tracking us with her eyes and turning her head to see us. And she’s beginning to show a social smile, though not all the time yet. We can’t wait for that! I can hear her stirring so I know she’ll be ready to eat again soon… so I’m going to put up a few pictures from the last couple weeks and sign off for now!

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So I know I just posted this video with vimeo but guess what!  Flickr now supports video so I had to try it out.  You can get some of the details around Flickr video support here: Video on Flickr!

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Morning Amina! from Douglas… on Vimeo.

So for those oversea’s (Dad, Mom and Volz’s) here is a link to the low bandwidth version:
   Morning Amina! (Just right click and select “Save Target As”)…

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Today Amina is one month old. I can hardly believe it! She’s grown so much! She’s awake a lot more now and it’s fun to watch all of her expressions. She does smile often - I finally caught one on camera, though it’s a bit blurry, but I had to share as it just melts my heart!

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Just thought I would share some pictures from this morning’s view in the back yard. We pleasantly had a bit of snow last night. Was quite different to be at the end of March, already into the beginning of spring, and get more snow then we saw all winter….

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Well…  The room is not done nor have I had any opportunity to work on it…  But boy! it sure doesn’t matter.  I’ve been spending my time with my wife and daughter… Yes I said daughter!  Carol and I were able to make it home on Sunday night around 8:00 pm and were greeted by loving family members with food and lots of help getting into the house.  If any of you know me, you would understand that it’s usually not Carol who over packs.  The whole back of the Honda was stuffed with things I thought I would need!  Little did I know that we used, let alone even looked at, maybe 1 quarter of what I brought.  But I had everything I thought I would want for me and Carol.

So after saying hi to everyone we began the feeding marathon that still has not ended.  Every 2-3 hours we spend 1 – 1.5 hours feeding.  Then we sleep/eat/clean and then we are back at it again.  I have so enjoyed being able to be with my wife through these first few weeks of transition.  She has to be the most patient and loving woman I know (even when she can’t hold her eye’s open!)…  She was made to be a Mommy!

Well that is what our days have involved over the last 3 days since being home from the hospital.  Carol has been doing great with recovering and even allowed me to take her for a trip to Target after a visit to the Pediatrician today!  But she is being very careful not to overexert herself as she’s using up much of her energy with the baby.  Thanks much to everyone that has sent notes\cards\e-mails\text messaged\voice mails\flowers\wall posts of congratulations.  We may not be able to thank everyone directly but please know we are grateful for the love and joy others are sharing with us…

I managed to round up just a few more pictures so check them out at the ever growing Amina Grace Picture Set on Flicker.  Here are a few of my latest favorites:

[Click on a picture to go to Flickr set!]

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