Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Indian Summer

We've been experiencing a real Indian Summer the past few weeks. The weather has been absolutely stunning, and we've been able to go outside every single day with Carice. The colours are past their peak now, and although definitely beautiful, in this area not the best fall for colours (at least, what I have seen of it!).

Carice is growing like a weed! She drinks well (and I have more than enough supply), and she is definitely getting bigger. She is also more awake during the day and very alert. Still pretty easy going, and a better sleeper at night. I wake up 2-3 times to feed her, but she normally goes straight back to sleep, which is nice. But with her more awake during the day, there's not a lot of chances for me to nap :)
Nolan is back to work today as well. It was really nice for all of us to be home the past couple of weeks, but I guess it's back to reality now!

And of course a few more pictures...





Proud grandparents



Enjoying the spectacular weather


Of course, beschuit met muisjes!!


And our other children:

 Zora sleeps in her crate at night, and this is how she prefers to sleep... Weird dog!




Friday, October 4, 2013

Welcome Carice Ann MacAfee!

As most of you know by now, our daughter Carice made her grande entrance into this world on September 29th, 2013!

The weekend started fairly normal, although I was a bit more tired on Saturday. Maybe I should add that I went for a massage the day before, and she told me that she didn't want to massage my feet too much, since there's an old wife's tale that says it can induce your labour. I didn't really believe in it, so she massaged my feet a bit, and it felt very relaxing!
However I felt good enough on Saturday not to cancel Nolan's parents, who came up to celebrate Nolan's birthday the day before. We even went out for lunch, and everything was great.
I did ask Nolan to install the car seat, just in case. We also decided to watch a DVD we had borrowed from the midwife about 'Bringing Baby Home', so at least we had a bit of an idea what to do with a newborn!

At 8 o'clock or so, I decided to go to bed early, and then hopefully a good night sleep would help me feel refreshed again.
Well, that sleep didn't last long. My contractions started around 9:30 pm, and around 11:30 pm the midwife told us we'd better get to the hospital soon!
We were there around midnight, and Carice was born at 1:09 am. So all in all less than 4 hours later. She was in a hurry!

She weighed 6 lbs, 2 oz (2778 grams) and was 18.5" (47 cm).  A very decent weight for being three weeks early.  Both our midwives and Nolan did an amazing job helping me through this, which was awesome.
It just all happened to fast, and so sudden. I was supposed to work for another week, and then enjoy two weeks off before my due date!
However, she is absolutely perfect and is making our lives very easy. She sleeps quite a bit, she eats like a champ, and soils her diapers like a champ as well!
Our midwife appointment yesterday confirmed what we had suspected, she surpassed her birth weight by two ounces already!

So all in all, we are doing really, really well. I've been out on a few short walks (the weather is absolutely stunning this week, no wonder she wanted to come out!), and I feel good. Nolan and I are both wondering when the set-back will happen!
The animals are adapting really well too. The cats don't really care too much and Zora is mainly very curious. She finds it strange I spent so much more time upstairs, and that there is this creature that's making a different noise. But she's adapting very well, and it will be only a matter of a short time before she recognizes Carice as part of the family.

Below are some pictures, since that's of course more interesting than me blabbing on!


'I have a question'






Really, that fish was this big!