First week at home for Rose

We have been home for a little over a week now and things are starting to settle down into a nice flow.  I thought I would share some pictures of what things have been like with Rose in our family.  Clara is such a good big sister.  She is so concerned for Rose and loves to get up close to her and say "hi baby Rose!" and try to get her to smile.  She gives Rose the most tender kisses each night before bedtime and Clara always wants to know where Rose is if she is taking a nap.

 

Rose really enjoys this play mat, especially when I turn on the music and the spinning mobile.  She will lay here happily just watching and taking it all in.  She likes it better than the swing, although in the mornings Rose will sway contentedly in the swing while Clara and I eat breakfast together.  Usually she takes a little snooze in there after her own breakfast.

Clara has been pulling her dog (now named Cracker) around on a jump rope leash that I rigged up from her.  She ran over to stand by Rose and told me "Mommy, take our picture!". 

Clara is obsessed with wearing pretty dresses so when we got home from church on Sunday (Paul and Rose stayed home) Clara felt like Rose was missing out and told me that Rose needed a pretty church dress too.  So we dressed Rose up in a pretty blue dress with polka dots and a pink flower with a matching velveteen headband and Clara held Rose on her lap.

 

 

These girls are going to be best friends.

I adore how Rose looks at me with big, inquisitive eyes.  She is such a beauty and during the time when she is awake (because she honestly sleeps a ton right now) she is so alert and interested in what is going on.  She loves to be talked to and likes to hang on to fingers or have her hair stroked.

So far Rose does well with tummy time too.  She is not even two weeks old yet but her head control and neck strength are surprising.

Since we have been hanging out around the house a lot, not wanting to expose Rose to too many people, we've been doing a lot of crafting.  Clara LOVES cutting and asks me to practice it almost daily.  Basically she just snips and snips and snips until she has created piles of confetti.

On Sunday, Paul even painted Clara's nails for her, which she thought was pretty fun since this is normally mommy's job.  Her aunt Jessica gave her nail polish for Christmas and Clara was adamant that her nails be painted purple.  She wanted Rose's nails to be painted too but that didn't happen.  It was fun watching the interaction between Paul and Clara and hearing Paul exclaim how painting her tiny nails was a lot harder than it looked.

 

Rose did her first arts and crafts project.  She didn't love having me paint her hands and feet but the finished project turned out so darling and is my new favorite Valentine's Day décor.

 

Rose is such a little snuggle-bug.  I love how she likes to curl right up under my chin and tuck her bum into my hand, then fall fast asleep.  Oh, and yes, I totally dressed us both in stripes on purpose.  Nobody is surprised, right?

Last Thursday I put Clara in the stroller and Rose in the Ergo carrier and we walked to the park for some fresh air.  Rose fell asleep immediately and didn't wake up until we got back home.

Clara had me push her on the swings for probably half an hour or more before I convinced her my arm was falling off and it was time to go on the slides.

I picked up a sun catcher craft kit for a dollar.  It was super cheap entertainment for Clara and she actually did a really good job with it even though it said it was for 8+ on it.  I helped her with the dark pink color and talked about staying inside the lines but after that she did the light pink and white (and most of the dark pink) entirely on her own.

We have been reading lots of books.  Clara doesn't seem to mind sharing my lap with Rose so far.

I have been trying to do yoga with Clara but so far she isn't catching on.  Mostly she thinks it is an opportunity to treat mommy as her own personal jungle gym.  She does love this pose, though.  I saw it somewhere online calling it the "queen's chair" pose.  I even tell her she has to put her palms together beneath her chin and say "Namaste" (she won't say it).  I found some YouTube videos for toddler yoga though and am planning to keep trying those with her.

Rose is getting her days and nights straightened out pretty well and has been sleeping for 3-4 hours stretches at night, which is totally doable, although she gets pretty fussy from about 6-9 and has a hard time settling in.  Mostly though she is a really mellow little gal and we can't believe how lucky we are to have her in our family.