Where to begin...
Our beautiful little girl: Maddyn Grace Russell, was born or April 20th, 2010 at 10:02 am. She weighed in at 8 lbs 2 oz. She will be 2 months old in 4 days!!! I really can't believe it! She is very different than her brother Cohen was as a baby. Maddy is way more gassy and spits up all the time. I think she has a mild form of GER (reflux) to be honest. She fits the description in more ways than one! Luckily though, it's not so bad that she's vommitting or anything to that degree. I just have to have a burp cloth nearby or a bib on her after she eats, and away we go!
She smiles and talks/coos all the time....and when she smiles, she smiles BIG. It really melts my heart! I love happy babies! ha ha. Maddyn is extremely hard to get to sleep, for the most part. She fights it like crazy! As soon as you swaddle her, whether it's a snug or loose swaddle, she starts crying. She KNOWS it's nap time and she lets us know how much she dislikes the idea!
Thank goodness for baby swings and bouncy chairs with a vibrate setting! I probably would be tearing my hair out if we didn't have both of those around. She's also one of those babies that for the majority of her naps will wake up within 10-20 minutes of being laid down (unless of course you're holding her). UGH. Boy is that fun! The swing is really the only exception to this rule......and I will buy a million D-Cell batteries until that thing quits on me! Thank goodness for Kory and Rachel for giving that to us! LIFE SAVERS!
Maddyn has beautiful auburn colored hair, thicker in the back. It looks brown until the sunlight hits is, and you see this golden/copper color throughout. I hope she keeps that color! It's beautiful. Definitely different from her white-blonde haired brother...who has kept that color since birth!
I think she'll have blue eyes...possibly green. Cohen and I have blue eyes, and Jared has a greeny-hazel, so we'll see what happens!
She's TALL. She started out at a little over 21 inches long, and within 5-6 weeks, she had grown 2 inches! I love that she is filling out her cute little clothes now! Before we know it, we'll be graduating into the 3-6 month stuff :)
Maddyn loves her Daddy! and her brother. She tracks them with her eyes and listens to them intently....smiles and coos at them. Cohen is constantly kissing her, and most of the time, she'll smile when he does it. I hope they end up being best friends. I think being just under 2 years apart will help with that. There's a 6 year gap between my brother and I, and it's definitely hard to relate when you're that far apart in age. I was in 6th grade when he graduated from High School, etc. SO, I'm glad that we chose to keep our kids close together.
We blessed Maddyn on the 6th of June. Jared did a wonderful job, and we had a great day with all of our extended family that was able to make it! The weather was great too, which was wonderful. My parents were able to take a few nice family photos down by the river. I really just wanted one or two for memory's sake, etc. I wish I had had a natural birth and could have started exercising much sooner though...haha. Not a fan of not looking like myself in these photos, but that's part of life.
I'm surprised at how motivated I am to get back in an exercise routine and lose this baby weight. I just recently got the green light from my OB to exercise in moderation (I had the c-section, so it takes longer to heal, etc)....so I'm looking forward to trying things out this week. I have about 12 lbs to lose to get back to where I was when we got pregnant with Maddyn...which won't be hard to lose....however, I was still carrying around 10 lbs from Cohen's pregnancy. SO, here is my master plan:
Short term goal: Lose the 12 lbs from this pregnancy.
Next goal: Lose another 20 lbs.
Next goal after that: Keep going!
*I want to get back to around the weight I was at when I met Jared.....which will take me a little while, but I know it's acheivable!
With Cohen's pregnancy weight, I started out doing "Turbo Jam"---you may have seen the infomercials. Some other ladies had mentioned that they liked it, so I thought I'd give it a try. I lost the first 10 lbs of the 50 I had to lose right away. THEN, Jared and I started P90X together----which I would reccommend to anyone! it's awesome! I lost another 30 lbs in that 3 months. SO, I lost 40 out of the 50 lbs, etc, then got pregnant with Maddyn :) I didn't really have much time to enjoy being a bit lighter, but that's ok! Now that I know how my body heals, I'm starting MUCH earlier this time around to exercise, etc. I'll have to post an older photo of me at the weight I was at when I met Jared....so everyone that knows me can be amazed at how great I used to look...lol. I'll get there again!
I really just want to look and feel great and be healthy enough to run around with my children :) I can do that now, but I don't "feel" great, like I want to. Anyway, that's the plan for now! Now it's just a matter of finding TIME to exercise. I think a shortly after dinnertime and before Cohen's bath time is the opportune window.
Our FIFTH year wedding anniversary is coming up on July 16th!!!!! FIVE years! I think that if you now love your spouse MORE than you did when you married them, that's a good sign that your marriage is on track :) I would profess my love for Jared on here, but he'd probably be embarassed :) and words cannot really fully express how much I love him anyway! Let me just say that he's the best father and husband that I could ask for. Ok Jared, that's it.
We're hoping to skip across the border to either Kalispell or Great Falls Montana for one night...leaving Cohen with G&G Russell and just taking Maddyn of course. The only catch...Maddyn doesn't have a passport yet...so we're hoping a birth certificate will suffice? We have to phone the border patrol and see what the deal is. It'd just be nice to have a bit of a break and trip. We'll see.
Here's my "Jared" plug......If you or anyone you know wants Air Conditioning for their home......Jared can install it for you for significantly less than a commercial company. Don't worry, it's what he does for a living! Calgary and surrounding towns like Airdrie and Okotoks......
