The fastest 5 months of my life!

Hello everyone! Can you believe that it has been 5 months since we welcomed our little Emmalyn Kate into this world? I am so sorry that I have been a bad blogger. New mommyhood has kept me extremely busy and has not left me much time to update. Fortunately summer is finally here, and while I will continue to busy with my sweet girl, maybe I can update more regularly. Here are some quick updates in the life of the Babinicz family.

Emmalyn turned 5 months old yesterday. Wow! She has been part of our family for 5 whole months!! I cannot believe how quickly she is growing and changing. She is adorably chubby these days and at her last Dr. appointment 4 weeks ago, she weighed in at 15 lbs and 2 oz. She has almost tripled her weight since her birth. We love to squeeze and kiss her plump little cheeks!

She loves to talk and coo all the time now. She has recently started to "sing" to us too. In fact not only does she "sing" to us, but also to the ceiling fan, her toys, the tv, the wall, etc.... Her singing consists of her opening her mouth and making the sweetest little drawn out cooing sound over and over again. Last night she woke up at 12:00 am and spent about 15 minutes seranading her elephant mobile.

We recently started giving her rice cereal once each day. We all knew that this girl loves to eat, but lets just say that the cereal was a hit! As soon as she sees me mixing it up she will start rocking and swinging her legs in anticipation. If I don't get the spoon back to her mouth quickly enough she gets annoyed and starts whining for more.

Here are some other things she can do now....

* roll over both ways (although she still prefers to just lie on her back)

* grasp objects, and put them in her mouth of course.

*hold her own bottle

* laugh out loud and squeal

*rock her body back and forth when on her tummy

*scoot out of her bouncy seat

We are still so overwhelmed with love for our baby. We thank God everyday for choosing us to be parents to this precious girl. I never new how happy life could be thanks to my sweet angel. I am looking forward to watching her continue to grow, but cherishing the memories that we have made so far. I will leave you with a picture of sleeping beauty herself.

Emmalyn's birthday!

It has been one week since we welcomed our sweet baby girl into this world and my due date is still 3 weeks away! Although she was early, we are enjoying every minute with her.

Last Sunday around 1:00 am I started having mild contractions. Since my due date was still 4 weeks away, I thought they were probably just braxton hicks contractions and went back to bed. After trying unsuccessfully so sleep for a few more hours I decided to wake up Mike and ask him what he thought. He agreed that it was probably false labor so I should try to just sleep it off. At 9:00 I informed him that the contractions were getting closer together and much more painful. We started timing them and they were five minutes apart. At this point we decided to go the hospital to get checked out. We both assumed that they would check us, tell us it was not true labor, and we would be on our way within an hour. We didn't bring our bags or anything.

We got to the hospital and got taken back to the exam room. Soon the nure came in and asked a a million questions and finally checked to see if I was dialating. After checking me she says "you are going to have a baby today!" Mike and I both looked at each other and I think I said "Are you kidding?"

We got settled into our labor and delivery room and shortly after that I got an epidural. The next 5 hours were smooth sailing and I felt great! At about 5:30 the doctor said I was fully dialated and ready to push. After two hours of pushing we welcomed Emmalyn Kate Babinicz into the world at 7:37 pm. We were both overcome with emotions and couldn't believe the love we felt for our little girl.

Here we are one week later. Emmalyn had her first pediatrician appointment today and the dr. said she looks great. We are enjoying being parents (even with the lack of sleep). Here is another picture of our beautiful baby girl.

She is here!

Emmalyn Kate Babinicz
Born January 3rd at 7:37 pm
6 pounds 19 inches long

Who does she look like?

We had a doctor's appointment yesterday and were able to have an ultrasound to check on Emmalyn's weight. Right now she weighs 5lbs12oz. After seeing her on the screen we are even more ready to hold her in our arms. Here is the picture we got from the ultrasound. Who do you think she looks like?

34 weeks

Here is the latest belly picture. I've grown a lot since the last picture. Here is what is going on with us

• Emmalyn now weighs between 4.5- 5 lbs
• She is anywhere from 17 - 19 inches long
• She moves almost constantly now and is running out of room in there
• We met with and chose our pediatrician last week
• Starting next week I go to the doctor on a weekly basis
• We found out that Emmalyn is going to have another cousin!
  
• We get to meet our daughter in 6 weeks or less. :)

Love,
Mike and Stacey

Baby Shower and Nursery

Sorry that we have not posted in a while. Things have been busy. We have had 2 baby showers since our last post and we have almost finished the nursery. Our first baby shower was given by Mike's coworkers at his office. It was a really nice shower and we got a lot of Emmalyn's essentials. Our second baby shower was thrown by Kristen, Will, Lindsey, and Jarod. It was also very nice. We had great food, lots of fun, and of course Emmalyn got lots of great stuff! Here are a few pictures from the baby shower at Jarod's and Lindsey's.



We have also been making some progress in the nursery over the last few weeks. We are 95% of the way done. Here are some pictures!

Crib Assembly

It is a rite of passage for all dads, the assembly of the crib and nursery furniture. Mike tackled this job two weeks ago. He did a fantastic job assembling all of little E's nursery furniture and it looks great! It was so cute watching him put it together with such love and care. He wanted to make absolutely sure that everything was perfect and safe for his little girl. He is going to be such a great dad and I cannot wait to see him interact with her. Here a few pictures of Mike hard at work assembling the crib. We also got our bedding last week (thanks Morgans and VanAlstine's.) We will post pictures of the nursery again when it is complete!