4 Weeks Old

I have posted so many times in the last 10 days--I should get some kind of super blogger award! But really, all my posting lately has been because 1) I like to show off Abby and 2) I have been blessed with more energy than I have had the last month.

On Sunday we celebrated Abby's 4 week birthday. We celebrated by taking a family nap to commemorate the occasion. It's amazing to think of how drastically our lives have changed in the last 4 weeks. My real reason for posting is to show off more pictures so only scroll down the page if you want to see how much our baby has changed over the last 4 weeks!

Mom and Abby pose before running out the door for church:

Our mission of late has been to capture Abby smiling on camera and it has been quite the task. The next few pictures show a couple attempts:

Abby does this funny thing where she breaths in and out really fast, closes her eyes, and smiles. It sounds just like she's laughing:

This picture is for Abby's MorMor. She is wearing a hat made by MorMor, a onesie purchased by MorMor, and the background is a blanket that was a gift from MorMor:

Shortly after we found out we were having a girl, Roy and I went on a shopping trip to Target. We saw this shirt (Daddy is my hero) and Roy was convinced we should get it. Here's Abby posing in her awesome onesie, with quite the tongue! A little known secret about me is that I have a long tongue and can, in fact, touch my tongue to my nose. Needless to say, I have been quite excited to learn that Abby likewise has a long tongue as well. Nose-touching lessons will soon begin...

Three Boys and A Little Baby

As most of you know, Roy and I teach the Valiant 10 class in Primary. We LOVE teaching and this group of kids keeps us on our feet and keeps us laughing so we have a great time. We have taken Abby to church the last two weeks and so she comes to class with us. We had a couple funny moments yesterday with her and the three boys that were there. To keep the stories simple, I will just call the boys A, B, and C. And, by the way, the quotes are accurate as best I can remember.

We got into Opening Exercises and A and B ask where Abby is going to sit so they could sit close to her. We pointed to a chair and they flocked over to be as close as possible, even scooting their chairs to be right against her carrier. When we got into the classroom, all three boys wanted to sit by her and kept telling the other two boys why he should get to and they should let him. They ended up sitting in a triangle around her carrier, two with their backs to us. When we explained that they needed to look at us in order for the lesson to work, they all looked at us like, "But we want to see the baby!" so we put their chairs in a line and turned Abby to face them. Problem solved!

After class was over, Roy went to change Abby's diaper and asked the boys to help me carry the carrier, diaper bag, and Primary bag. They each grabbed an item and we walked down the hall to the Primary room. Within about a minute, B and C "needed" to use the bathroom immediately, telling me that they were going because "Brother Zwahlen is in there!" Yeah right, I knew they were going to find Abby. Upon entering the bathroom, C told Roy that he really should be changing her in the women's bathroom because she has "girl parts". B told C that was a dumb idea because "Brother Zwahlen is a guy". :) When C came back into the Primary room, he told me that "Brother Zwahlen released an explosion of baby in the men's bathroom." How utterly embarrassing! :)

The rest of Primary was much the same--three boys vying for the chair closest to Abby, staring at her in her carrier and informing us when she made the slightest movement, and insisting that she was constantly farting. Those boys just crack me up! I'm glad that Abby already has surrogate big brothers, especially ones that are this much fun!

I have one more funny Primary story from yesterday. Our ward does this cool thing called Reverence Reporter. The Primary Presidency secretly asks a child to pay attention to the other children during Opening Exercises and pick someone who is being especially reverent. At the end of Opening Exercises, the Reverence Reporter comes to the front of the room and tells the Primary who the reverent child was. Yesterday, the Reverence Reporter picked his sister as the most reverent child. Roy was sitting on the other side of our row of chairs and leaned over and mouthed "nepotism". I missed what he said the first time so I asked him to repeat it, which he did. Then the boy sitting next to him leaned over to me and said, emphasizing quite loudly, "He said BAPTISM."

I love Primary!

My Favorite Things

I have been thinking lately about some of my favorite things. I have had many nights up with Abby to reflect and I thought I would share a couple of my thoughts:

• my family--from Roy and Abby to the Freebairns to the Zwahlens


• all the people who feel like family


• getting more than 4 hours of sleep in one shot


• chocolate (too bad that might be one of the causes of Abby's upset tummy)


• sunny days


• talking to nieces and nephews on the phone


• Primary songs


• smiles from friends and strangers


• going to church


• coming up with schemes and possible plans for the future, even if none of them work out


• family naps
  

...and a whole lot more, but we'll save those for another post.

Here are a couple more pictures.

For those of you who have missed seeing the wonderful smiling faces of Roy and Michelle, here's a picture just for you! I thought we were doing really well with sleep, but after looking at this picture, I realize that just isn't the case! We look tired, but I will have you know that it is a well-earned tiredness!

Abby was blessed with a large noggin (thank you Zwahlen genes). When my mom was in town, we tried on the baby blessing bonnet to be sure it would fit. It's been in the family for 3 generations. Luckily, the hat will fit! Abby's blessing is March 23 (my bday and Easter).

This is one of my favorite pictures from the hospital. I think Abby looks like an angel. Besides the stupid bandaid on my thumb, I love this picture!

This is Abby with her favorite Aunt Samira. A note to the other aunts: You can be the favorite Aunt (insert name here).

Abby goes to Church

Abby decided to cooperate and help Michelle get to church. With 9AM church it was quite the challenge. She did great with our Valiant class and pretty much just ignored them and slept. The Primary even sang the "Hello, Hello" song for her which of course she also ignored and slept right through it.

As you can see it's her first dress, tights, and bonnet. Can you tell we are first time parents?

Pretty Baby

Abby was born 2 weeks ago and it's already hard to imagine life without her. Roy and I went to bed at the same time three nights in a row. Of course I was up 5 minutes later to feed Abby, but it was exciting to us to have even that little bit of normalcy. Roy and I absolutely LOVE Abby and have had lots of fun with her so far. One of my favorite things is when she falls asleep on me. It is SO hard to put her down because she gets all warm and cozy and makes me want to sleep too. So for those of you who want to know what we have done this week, here's a rundown on the life of Abby for the week:


She already has Roy wrapped around her finger, as nearly every daughter should. On a funny side note, whenever Roy holds Abby on his shoulder, she reaches with one hand and grabs at his shirt collar. It wouldn't be so bad except she simultaneously rams her fist into his throat. :)


Abby's umbilical cord came off on Friday. For some reason, it made me think, "My baby's growing up!" even though she was only 12 days old. Dramatic, I know. Since the umbilical cord was no longer in the way, Abby "graduated" to wearing real clothes during the day instead of pjs and real baths instead of sponge baths. With only a few squeals, we had a very fun bath. She enjoyed it a ton more than those wretched sponge baths!

All clean!

We have been joking this week that Abby has the Elvis lip curl. Luckily we can now prove it with a picture. Hopefully she won't be furious about this documentation at age 16!

As for other news on the Zwahlen-front, we had a busy week! Here's a quick run-down of some of the more fun news:

• My mom (Mor Mor to Abby) has been in town visiting. Roy jokes that she is chained to the stove, but she has also had a lot of Abby time as well. It has been very helpful to have her here and we've had a lot of fun too.
• Roy started classes this week and survived week 1 of baby and school. The best part about school this week was that Roy found out he got an A- in Constitutional Law. An A- in law school is impressive and we are THRILLED!
• We had a fun Saturday with the extended Zwahlen clan and my mom. Abby was awesome especially considering that we were out and about all day and she was being passed around.

Well, Abby and I are going to enjoy a bit of sunshine this morning while my mom and Roy are at church!

Abigail Claire

We wanted to share a couple more pictures of Abby. We have had a fun couple of days and have really enjoyed our naps the last few days! :)

She enjoyed our first family walk quite well...sleeping:

Her first ride in her swing, also spent sleeping. She now stays awake for her swing rides:

All suited up for her first doctor visit. Doesn't she look cute?