A Leap Through Month Two

<3 Our Valentines Day Family Picture <3

 February has been such a great month for us! Rose has been such a blessing and each day is so fun! She has started sharing her smile and attempts to hold cooing conversations with us at times. Rose began to laugh and play more this month too!

Rose playing with a toy

Pretty girl full of smiles

Rose laughing 

 She sleeps through the night now and seems to always be in such a great mood after a good 8-10 hours of sleep. We seriously owe a lot to our Fisher Price rocking sleeper, she loves it and sleeps great in it!

Sleepyhead

Rose being too cute in her pajamas!

Too cute pic #2

Too cute #3

Her hair has begun to turn to a more yellow blond from the reddish blond she was born with. She enjoys getting her nails filed down and Laura is excited to give Rose her first pedicure once she is a bit bigger and her little toes have grown more.

Our little blondie enjoying the sunshine

In Rose's second month of life she had quite a few adventures including a few trips to the mall and a visit from her aunt and cousins. While the cousins were here we all went to the Discovery Place, Dave and Busters and Monkey Joes, quite a busy month all in all!

Our future MBA student with her cousins Delila and Antonio

Hanging with the fishes and family at Discovery Place

Checking out the aquatic life

Pizza in a bus - the kids love it.  The adults love the beer specials. 

Discovery Place fun =)

Being held by cousin Delila

When Rose is not out having fun she enjoys siting in her swing and getting all dressed up, her favorite time of day is when daddy comes home!

Asleep in Daddy's arms

Hanging out watching the political debate

Here is a photo collection documenting Rose's second month of life, as a picture is worth a thousand words, these should be worth at least a few hundred smiles, enjoy!
 

Taking advantage of the nice weather and heading out in the stroller

Such a doll face!

We took Rose for some professional pictures and they turned out great!

 Future Ballarina

 Too cute for clothes!

 Am I an angel or what?!?

 Im not sure if you know it, but im kind of a big deal...

 This picture was already in this post, but we like it so much we thought wed add it a second time!

No, I didnt make that mess. The cat did.

 He's got the whole world in his hands.

A toy?!? How'd you know I love toys?!?!

And so concludes our post of Rose's second month of life =)

Impromptu Photo Shoot

We are so proud of our beautiful alert daughter! Just like the next proud parents we are blown away when she does anything and are convinced that she is amazingly talented and gifted. However in our case, Baby Rose does happen to be truly brilliant! We had a photo session this afternoon and wanted to share a few of the pictures taken today, 2-1-12 on Rose's 33rd day of life.

Eric makes that same expression

Too cute!

Big blue eyes

Rose's First Month

Most Definitely the Star of Mommy's Blog!

It has been pretty smooth sailing since bringing home baby Rose a month ago. She is a very mild tempered baby that seems to be developing rapidly! Before even leaving the hospital Rose was holding her head up on her own and her big blue eyes were wide open taking in everything around her. 

She is a wonderful little baby. Enjoy this picture montage highlighting Rose's first month of life.

First car seat ride- home from the hospital

Baby Rose holding daddy's hand- 1 week

daddy soothing baby- 2 weeks

Smiling in her sleep- 3 Weeks

Big Blue Eyes is one month old 

Rose has big blue eyes and strawberry blond hair. She is constantly cooing, squeaking and sometimes even growling if mommy takes too long to take care of business. She usually sleeps about 3-4 hour stretches at night and has since about the first day home. 

Rose and daddy catching up on zzzz's

Rose after her first bath

Sleeping on mommy as she sits on the exercise ball

Rock'n'Roll Baby

Rose's first bath with mommy (she loved it!)

Pretty Girl

Organic Baby!

Rose really enjoys sitting in her swing, listening to mommy and daddy sing to her and looking at the art on the walls. She also likes to look into the mirror. 

Yawn!

Asleep in daddy's arms

Getting ready to go on our first outing

Rose hanging out in her swing

She is a super fun baby and has been smiling and even laughing a bit. Laura and Eric are really looking forward to seeing all of Rose's developmental milestones and we promise to post pictures and stories as she grows. 

Stay tuned for baby news! You can sign up to receive updates to the blog by entering your email on the right. 

A New Year's Eve Celebration to Remember

Baby Rose Victoria Sieckmann- 12/31/11

Laura was due to have baby Rose on December 17, 2011, but as fate would have it, Rose Victoria was not born until 2 weeks past her due date. Right before hitting the 42 week mark, Laura went into labor on December 29 at 10am. After riding the waves for 12 hours at home with Eric, Patty (Laura's mom) and Brooke (the doula) the group packed into the car and drove to the birthing center as per the birth plan.

At the birthing center

 At this point, Laura was having fairly intense contractions with only about 4 minutes in between. At the birthing center, Laura continued to labor for another 24 hours while managing to walk outside through contractions, get a bit of sleep and even eat a bit. It seemed somewhere around hour 32 that the baby would not arrive, ever and Laura's pain was pretty intense with pains coming every minute or so. Laura persevered through labor for another 4 hours at the birthing center with the only change being the growing intensity of the pain, Baby Rose was just not ready to come down! It was at that point, and at the recommendation of the midwives, that Laura, Eric, Patty, Brooke and Pam (the midwife) packed into the car again, this time headed for the hospital. 

Laura and Eric at the hospital (epidural complete)

Upon arriving at the CMC Pineville Maternity ward, Laura was fairly exhausted after laboring for 36 hours straight and she opted to have an epidural. With the instant relief from pain that Laura experienced she relaxed and her water broke within 2 hours. Laura then managed to sleep for a few hours and regained more strength. A few hours later there was mild change, and a pitocin drip was started to encourage the process. Laura labored for a few more hours with contractions that were felt due to the low dose of the epidural. It was not until around 9:40am on December 31 that Laura was getting ready to push. As the nurses and midwives rushed around the room making last minute preparations for the birth Rose began her entrance into the world.

Laura bringing Rose into the world (push it)

Ironically, after going exactly two weeks to the day overdue and laboring for about 48 hours, the pushing only went on for 20 minutes before Rose Victoria Sieckmann was born. She came at officially 10:10am on December 31, 2011. She weighted in at 8lbs. 7oz. and measured 20 inches long. 

Proud new daddy!

xoxox Laura and Rose xoxox

Rose's first nights sleep

Rose was born a healthy pink baby and gave her parents Eric and Laura a reason to celebrate the New Year that night! As the ball dropped and 2012 was ushered in Rose's mommy and daddy were changing her first diaper, oblivious to anything but the miracle the lay in front of them. 

The first diaper change

On New Years Day the Sieckmann family was released from the hospital and went home after their 4 day adventure.

New Years day- We're home!

First picture after arriving home

And that my friends is the story (gory details excluded) of the birth of Rose Victoria Sieckmann. 

The Final Countdown!

Hey Everybody! Happy Holidays!!!

We’re not sure how many of you have been looking at the calendar lately, but it’s getting to be the final countdown for us now!  We have just FIVE days till the due date!!!  Everything around the house is set-up, freshly cleaned and prepared. The stroller and car seat are assembled, and we have stocked up on food, diapers, paper towels and all other essential and non-essential baby goods. A big thank you to all who gave us baby gifts which helped us become so prepared!

As we write this, Laura is even experiencing irregular contractions, so we are truly living the “any day now” mantra.  We are both very excited and our Christmas tree has stacks of presents underneath just waiting for baby Rose!

We wanted to give a sneak peek into the baby’s nursery, so here is a video for your viewing pleasure:

Video of the Nursery

We are eagerly awaiting the arrival of our little bundle of joy and can't wait for each and every one of you to meet her. Make sure to check back, or sign-up to receive email updates because we will be posting pictures and news of baby Rose soon after she arrives. Until that day, bye for now!