When Riese was only 6 days old, Matt and I pulled our completely sleep deprived hot mess selves together for a newborn photo shoot. My friend Ben offered to do the shoot for us as a belated baby shower gift (he and his wife run a local photography and videography business – they also photographed our wedding!). We had only been home from the hospital for a few days and I felt pretty emotional and overwhelmed but I knew I wanted to make sure we got these photos before we blinked and Riese got bigger and we missed our chance. So, we dragged ourselves out of bed, took showers, I actually put on makeup and curled my hair, and we made it happen. And I’m so glad we did – Ben sent me the photos last week and I absolutely love them – I know we will treasure them always. <3
Here are a few more of my faves from the shoot:
Ahhh obsessed with this one – her eyes! <3
In this one her onesie says “Hello world I’m Riese”! 🙂
I am so glad we got those photos done right away because I was right that we would blink and weeks would go by – our little lady is officially one month old today, and getting bigger by the day! We celebrated this morning by taking this photo, obviously:
She’s having more moments now where she is awake and alert and not crying, which is fun – she seems to be taking in the world a bit more. Although she definitely has her crying moments still… it took us a bunch of shots to get a good 1 month photo as she was not loving the photoshoot! She’s still a total cuddlebug/”velcro baby” – she’s mostly only happy when being held or snuggled up next to us.
I can’t believe she’s been out in the world with us for a whole month now – crazy. It has been a wonderful and a hard month all at the same time; our days have been filled with less than adequate sleep and some tears, but also lots of snuggles and a whole lot of joy.
The weather has been pretty nice here recently (not crazy cold, and mostly sunny) so we’ve been enjoying lots of walks still, which is always one of my favorite parts of the day! We take a family walk once a day – usually a mile or two, and usually involving a stop for lattes. 😉 It feels so nice to get fresh air and Riese loves the movement and always falls right to sleep, which makes sense since she’s used to it – I did SO much walking while I was pregnant! Matt usually puts Riese in his “dad shirt” for our walks (he zips his coat around it to support her more/keep her warm), and I occasionally wear her in a wrap for our shorter walks (it’s still too much physically for me to wear her for long ones, especially if our route is hilly).
I’m going to do a post about baby wearing soon, btw – stay tuned! I’m trying a ton of different kinds of wraps and will be sure to report back on my faves.
In terms of food, we are still being spoiled by friends! This week I’ve been noshing on these delicious quinoa, kale, and bean stuffed peppers that my friend Stephanie brought by for us over the weekend. So good! I added some feta to the mix, too.
Earlier this week, my friend Heather came over for lunch – we combined forces to make a feast. She brought a bunch of mac and cheese left over from their holiday party, and also brought some salad toppings to add to the greens that we had in our fridge.
It was a delicious combo!
We’ve also been finishing up some Blue Aprons – Matt made us this yummy catfish earlier this week. I really liked the collard green infused rice, which is good since we had some leftover!
We are trying to work through our freezer stash of meat, too – Matt made us some steaks on Tuesday night with roasted potatoes and some leftover roasted veggies. It’s so nice to really enjoy all food again… I do not miss the pregnancy-induced nausea and food aversions.
On the snack front, I’ve been obsessed with pears and yogurt lately – such a good combo and I can eat it one handed while breastfeeding, too. 😉
I have my one month follow up appointment with my doctor today – hopefully my C section incision is healing as it should be! I’m definitely going to ask when I can start to introduce more movement/gentle fitness… I’m starting to get a liiiiittle antsy and I’m craving some good stretching in particular. I definitely don’t feel up for anything intense, but I’m really missing yoga and swimming! We’ll see… I’m guessing it will be at least a couple weeks or a month longer… but for those of you who had C sections – when were you approved to get back into fitness? And do you have any recommendations for resources that help with slowly introducing fitness again in a safe way, given the incision? I’m nervous about how to properly get back into the swing of things since I don’t know what is okay/not okay given the C section, so I want to start reading up and doing some research now so I’ll be ready when the doctor gives me the okay in the future! And in the meantime, I’ll continue to enjoy lots of walks. 🙂
Tonight we have a big outing planned – our first dinner out on the town since Riese was born! My brother and his girlfriend are coming into town and my parents are going to babysit so Matt and I can go out to dinner with them. So pumped! Bring on the wine!!
Also, for those of you who celebrate it, can you believe Christmas is on Monday?! That came up quickly! We are obviously not going anywhere this year and looking forward to a low key holiday with my family.
Have a great weekend and a nice Christmas – see you guys back here on Tuesday or Wednesday with a recap!
