We made it!!!!

Roughly 4 flights and 23 hours of flight time later - we arrived in  Cleveland to spend Thanksgiving with my family.  It was such  long journey but Selah was absolutely wonderful.  Other than a few minor melt down moments, NOT getting a proper bassinet as promised, a near missed connection, and delayed luggage, the trip was great.  I'm extremel thankful that she was so calm about everything.  The hardest part of the trip has been getting her adjusted now that we're here.  I'm pretty convinced she's jet lagged and not showing any sign of getting over it. This was Selah last night at 12:30 am...ovbiously not the least bit interested in sleeping...

 I've had her on a strict schedule for the last week and she's still up every night for hours and hours, it's extremely rare and unusual for her so I'm at a loss for what to do.  Just trying to keep her awake during the days and get her to sleep at night...I'm guessing she'll get adapted just as we're getting ready to go home - so I can spend another month getting her adjusted again!  I finally Googled it the other night and turns out it's quite common and can take up to 3 weeks (?!) to work itself out!  Praying ours is going to be worked out by this weekend. Today we spent some time outside in the sunshine (even thought it was only 29 degrees F.), did some Jolly Jumper work and went to bed an hour later than usual....we shall see :)

Thanksgiving was great, it was nice to be with my family and my grandmother came over to meet little Selah.  They got along really well and my grandmas was just thrilled to meet her.  We'll be seeing her again this weekend.  I've been busy trying to see as many people as I can, old friends and family - it's been really nice catching up with everyone, makes me realize how long it's been since we've been home.  Selah absolutely loves social settings and being the center of attention, so she's doing great. 

We've had fun getting used to the cold weather - considering she's never even worn a coat before she's handling the loads of layers well.  She hasn't put up too much of a fus!

It's been pretty hard not having Brett around, I wonder if she realizes that he's not here and how much it affects her.  We've been able to Skype a bit, but it's certainly not the same thing. She doesn't seem to really know what to do with the floating head on the screen - but it's better than nothing!  She seems like she's growing so much while we've been here, I can't wait for Brett to see and hold her again. We've started solid foods since arriving in the US - just mushed apples and avocado's so far, but she seems to be doing great!  Eating like a champ for the most part - I was prepared for it to take a lot longer to teach her how to eat food, but she's catching on quickly.  Tomorrow we'll move on to green beans and then banana's I think.  It's been a lot of fun and I really enjoy watching her discover new food and all the sensations that go along with that. 

It's hard to believe I've been here a week already - and that I only have less than a week here in Ohio!  All in all, it's been a great trip and I'm so grateful that I was able to come early and spend this time with my family. 

I'll try to keep everyone posted as we move around!!! 

Baby Mug Shot...

For those inquiring minds...this is Selah's passport photo - hee hee....In all seriousness, we've run into some additional red tape and her passport processing is looking more and more challenging as we go.  Please be praying that we have favor with the immigration and passport departments in the coming weeks.  I'm really very upset about all of it and feel extremely frustrated and helpless to do anything to fix it!!!!! 

And in other news...she rolled over on her own for the first time today!!!! Here's a little video clip of it for your viewing pleasure (hopefully it works!)  --  Brett says it's perfect form :)

Random Stuff...

Recent stuff...

We said farewell to Jen, the Airlie Beach Chiropractor, this past weekend - it was really sad to see her go, she's such a lovely girl.  We hosted a farewell party for her at our place a couple of weekends ago and had the TLC gang over to wish her well.  It was a FEAST!!!  This past weekend we had one final dinner at our place and helped her get her things together - she's returning to Canada to pursuit another opportunity there.  Wishing her the best on her journey!

The following day we had Pam and Nathan for lunch after church and snapped a few photos of their little man, Seth.  He's about a month younger than Selah - I think they make a cute couple :)

Selah and I had our first go at the Jolly Jumper last week.  Attempt one ended in disaster with Selah screaming in a volume she has never achieved before...yikes.

After a nice long feed and some play time we had 'jolly jumper take-two' and it went much better.  Still only lasted about 5 minutes before she got frustrated and whined to get out, but it was progress.  She never did quite get the bouncing thing but I'm sure she will!  We've tried again since then and she lasted a little longer and almost actually seems to enjoy it - she's still not loving it though.

This is when she started giving up and just drooling all over the floor: 

Brett went to Brisbane for The Black Keys concert.  The ticket was his birthday present.  I intended him to go with a friend but it didn't quite work out so he went on his own and seemed happy to do so.  Then the following day, he flew into Hamilton Island for a 'guys night' of poker and a trip to Whitehaven Beach with a few of his mates.  They ended up scoring a free upgrade to this crazy expensive apartment/unit worth millions of dollars.  I think he really enjoyed the time away from work and everything else.  He has a hard time disconnecting for responsibilities these days so it was a good, no work allowed, sort of weekend for him.  He definitely came home much more relaxed than when he left so it's good for everyone!  Selah and I had a nice weekend to ourselves, went swimming and had a BBQ - she was a perfect little angel while he was away :)

View at the concert:

The view from their Hamilton Island accommodation: 

We're busy planning our trip to the US - have no idea what the travel dates are at this point but will let everyone know when we do.  There been a bit of a hassle getting Selah's AUS passport, big long dramatic story and I'll spare you the details, but in the end we're just praying it gets here in time....
On the bright side, her passport photos are adorable....they look like little baby mug shots - very funny :)

Prayers for a quick return on all of this documentation for our travel would be AWESOME!!!!!

Mortified....

...doesn't even begin to describe the way I felt earlier this week when I was made aware of the fact that I printed Selah's birth announcements with the wrong birth date...seriously?  Who. Does. That?  I do apparently...

Now, this mistake could have been rectified had I noticed the error (as any other reasonable person in the world would have) BEFORE I sealed them in envelopes and sent them out in Thank You cards....awesome.  It wasn't until a friend of mine received hers and sent me a message thanking me and mentioning that she thought Selah was born in July, not June...OMG - I thought I might die.

So - after a week of sulking over my stupidity and some tears of embarrassment (yes, I cried...), I'm finally able to chuckle (not really even laugh yet, just chuckle) about it now and hope Selah will eventually one day too. I'll chalk it up to sleep deprivation at the time I was making them, and the fact that she was technically due in June, and well...I'm just really not a details person...

That said, for anyone who got one - yes, she was born July 15th and not June 15th...if you haven't gotten one, you probably won't as I'm discontinuing the use of them!  Just for the record, I've included a photo of my debacle below :)

In other news...Selah has started really fighting her nap times...crying and crying and crying some more.  It's been a bit stressful.  Today it took 45 minutes to get her down and then she cried and moaned in her sleep for another 10.  Don't worry, I'm not just chucking her in there and letting her cry.  I'm in every 5 - 15 minutes to check on her (depending on the type of cry), I sit in there with her for a while, we try the pacifier every now and again, I make sure she's not too hot or cold - we do everything but actually get her out of the cot itself.  Not sure what the deal is, she's just struggling with getting to sleep on her own and she's recently started waking again at 3 - 4 am for a feed.  Frustrating after over a month of sound sleeping!  It's all good, I'm sure it's just one phase of the many to come!  Nothing getting back on a solid routine can't fix I hope :)

We're going in to see the midwives on Friday to get her weighed and measured (she's 3 months now!) and to have them check out her eye - there's something not quite right with the outer corner of the left eye, (see photo below) so I just want to make sure it's all good.  It doesn't seem to be causing her any discomfort and she's using it well, just a little strange.  Brett thinks it will correct itself, but doesn't hurt to see if it's anything they commonly see in infants.

Today we drive to Bowen during lunch - Brett is going up once a week to do X-Rays until the new Chiropractor gets her license.  It's about an hour drive and I've started going with him so that he gets to see Selah (and me) during his lunch, otherwise he wouldn't see her at all on Wednesdays!  It's actually fairly nice to have the time to chat and Selah really enjoys the car rides so it works out for everyone.

That's all for now!  More updates soon :)

Cheers!

A Few Firsts...

We've had a lot of 'first's' over the last couple of weeks....our house is loaded with about 20 YWAM'ers all of last week, Selah had her first sailing trip, her first official in-store melt-down, her first extended road trip, her first swim in the ocean, AND her first bottle feed :)

I'll start with YWAM (Youth With A Mission) - we discovered last week that the YWAM school starting this week didn't have anywhere to do their lectures as the unit they are renting isn't fully available until the week after next.  This meant that they also didn't have enough space to house their students...we really love what YWAM does in our community and in general and we're good friends with the base Director here in Airlie so we volunteered our home for whatever they needed (thinking it would just be a place to stay for some of the students)...turns out our house was the best option for their lectures and meals as well - so - we're totally YWAM'ing it this week.  We've got 2 lovely girls staying with us at night, one from the Wisconsin, and the other from Sydney and about 20 students and staff at our house during the day...it's pretty chaotic, but really quite fun.  Selah seems to be doing okay although her sleeping has been a bit interrupted....it's tough to maintain a peaceful sleeping environment with so many people in and out all day. She is of course getting showered with the praises of 12 young girls all day long...how could she NOT be loving it?  The hard part will be when we get back to reality and it's just plain old me!

It's been great having them all here, the students are all lovely and we've enjoyed getting to know them.

We went sailing with Peter on Tuesday, which was amazing.  It was a short trip as he had to get the boat back for cleaning early, but we all enjoyed it so much.  It was such a beautiful day for it...perfect water - only thing missing was a whale spotting!  I'm sure it was what Brett hopes to be the first of many, many sailing adventures :)

Peter our beloved captain: 

Family Photo (Selah is in the sling) 

Selah in her sailing dress :) 

From the front of the boat:

Daddy and his little sailor! 

Later in the week, probably due to the total chaos of her schedule at the moment Selah had her first in store melt-down at Centro...talk about stressfull!  I just sat down on a bench in the middle of the centre and fed her until she was happy...nothing like a forced 30 minute break in the middle of the day!  After that she was all smiles though and she still slept well that night so all is well :)    I'm sure it won't be the last one!!!!

We headed to Cairns on Friday night for the holiday weekend (Queen's Birthday).  It's an 8 or 9 hour drive so we stopped in Townsville on Friday night to break it up.  Selah did awesome, slept the whole way there and didn't even wake up when we transferred her in the room.  She slept straight through till 6am the next morning!

Saturday morning we woke up and had breakfast and then headed to Cairns, another 5 hours.  Selah did great once again, managing to sleep nearly the entire trip.  She didn't wake up until we were entering Cairns and then was pretty good for another 40 minutes while we found a place to eat.  She's such a good traveler.

We met our friends Tim and Emily there and had dinner that night at a wonderful Chuscurro (sp?), which is a rare treat for us...

A Sword with meat on it....a man's dream come true:

Emily and her 'deconstructed Lamington':

The next day, Brett and I drove up to a tiny mountain town near Cairns and checked out some morning markets and a waterfall.  It was here that Brett came into contact with the "worlds hottest chilli" - they offered samples and of course Brett had to accept...it was by far the funniest thing I've seen in a long, long time.  I laughed at him for hours....not b/c of his reaction necessarily, but b/c of his attempt NOT to have a reaction in front of the sales lady.  It's hard to disguise a sweating brow and an increasingly swollen tongue/throat.  I know Brett loves chilli, and can handle a fair bit of it, so this must have been pretty bad.  30-minutes after he had tasted this sauce, he said his tongue felt swollen and like someone had "cut it with razor blades and poured acid on it"...I will totally take his word for it :)

Brett didn't buy the hottest sauce there, he bought something else just so he could get away gracefully and get something to drink ;)  

This was the lovely walk to a waterfall lookout - it was really nicely done, built through a rainforest:

The following day, brett went golfing in the morning and then we went to the beach for the afternoon.  Selah got to try on her swimsuit and took her very first dip in the ocean!  It was such a beautiful day and I really think she liked it!  She didn't get scared, although, dad did a pretty good job of keeping her out of the rough surf:

And after the swim, we changed and hung out on the beach for a while - a great day for all :)  This is the new thing Selah is doing with her tongue...courtesy of Brett who has been working diligently to train her to stick her tongue out at him.  Figures, its' something we're going to have to teach her later she can't do - Brett unfortunately, doesn't have this type of foresight :(

Selah and Emily hanging out together...

And finally - Selah took her first bottle this week.  I've been wanting to do this for a week or so now, but have been nervous about her not wanting to breastfeed anymore.  After she had a total meltdown in the car on the way home from Cairns (we had to stop for 30 minutes on the side of the road to feed her), I decided it was time to get this going.  I gave her a bottle on Wednesday when we had to drive to bowen for lunch.  I fed her in the car and she took it like a champ!  It was a very exciting day :)  I breastfed her later that day and she did fine then as well so I'm felling pretty good that it's all going to be okay (thanks mom for bringing the bottles!  They seem to be doing the job!).

Brett gave her his first feed tonight and I think it was really special.  She stared at him the whole time, probably terribly confused by the fact that she was being fed by someone other than me.  It was a sad and happy experience for me all at once.  Great to know that I can detach a little, tiny bit and that Brett can share in that very special time...sad to know that I'm no longer the only one who can provide that care for her.  She seemed to love the time with Brett so I'm really going to try and make sure he can feed her one meal a day or at least every other day.

It's been a busy couple of weeks for sure!  Things are settling back into our regular routine lately, which as been harder for Selah to accept than me :)  She woke me up last night at 1:30 for the first time in a month :(  I definitely felt it this morning and am extra thankful that we have such a well mannered baby.  

Sleeping and other things:

Selah has been doing a fantastic job of putting herself down for her naps and night-time sleeping - I was beginning to worry that we would have big trouble as she was really wanting to be rocked and held to fall asleep, but I think we're making consistent progress now...and I think our friendly little bear in the cot (see photo below) may have something to do with it...

...I've discovered her on several occasions smiling, giggling, and murmuring to the bear that's attached to the inside of her cot as she is going to sleep, or when she wakes up in the middle of a nap.  I think it very well may be the cutest thing I've ever seen in my life :)  

She's been sleeping like a champion, 7pm to about 6:30-7am pretty consistently.  If she does wake up at night it's just once around 3am and it's been a very quick 15 minute feed and she's out again until 7, I"m pretty happy with it all and hoping that it stays this way!  I've heard of babies who get into sleeping the whole night and then start having troubles again later on, hoping we can keep her on this routine, it's pretty awesome and I feel like I'm progressively getting more energy, and feeling more human :)  

The photos we got done earlier this week turned out really well - we weren't expecting much since this was the guys first ever portrait session, but I think he did a great job with very little to work with.  He came to our house and just worked with what we had on hand so it was a huge trial and error thing.  We really wanted to use the blanket with her name b/c I thought it was a really special gift and that it would be good for pictures - I think they all turned out really lovely.  I've already put them on facebook, but here are a few of my favorites:

She did a great job and didn't get fussy until the very end...at which point we promptly ended our photo session :)  She's doing great with the headbands, doesn't fuss with them too much, I just feel bad b/c they leave marks on her poor forehead and I think it mustn't be very comfortable for her.  Although I did have this same headband on her the other day, and when I went to get her out of the car seat it was down over her eyes - and she was sleeping anyway!   I felt terrible though!

We're really thankful for the guy who did these for us - he offered to do them for us whenever we want so that he can continue getting practice.  What a blessing!  

 

Resurrection...

...of the blog.

Noting the date of my last post, one thing has become painfully obvious...I suck at blogging.  However, in light of the recent addition to our family (Selah, of course ;) ) and the fact that we live so far away from family, I have a new found sense of responsibility to make sure everyone is kept up to date on what's going on in our life, specifically with Selah.  This seems like a good way to do that and keep a sort of journal of the exciting things we get to experience with her, and in our life in general.

.

That said...here we go: 

.

Selah had her 7 week check up last week and is growing like a weed :)  She's roughly 11 1/2 pounds now and 55 cm (21 inches) which means she's grown about 4 lbs and 1 inch since birth.  Hard to believe she's already 2 months old!  

.

She's been smiling more lately which is really special, and throwing up more than ever (which, isn't quite as special :/ ).  We're going through about 4 outfits, 3 bibs, and 2 blankets a day right now, which makes for LOTS of laundry :)   Not sure why she's spitting up so much but she's certainly not malnourished, so I'm not too concerned about it at this point.  

.

Brett celebrated his first Fathers day last week as well, which was a really special thing for him I think.  We got him a book about girls (which he has actually started reading!) and a picture/frame for his office, which I do believe he is proudly displaying now :)    

.

The first 2 months of parenthood has been quite an interesting one - from the transition of having a new baby with lots of family around, to then having no family around was a big one to now just really settling into our own life with Selah...there have been a lot of emotional highs and lows that's for sure!  I personally have developed a new sense of respect and love for my own parents and truly recognize the challenge and sacrifice involved in raising children.  So much of what we do with and for her now, she'll never know about, never remember, and never appreciate, until she has her own children (such as we are now :) ), and it's a strange sensation to know that and yet find so much joy in doing it....I guess it is just a hint of what God experiences in loving us in spite of the fact that we probably can't really and truly grasp the depth of Jesus' sacrifice until we get to heaven...

.

It's also given me a greater depth of understanding of God's love for us.  To know the fullness in my own heart when I look at Selah and to know that God's love is so much greater - it's more real than ever.  In the instant that she was born I knew I'd do anything to keep her safe and protected and the thought of anything harming her just makes me ache inside - to imagine that God feels the same for each of us, and of course for His own Son and to imagine what He must endure, not only to watch His own son bare the penalty for our sins, but to watch so many of us deny, ridicule and outright blaspheme Him...well, it would be unbearable for anyone other than God.  To endure it and then to still love us...we serve an amazing God.  

.

In other news - we got some more photos of Selah yesterday.  A friend of ours is trying to get into family photography and asked if he could use Selah as a practice session - we gladly agreed.  Hope to get the photos back today and will be sure to send some out as quickly as I can!  

.

Much love to all of you!  

.

.

Psalm 67:1-2

May God be gracious to us and bless us, 

and make his face shine on us

  - Selah

So that Your ways may be known on the earth

Your salvation among all nations.