Happy Birthday to Me!

We celebrated my birthday on the 17th of this month. Now I'm the ripe old age of 23. (Jeepers, I'm such an old lady...) We went over to my parents' house for dinner and cake. I got a gift certificate to get a haircut and highlights from my parents, which is a good thing because I need it! And Andrew has so graciously offered to fix my sewing machine as a late birthday present. It needs a new motor and I can't wait to get it up and running so I can make stuff!

My mom made a delicious banana split cake for my birthday. I used to request this cake every year while growing up. It was so yummy!



I made Holly a hairbow to match her outfit with my new Bow-dabra, which is my favorite thing right now. It makes making hairbows so easy! This was the first bow I made with my Bow-dabra, so notice how it is as big as Holly's whole head. I got a little carried away. Here she is with my mom. Cute!



I also made Holly a dress to wear to church. This was my first time making a dress for her, so I was a little nervous. I found a really easy pattern online and made my mom supervise me while making the dress. Here is a picture of Holly in her dress and the matching hairbow I made with my trusty Bow-dabra.



Every week, I have the intention of taking a picture of her in her dress. However, I foolishly think that it would be a good idea to wait until after church to do this. As you can probably guess, we have all had it by the time we get home and it never gets done. Therefore, during the week Holly and I play dress-up. Today I put her back in this dress and took pictures, but she did not want to cooperate with me and put on a happy face for the photo shoot. She somehow managed to pull her headband down over her eyes and take the bow off the headband. That told me the photo shoot was, sadly, over.

ANOTHER Blog Facelift!

Okay, now we have an entirely new-looking blog! I am pretty excited about it, mainly because it's more user-friendly and I can make it more cute. However, I am still working out the kinks a little bit so bear with me!

In other news, Holly was seven weeks old this week! I can hardly believe it. Time is going by so fast and she is getting so big! She is so cute and so much fun. Also, Andrew is starting a new job in a couple of weeks! We are both really excited about it (acutally, mostly it's just me). He is going to work at a hospital closer to home and in the operating room, which should be exciting for him. Right now at his current job, he works from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. three days a week but at his new job, he will work 8-hour shifts Monday through Friday! He will also be on call sometimes. I am really excited about his new, normal schedule. We will be able to make plans as a "normal" family does! Pretty exciting.

Holly-isms

Our little Holly is so cute and fun. Can I just say that I feel so lucky to be able to stay home and just be her mom full-time? Don't get me wrong; it's a lot of work, and most of the time I think to myself at 5:00 in the evening, "What on earth did I do today?" But we are so blessed that we can afford for me to stay home and care for her. Yay!
Anyway, little Holly does some things that Andrew and I think are pretty funny. She is such a squirmy baby. Almost everyone who holds her comments on this to some extent. Whenever I take her to the pediatrician's office and put her on the scale, the nurse says, "Oh yeah, you're the squirmy one." I just thought all babies were this squirmy, but apparently not. Holly wants to just be on the move! We have a sleep positioner in her crib to keep her on her back. One day when I was going to get her up from a nap, I found her like this:

She wiggles out of just about anything. At night we swaddle her to sleep, and when I go and get her, her arms are somehow magically out of the blanket, no matter how tightly we swaddle her! We have a little Houdini on our hands.
One of Holly's favorite hang-outs is her swing. I usually don't buckle her in because she doesn't really like it (I know, I know--at the expense of my child's safety. We're horrible parents, what can we say?). She usually stays in there and enjoys being hypnotized by the swinging motion and the mobile. However, when she's had enough, she gets wiggly and upset. Here is what she normally looks like when she's done with the swing:

It's pretty funny. I guess the message I should take from this is, I should buckle her in before she can wiggle all the way out of her swing!
Lastly, Holly has started giving us "real" smiles. Yesterday, we put her in this cute outfit from our good friends Kaulana and Nicole (thanks, guys!). We wanted to take pictures of her in it to show them and Andrew was trying to get her to make a good picture face. So he was saying her name in a really funny way, and she was smiling for the camera! We were so excited to get pictures of her doing her funny little smile.

Finally, I can't believe that Holly is six weeks old already! She is growing so fast and is filling out nicely. Where she used to be skinny, she's getting chubby. I love it! She is more and more of a joy each day.

Fourth of July

I realize that I am quite far behind on our posts, so here is my attempt to catch up. First of all, we had a great fourth of July! We had our friends the Browns and the Browns over for a barbeque. There were lots of kids present, which is always fun. Holly was celebrating her 1-month birthday that day, too. Here is a picture of her and Andrew. Note Holly's cute fourth of July dress from Aunt Karen:

Then, the next day (Sunday), was Holly's baby blessing. It was such a special day for our family! We were able to get together after church with both Andrew's and my parents, so it was a great opportunity to spend some time together as well. Andrew's mom, Grandma Chardan, made Holly's blessing dress for her. We forgot to take pictures while we were all dressed up together, so we had to put Holly back in her dress for a quick photo session.

It was a really fun weekend.