Week 2 with Sweet Eliza*

*written last week

Life with a newborn …. ahhh.  It’s been a lovely week here in our tiny village.  I’ve been so blessed to spend so much time with Eliza during these first few weeks.  These newborn days pass so quickly and we understand that much more now that we have four older children.  We all spend every minute we can admiring Eliza.   There has been a bit of contention between Bard and Kate as to who gets to hold Eliza when I’m willing to give her up :)

Bard is still home from work and has been keeping us all happy with amazing meals.  I’m a little afraid to get back in the kitchen for fear that my cooking skills are too rusty!  

I did venture in yesterday to make this amazing skillet cookie.  If you eat weird food like us, you’ll love it :)   Even if you don’t, you should give it a try, it’s just soooo good!

This entire pregnancy, I was never able to shake that nauseous feeling when it came to food, and I wasn’t eating much.  Thankfully, Eliza’s arrival brought an end to that, and I feel like I’ve eaten more in the past two weeks than I have in months!  It feels very good :) 

We’ve had some sweet friends bring us some lovely meals and we’ve received the cutest gifts for Eliza.  She even has her first raincoat … perfect!  We’re so grateful to have wonderful friends here in England! 

Kate and the boys were the recipients of some gifts also.  A lady at our church hand painted this bag for Kate.  Kate said today, “I just love being a big sister.  I could sit here all day and look at her!”  The boys got the neatest book of airplanes to construct.  They had the best time making and flying them.  There was even a pink one that they gave to Kate. 

 

Jackson was sure to tell Eliza all about the airplane book :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jackson loves to hold his sister.  On Tuesday he came down with a fever and was throwing up.  We were expecting all of the other kids to get sick also and had to quarantine Eliza to our bedroom.  After 24 hours (and a long night for Bard and Jackson) Jackson started improving and we were so thankful none of the other kids got sick.  It was very hard for them to not be able to hold or kiss Eliza and they were excited that they were cleared by Mama today!

 

Eliza’s first bath.  We could probably count on two hands the number of times Eliza has cried.  When she was first born she gave out a healthy cry and since then we’ve barely heard a peep out of her.  When she gets upset she wiggles and squirms and grunts.  If she lets out a little squeak, we know she’s really serious!   We expected her to fuss or cry a bit when we took her out of the bath, but nary a peep.  I can deal with that!