What a difference 2 months makes

On our first night home from the hospital with Kyveli, I walked into the bedroom about to collapse with exhaustion, saw this, and my heart just about burst:



Fast forward to two nights ago, almost exactly two months from the night that photo was taken. Kyva fell asleep again with Kailen, who just happened to be wearing the same flannel shirt:



Amazing! This of course prompted me to look through all of the photos we took during her first two weeks. She was such a little peanut back then! I just can't believe how fast our little girl is growing.

Kyveli is 2 months old!

Here are some of the highlights from her 2-month shoot:




I am beginning to sound like a broken record, but yet again I can't believe how quickly the time is passing. How can it possibly be two months since Kyva joined us? At this rate she'll be off to college, to say nothing of preschool, before we know it. Here is my second monthly letter to her:

Dear Kyva,

You have been a very busy baby since you turned one month old! In addition to holding your head up, you can now keep it much steadier and turn it to look at things. You love bath time and diaper changes, ADORE your play mat, and you're even getting better at riding in the car. We discovered that you like Soothie pacifiers, even though you didn't like them when you were new. The pacifier has been the magic solution to the carseat dilemma, unless of course you are just too tired. If that's the case there's nothing that will help, so we try to avoid that situation. When you were really little we had to wait until you were sound asleep before we could try to go anywhere, but that doesn't work anymore since you seem to be a lighter sleeper now. Now we need to make sure you are awake, fed, and happy and then you usually tolerate the carseat with the help of your pacifier.

You laughed in your sleep a few weeks ago, which was very entertaining! We are really looking forward to your first awake laugh and I doubt we will have to wait for it much longer. Another very exciting development happened just a few days ago: you discovered your hands! I've been waving them in front of your face and showing you how to put them in your mouth, and this past Wednesday you did it yourself. You don't quite have the coordination yet to keep them there, but it's a start! You've also started grabbing and batting at the hanging toys on your play mat, which is very cute to watch.

We also took you on your first overnight trip away from home, to visit your Grandma Marge, Auntie Heather, Uncle Brian and cousins Shasta and Jevria for Mother's Day. We had a lot of fun and your cousins were excited to see you for the second time. Jevria really liked holding your little hand and talking to you to try to get you to smile at her! Grandma Marge gave us her bed so that we could be more comfortable, which was so very sweet of her. We brought along your snuggle nest and all slept together in the bed, just like old times...only now you barely fit in it! What a big girl you've become!

Just how big you are we're not quite sure, although you were almost 11 pounds the last time I weighed you a few weeks ago. Your 2-month checkup was scheduled for May 8th, but we had to reschedule it for the 29th. We're looking forward to finding out exactly how much you've grown, but most definitely not looking forward to the three vaccinations you will be receiving. I'm sure it's going to be harder on us than it will be for you...at least I am hoping that will be the case. We're big, we can handle it. You're just little and it breaks my heart to think of anyone hurting you! We've chosen a delayed vaccination schedule so that at least you won't have to get quite as many pokes when you're so new.

Not that I'm complaining at all, but I am really looking forward to when you start sleeping through the night, or at least longer than 3 hours at a stretch. You've shown us that you want your bedtime to be between 6:30 and 8:00 by getting really fussy if we accidentally make you stay up later than that, so we try to honor your wishes! Then we'll do a dreamfeed right before mommy and daddy's bedtime so that you can keep on sleeping for a few more hours. You consistently wake up to eat again at 3:30am, and then go back to sleep until around 6:30 when you decide it's time to get up for the day. I'll let you in on a little secret: your mommy has never been an early riser, so this has been a little tough on me, but I'll survive! Who knows, maybe you'll turn me into an early bird after all. You are quite possibly the only person in the world who I would do that for...because I'd do just about anything for you, my sweet girl!

Love,
Mommy

Here are a couple of final photos of our girl, just because I love them (we didn't use any special effects - she really is that beautiful!):

Kyveli's Newborn Photo Shoot

When Kyveli was 2 weeks old, we arranged for Kelly M (who also shot our maternity photos) to shoot her newborn photos. Toward the end of the slideshow below, there are several photos which were taken on a Persian rug. My dad brought this rug back for us from the Middle East as a gift, and it is very special to us. It's the same rug that we stood on during our wedding ceremony, and it has hung above the head of our bed ever since as a reminder of the vows we took that day. We were also really happy that my mom and two of my three sisters were able to be there the day of the photo shoot. We love these photos and hope you do too!