We had an excellent Thanksgiving! It was my first time to cook everything, and it turned out great. I didn't burn down the apartment, or even come close! :) Of course, it helps that my friend, Tammi came. She is an awesome cook, and made easy work of everything. We celebrated on Wednesday, since Ben had to work all day on Thursday, but it was still wonderful and felt like it was on the right day. Atalie enjoyed everything, she sat in her bouncy seat by the table and loved watching all the candles.
Ben's birthday was great, too. He, once again, was at work all day, but I made him a nice birthday breakfast, and a nice supper when he got home. He got some nice snuggle time with Atalie too, as you can see. :)

At the park

Okay, so we have the prettiest parks here! We're so lucky!!

Her first laugh!

She has been all smiles lately, we think she might have laughed last night but she got hiccups right afterward, so it may have just been a smiley hiccup. This time was definitely a little chuckle!

Atalie's morning smiles

Sleeping on a cloud

We snapped this picture this morning (she doesn't usually sleep on her tummy, don't worry!) :)

YAY POOP!

No pictures will be posted in this post for obvious reasons... haha. The pediatrician wanted me to call her on Tuesday to update her on Code Brown. When I called she told me that if she pooped within a week of the last one, we wouldn't worry about it, but if not we would have too look into what could be wrong. Well it's only been four days! Thanks so much for praying! Haha, Atalie will kill me when she's older if she finds out what kind of things I posted about.

Looking back I realized that we never posted much about when Atalie was born. Let's face it, I love to talk about it and HAHA you can't stop me! So here goes! :)
Well, I had to be induced, so they scheduled us to go in at 6am and that was fine by me. I wasn't going to be sleeping much that night anyway. We packed up and were ready to go, so we called the hospital to make sure that they were ready and they told us that they had scheduled that we go in at 7. Great, an hour of twiddiling our thumbs and me asking Ben, "Are you sure I'm going to be able to do it??", "Will the IV hurt", "How long do you think it will take?" You know that part in the wedding vows that says "In sickness and in health"? Well there's my sickness (should I say one of my sicknesses...haha). I've got a knack for asking super retarded questions that Ben has no idea what the answer is.
Finally it was time to go, so we left the apartment and drove to the hospital. I was so nervous that I was super chatty with all of the nurses. Ben was too sweet and didn't even tease me about it! We got to the room and I got in my stunning hospital gown and the ride began. One of our friends told us that was like the up-hill start of a roller coaster - with every click you're more nervous and all of the sudden you're on the wildest ride of your life (too true, Nate). I got all "plugged in" to the IV and all that good stuff and then we waited, and waited. After I got my epidural (I know, I'm a wimp)I was pretty comfortable and watched "A Baby Story" for hours. (once again, poor Ben) Atalie was born at 7:56pm, after just about 12 hours of labor only 15 minutes of pushing.

God did so many amazing things that day. Of course, He gave us a beautiful, healthy baby girl, but just as He always does, he went over and above what we hoped for. My mom had bought plane tickets to come up after my due date so that she could be sure to be here to help with the baby, and not use up her limited time while I was just waiting to have her. It turned out that they scheduled me to be induced on the day that she reserved her tickets for! She ended up arriving at the hospital an hour before I delivered! Labor and Delivery was so busy that day that they were having to turn away women who were scheduled to be induced later on that day, so the nurses told me that I would probably have to share a room with another woman at least that night. :( But God was so amazing to us and blessed us, not only with a private room, but one with two beds so that Ben could stay there with me and sleep comfortably. The whole experience was amazing, and I'm looking forward to the next time! :)

I don't want to talk about the hair...







I had to post this one, she was SO tiny!! Wow, I didn't realize how much she's grown now. I know it's good, but it makes me a little sad! She's cuter every day though, so that makes up for it. ;)


Again, hate the picture of me, but she's so little and sweet! :) haha.

God has blessed us with such a good baby. She's such a little sweetheart, very easy going - just like her daddy. :) She's been doing just great, she's on a 3hr feeding schedule and growing like a weed. We had our 2 month doctor's visit this week and she's already 11 pounds (chubby, just like her momma!! haha). The only issues she's having is she spits up quite a bit, and rarely poops. I honestly never thought I'd talk so much about poop, but once you've got a little one you've got to pay attention to everything. She only poos just about every 12 days! I talked to our pediatrician about it and she told me to start feeding her an ounce or two of Apple/Pear juice and see if that helps. I'm supposed to call her by this Thursday, and if she hasn't "regulated" it might be something more serious. So, it sounds strange, but please pray for poop!! :) Other than that she's just amazingly perfect. She's doing so well at sleeping through the night, she usually sleeps about 5-6.5 hours, then eats, then sleeps another three! We're very lucky, I know.
Since April Ben has been an intern at our church. It's been such an awesome experience. It's been really challenging for him, but with each new task that he feels completely wrong for God has really equipped him. It's been so neat to see. On Monday he went with the other leaders in the church to the Missouri Baptist Convention. He said that the convention was interesting, but more than that he really enjoyed spending time getting to know other leaders. He came home really challenged, but encouraged.
We spent Halloween at my brother's place and, of course, had a blast. Atalie was a bunny and their puppies were a cop and a prisoner, they were too cute. We pretty much just stayed inside, watched a movie and made ourselves sick off of the candy. There weren't that many trick-or-treaters... it had to go somewhere!
We're actually going to be moving soon! To Colorado!! haha, just kidding, but we are moving, just to a new apartment though. We're in a one bedroom townhouse now, and we found a really nice 2 bedroom condo that would end up being just about the same amount of rent that we're paying now. It's just one story, which will be nice once Atalie starts getting around, and it's 1200sq feet! We, of course, would love to buy a house, but we don't have hardly anything for a down payment and it would be nice for Ben to have a job where the money is a bit more stable. We're pretty excited about the condo though.
Well, that's pretty much it, as far as I can remember. I'll try to do a bit better about actually writing something. :)

Ninja Parade

Ninja Parade Slips Through Town Unnoticed Once Again