Ellie’s first week

It is hard to believe that Ellie has been a part of our family for full week already. Adjusting to a newborn, after having been through five other children, hasn’t been as hard as I anticipated. Plus, I am trying to enjoy every moment with her that I can before she loses that newborn sweetness. I have had a few long nights — no crying, just snuggling so I don’t mind too much. She is the cutest thing I have ever seen. She doesn’t strike a resemblance to any one of our kids in particular but does have the features of several of them combined. She loves being held, especially by me.

We also were sent home with lights for her to be under because her biliruben levels were slightly high. [*This is a bitter subject that boils down to a overly paranoid doctor. We have a past history of every child having a little higher than normal levels and they allows peak the day we leave the hospital and then come down, but the doctor insisted we put her in the lights 24/7, naked, with goggles for the first few days of her life. Needless to say we probably did it for a max of 10 hours total out of five days and “remarkably” her levels came down just fine and she is normal. I just couldn’t bare not holding her those first few days. I would have certainly been more cautious if we hadn’t been through this five other times without the need of these silly lights.]

Overall though, we couldn’t be happier. She is a sweet, healthy, baby girl. Meg and Katelyn fight over who gets to hold her and Drew and Claire are always smothering her. It isn’t safe to leave her alone in a room with either one of them just yet. Seth is surprisingly sentimental and is doing a great job helping me with her (and the other kids as well). We are so glad to have Ellie in our family and feel greatly blessed to have another beautiful baby.

Sweet Ellie Patricia

Ellie getting read to leave the hospital

G’ma and the kids made this mommy snowman holding her snow baby with a sign welcoming us home. It was the cutest thing ever!

Our baby girl getting her first taste of sun tanning.

Jacob and his new baby sister

Little “L”, as the kids call her, at one week