A Perfect 10!

What a busy week we've had! Friday night Jillian was along for our first group dinner! We went to Raffas Mexican food with about 10 friends; it was the first time we'd taken her out to dinner with friends during her fussy hour (7-9pm), but we figured what the heck. And she did great! The restaurant was SO noisy, and she loved it! She stayed awake the whole time looking around and with a paci in her mouth, she was happy. It was so cute, our friends got to the table before we did, and they got her infant holder set up just like another chair at the table and wrote her name down on the table cloth where she'd be 'sitting'. too cute! I should have taken a picture.

Saturday Jillian made the annual trip down to College Station with us to clean up one of our rental houses. The rest of this week has kept us busy too. I decided to get a new car (well, new to us) - I got a small SUV. Jill and I also took Austin to the vet to get his annual shots - I had my hands full, Jillian was being a little fussy and Austin was needing some extra attention since he got shots, poor guy. Jillian and I then went to a lactation consultant appointment this morning; we are having some issues but hope we've found a solution! Tomorrow we are off to go shopping with my mom all day. What fun! And then Saturday Jeff and I are going to my good friend Jen's wedding. I can't wait! My parents are coming over to babysit so we can go play :)

So... back the title of this post. For the past few weeks we've all been debating and betting how much Jillian weighs. My mom thinks 8.5 pds, Jeff said 9 and I've been saying 10. Well there was a baby scale in the lactation office today, so I plopped her on it... and she weighed just a touch over 10 pds with her clothes on.... what??!! She's so BIG! Jill is exactly 6 weeks today, and growing so much!

Here is a picture of Jillian with her new Big Girl Paci! I saw on Kristen's blog that she gave London her Big Girl paci, so I thought I'd try as well. She loves it and so do I - it doesn't pop out as easily as her newborn paci. Check out the fat rolls on her lil legs!

What a Night!!

Jillian was amazing last night! Usually she gets to sleep around 10-1030pm, wakes around 2-3am to eat, and then I wake her at 5 to feed, so we can start our day on schedule at 7-715am. I was killing myself with those double feedings in the wee hours of the morning for 2 reasons: 1. She was so little she needed a full 8 feedings in 24 hours. 2. I didn't trust she could make it to 7am without waking up at 6-630, and I didn't want her to develop the habit of getting up at 6-630, 7am sounds much better in the long run. (For those that don't know, I am following Baby Wise)

Anyways, I fed her at 915 last night, and put her down at 945. She finally fell asleep around 1030, as did I. I woke up at 4:55am in a panic! Was she ok? What happened? Right then, I start to hear her move around and just starting to wake on the monitor. I was THRILLED! My sweet angel slept for 6.5 hours and went almost 8 hours between feedings! I rushed in there, knowing she'd be STARVING, and she was :) I fed her, put her back down at 530, and she went back to sleep. I then woke her at 715. I know the chances of her doing that consistently are not very good, but I was so excited to know she can do it!! My plan is start implementing a 'dreamfeed' as Baby Wise calls it around 1130pm, so hopefully (fingers crossed) Jillian will sleep till 7am. We'll see! Either way, I'm so proud of her and I feel so much more rested today :)

Jeff's sister Debra was in town this week taking tons of pictures of Jillian. I have over 300 amazing pictures! Here are a few of my favorites of us around the house. I cant wait to go thru them all and select her newborn pictures for her announcement.

This is probably one of my favorite candid moments - Jillian must have been having stinker.... her face is priceless! (now she really resembles Jeff :) )

One Month Old!

On Saturday Jillian turned one month old!! Jeff and I celebrated by going on our first date since she was born! It was SO fun to have an uninterrupted dinner with my husband!

We loaded up around 4:30 and headed to my parents. Once we got there, we celebrated Jillian's one month b-day, took some pictures, and then headed out to Kirbys for steaks!

Here's the birthday girl!

We tried to take some pictures of Jillian in my parents crib with her birthday cake, but she wasn't too thrilled with our idea.

This picture cracks me up! I like to say she was 'singing happy birthday' to herself. Poor girl was VERY upset!!

Here are some other family pictures where Jillian is much happier!

How sweet is this? While we were at dinner, my parents gave her a bottle, and had to babysit her during her fussiest time of the day. My dad took her out on their patio and rocked her, seemed to work pretty well.... at least when this picture was snapped :)

Playing Catch Up

When I was 35 weeks pregnant, Jeff's sister Debra did a maternity photo shoot for us when she was in town. I got the finished CD from her a few days before she was born and have not had the time to post them! Looking at them again makes me miss being pregnant. It also amazes me that Jillian was inside me and now here she is 4 weeks old!!

Debra is an AMAZING photographer, in fact she's in town right now doing some photo shoots and she's also gracious enough to take newborn photos of Jillian! I'll post those once she edits them and gets them back to me.

She also took some photos of Austin - They are unbelievable! We are so lucky to have such a talented photographer in our family :)

Also long over due are pictures from my Dallas shower back in May! Jeff's sisters and my friend Caitlin were sweet enough to through me one heck of a shower! I sadly didn't take very many pictures, but here are the ones we did take.

The wonderful hostesses! Caitlin, Debra & Lauren

(my great friend Kristen was also a hostess but her twin babies finally got to come home from NICU earlier that week. Needless to say, taking care of her sweet babies was much more important!)

The Gulbas Girls!

Caitlin, Breck, me, Sarah

She's a GULBAS!

Jillian is looking more and more like a Gulbas each day!! She definitely has her daddy's eyes and forehead. Here are a few good up-close pictures of Jillian after my mom gave her a bottle. She is always wide awake and so alert when she's getting burped. And to Grandma Judy, or should I say Great Grandma Judy - she's wearing the ADORABLE outfit you sent her. I love it! She's already worn it twice!

When Jeff's mom was in town a few weeks ago, she brought baby pictures of Jeff. There were also a few baby pics of Lauren, Jeff's sister. And Jillian looks A LOT like Lauren as a baby! Here is a picture of Lauren over the 4th of July visiting her niece.

Uncle Austin & Jillian

Austin has been SO good with Jillian! He was very very curious about her at first. Smelling her, turning his head like only a dog can do when she cried, but he's also been really gentle. He keeps his distance and obeys us remarkably well when we tell him to 'get back'.

I think he's even starting to like having her around, crying and all. Wherever we go in the house Austin is right behind us. Even when I simply get up to go change her diaper, he comes and lays at my feet. When she's screaming, he's not phased - he just lays next to us and falls asleep!

Here are a few pics of Uncle Austin with Jillian.
Here you can see our second make-shift nursery :) For the first few weeks I slept on the couch with Jillian in the playpen so Jeff could get uninterrupted sleep. I've been slowly transitioning her into her crib more, so I can get back to sleeping in bed... ahhh!!


Here's a picture I took of on my IPhone a few days ago. Austin came and propped his head on the boppy beside her - too cute!

So here is a real-time shot of Jillian and I right now. As I stated in a previous post - she has 2-3 long periods of being awake. Sometimes those turn into fussy periods; usually she's pretty easy to soothe - not so today!! I think she's almost hoarse from crying so much. poor girl! So I finally figured out a way to keep her happy/content - I pull the swing over by me so I can keep an eye on her (and play on the computer), pop the paci in, wrap a light blanket around it so it doesn't fall out every 5 seconds and then pray she's happy! Don't worry, I never wrap a blanket around her when I'm not right there watching her. :)

Here's the chair I'm sitting in.

And Now I just hope she stays some-what calm!

A Few more Firsts...

Last Friday Jillian spent the day at Grandma & Grandpa's so I could get out and go shopping! Target was so fun! Jillian was wonderful and slept great in their crib! Look how cute she is with her arms stretched out!

Our 4th of July weekend wasn't quite as exciting as in years past - Jillian was going through her 2-3 week old growth spurt and she was NOT a happy baby that weekend. Poor girl. She was insatiable all weekend, but luckily that only lasted a few days, and that's now behind us!

Jeff and I must admit, Jillian is a pretty good baby! (like we'd say anything different - she's perfect in our eyes!) She definitely has her fussy periods, but is so far (knock on wood) a good sleeper at night, which I LOVE! So far she seems to have 2 fussy periods - one sometime mid-late afternoon and the other is between 8-11pm. I'm working on getting that last fussy period from 5-7... we'll see how well she responds :) But, she's generally pretty good even in her fussy periods - with a little extra love, rocking/jiggling, and her pacifier she's quiet content! We're hoping it lasts :)

Here's Jillian relaxing after her eating... I just love how tiny she is on my legs! I know she wont be this small for long.

Here she is for the first time in her sling. She LOVED it! She was pretty fussy before I put her in there, but fell asleep after she got comfortable. I didnt keep her in there too long, I was afraid if she slept during her usual 'awake/fussy period' she'd be awake all night... not taking a chance on that! (don't mind my deer-in-head-lights look)

Here's Jillian for the first time sitting in her boppy. She's looking at her Sleep Sheep. Oh, and I did pick her up and reposition her :) I didn't leave her all slumped over.

Daddy's little Aggie

Let the Brainwashing begin! Here's Jillian - already a proud Aggie-to-be!

First Dr Appointment

Today Jillian had her 2 week Well Baby Check-up. Everything was great! She weighs 7 pds 8 oz and is now 21" long! I was shocked she put on that much weight; when we left the hospital 12 days ago she weighed 6pds 6 oz.

Here is Jeff sitting in the waiting room waiting to see the Dr.

Here's our little one getting measured by the nurse.

From there we went down to Lab Services so they could prick her heel to get blood, which we HATED. Not only was the Lab Services waiting room filled with sick people and here we are with a 2 week old, but we had a loooong wait. Once we finally get back there, I couldn't stand watching Jillian get her heel sliced and then dabbing blood on FIVE giant circles. It seemed like it took forever; it was torture not only for her (she screamed the whole time) but for us.

Today was the first really outing we've had with Jillian, (except for walks in our neighborhood) and my protective instincts came out. I loved it. Obviously we've bonded with her a lot these past 2 weeks, but I haven't really had the need to really protect her since we've been in our house the whole time. This might sound strange to say, but it was like we bonded on a different level today.

While we were at the Dr we got the a-OK to give her a real bath! So, tonight we got Jillian squeaky-clean (thank you Cherie for the bathtub!). She was so tiny in the tub, she couldn't really sit up, so it was a little awkward. I finally feel like she's clean, we were getting so tired of the wash-cloths baths.

So tomorrow I am off to spend the day at my parents house! I am sooo excited! I've been 'stuck' in our house for almost 2 weeks; a change of scenery sounds so nice, not to mention my parents love to dote on Jillian and help out any way they can. So my plan is in between feedings to run over to Target - again I'm so excited. I haven't done any really shopping in over 5 weeks!! I'm sure any new mom can understand my excitement :)

While I'm gone all day Jeff will be painting the bathroom (yes, that project is still not done!) and doing some things around the house.