Welcome!!

Okay, so Zuri is 23 weeks today and I am just now starting this blog.  Better late than never, right?  A friend of mine has a blog about her daughter and I absolutely LOVE it!  Ashley, if you follow my blog, don't be surprised if I don't follow some of your formats.  :)

Here's the Cliffs Notes version of the past 5 and a half months.

First of all, Brent and I did not know the sex of our baby (which drove many of our friends and family crazy).  We wanted to be surprised.  Here's a picture from our maternity shoot (1/15/11) with my friend Ryan.

Brent was tasked with taking my profile picture weekly beginning week 19.  Here are the first and last ones taken (see a difference?!).

Zuri was born on Monday, 3/7/11 at 8:48am.  She weighed 9.2 pounds and was 21.25 inches long.  Here's her very first picture.

We had a TON of visitors at the hospital and for the first few weeks after she was born.  I was able to stay home with Zuri for 9 weeks (8 weeks for the c-section and 1 week for kidney stone surgery).  We had a blast after adjusting the first couple of weeks.  Rachael had her daughter, Alana, 4 weeks after Zuri was born.  The 4 of us hung out quite a bit.  :)  Zuri also has a couple of cousins who were born around the time she was.  Eli was born on February 4th and Claire on March 16th. 

Zuri started sleeping through the night around 3 months.  She was sleeping from about 9pm-6am.  Then at about 4 months, she decided to go to bed about 8pm and sleep until 6am.  Today, she goes to bed anywhere between 6pm and 8pm and sleeps 10-11 hours (usually until 5:30am or 6am).

On August 1st (at 21 weeks), I noticed Zuri's two bottom front teeth.  I tried and tried to get a picture, but that is not an easy thing to do!  I managed to obtain this picture last week though (kinda blurry, but you can see them).

Zuri is such a good baby.  We couldn't have asked for more.  She is happy and smiles all the time.  She is great with other people (for the most part).  She did just start this thing about strangers or those she doesn't see that often - she cries when they look at her and try to talk to her.  The daycare we chose (Indy Learning Center:  www.indylearningcenter.com) is great.  Claudia and Elena are wonderful!  Zuri loves them and they love her.  The other kids there love her too.  Going back to work was the hardest thing to do, but they have made it easy for me.

There is so much more I could write about, but I think I'll stop for now!  I'll end with the monthly pictures I take (sorry they are sideways - for some reason when I try to rotate them on my computer, the computer deletes them?!).

Stay tuned!!