Finally a free minute - 2 Month Update

As you can see our little peanut is not so little anymore. She went in for her 2 month check up on Friday the 17th and is now roughly 12 lbs and 24 inches long! That is 75% in weight and 75-90% in height! She is doing so great! She also had her first shots and did surprisingly well. There were 3 seperate shots and she cried for the first one, screamed on the second one and stopped breathing for the third one! It was horrible, but as soon as I could scoop her up she stopped crying! She is such a trooper. We are also working on getting her to sleep on her own without us "rocking" her. Last night was the second night we tried it and it actually works! AMAZING!

Things in our life have changed a ton. It is amazing how conversations with our friends have turned into discussions on baby bowel movemnets and what brand of diapers are the best. Amazing how things change in a year.

Brooklyn has started smiling and cooing all the time. She is so strong and loves to pretend that she is standing up (with our support of course!). She can also hold her head up and loves looking a brightly colored things. She is becoming such a little person! It is so fun watching her learn new things every day!

Now that she is becoming a bit more independent I am hoping to update a bit more frequently.

Love, Jaime and Joaquin

Our Little Pork Chop

Brooklyn had her 1 month check up on Tuesday and she is quite the overachiever! She now weighs 9.7 lbs (50th Percentile) and is 21.5 inches long (75th Percentile). That is 2.3 lbs and 2.5 inches in ONE MONTH!!! That is amazing! She is doing so well. We are working on getting her days and nights straightened out. She likes to take long naps during the day and then wake up about every 3 hours to eat during the night. Fortunately she falls right back to sleep, however it takes mom a little longer!

I honestly cannot believe that one month has already gone by. People were so right when they said to enjoy every moment because it goes so fast! She has already changed so much since we brought her home! She loves to be outside and always moving! I think it is hilarious that we bought all of these nice bouncy chairs and the things that she really likes is her car seat! She also loves to walk in the baby bjorn! Thank goodness for that invention. It also allows me to have my arms free so that I can get a couple of things done around the house.

So far being a mom has been nothing but amazing. Just having her look into your eyes and know exactly who you are is the most amazing feeling in the world! I am still working on my schedule (housework and showers have definitely taken a back burner), but we are slowly learning!

I will update in the next couple of days with new pictures.

Love you all!

Jaime and Joaquin

Baby Brooklyn is here!!!

Sorry it has been so long. The last couple of months have been crazy trying to get ready for this precious little girl!

Brooklyn Marie Paratore joined us on Saturday, August 9th, 2008 at 9:13pm at Overlake Hospital in Bellevue, WA weighing 7 pounds 4 ounces and 19 inches long. It is absolutely amazing how much you can love something that you have only known for a couple of days.

Joaquin and I are doing well. He was able to take the last couple of days off of work so we have been able to hang out and really get to know this little girl. She is absolutely perfect in everyway!!! You may notice from the pictures that she is definitely daddy's little girl. Including her inherited open mouth sleeping, and cromagnum nub!!

Thank you so much to everyone for all their well wishes. We are truly blessed to have such great friends and family and now a precious little girl!

Love you all!

Jaime and Joaquin

Its been a long time...

Sorry it has been so long. Things have been crazy in the Paratore household. We started birthing class back on the 10th. It is amazing some of the things you learn and even more amazing some of the questions that people ask i.e. can I take home my placenta?? Really??? Our first baby shower is this weekend. It should be a good time. I am really looking forward to the baby food game to see what that stuff really tastes like!

Joaquin and I have been hard at work on Brooklyn's room. Our crib finally became available so my mom bought it for us before it was sold out again! It is so cute... We also decided to put her name above her crib. We could have bought the letters online for like 10 dollars a letter. Instead we went to Michaels and bought them for something like 2 dollars a letter.

We have our next appointment tomorrow so will update you all then. As you can tell by the picture above I am starting to get a lot bigger. I officially have a hard time touching my toes!!!

Only a month and a half left!!

Love you all!

Jaime and Joaquin

Memorial Weekend

Yet another Memorial Weekend has come and gone! This was the first holiday weekend that we actually spent at home and it was SO NICE! Our friends Mary Kate and McConnell came up from Portland to check out our new house. On Friday, we ended up having a really nice dinner at BRIX, which is a new wine bar right down from our house. Saturday consisted of the boys playing golf in the morning at the ever famous Wayne Golf Course, while Mary Kate and I had lunch on the waterfront of Kirkland followed by some serious shopping at Crate and Barrel (thanks Bill and Paula!).

The folklife festival was in full swing at the Seattle Center so we headed down there on Sunday to see our good family friends the Radford's perform their Tahitian dancing. It was amazing as usual. Then it was off to the beer garden with the whole crew before heading to McCormick's for happy hour on the deck.

All in all it was a great weekend. The weather was beautiful, which was a surprise considering it was supposed to rain the whole weekend!

Brooklyn is doing great! She is more active than ever and her kicks are much harder, which is exciting and painful all at the same time. I think she likes to torture her dad already though because whenever Joaquin goes to feel her kick, she immediately stops! Which in turn pisses him off. Oh well, soon enough she will be here and he can play with her non stop!

Talk to you all soon!

Scorcher in Seattle

This weekend was absolutely beautiful in Seattle! Joaquin and I went to dinner with our friends Josh and Michelle Wright and their 2 babies Jeremiah and Allison on Friday and the promptly fell asleep at 8:00 pm (we are getting old).

Saturday consisted of shopping for maternity shorts, because everything that I have acquired is already too small! Followed by some wine tasting with Ariell and Jill while Joaquin was out on the boat with his guys (of course I was the DD consuming water and crackers). By the time we got home our house was a balmy 90 degrees so we immediately headed to the movie theatres to get a little A/C.

On Sunday we took a look at cribs and changers and finally made a decision on one. The we headed to the cheese festival at Pike Place Market. The weather was perfect. 75 degrees and sunny! After cheese it was time to hit Anthony's all you can eat crab feed. I think Ariell may have given Joaquin a run for the crab eating championship. I think she may have tapped out at 5.5 crabs! Needless to say not one of us was feeling well when we got home!

We got good news from the doctor today too. My blood work came back and we do not have gestational diabetes! We are now officially in the 3rd trimester and racing toward the home stretch!

Love you all!

Doctor's Appointment

Today we had our usual monthly doctor's appointment. Everything checked out perfect again. Brooklyn is measuring 27 cm., Which the doctor said is right where she needs to be. I also had my glucose test today. Let me tell you, that drink is disgusting! I think I am still on a sugar high from it.

We will start going to the doctor every 2 weeks now that we are entering into the 3rd trimester. We will also have the opportunity to visit with some of the other doctors in the office just in case Dr. Anton is not on call when I go into labor.

Now we just need to get the nursery put together so she has a place to stay when she comes home. I am wanting to do it this weekend, but it is supposed to be HOT here in Seattle which means I will more than likely be looking for shade instead of setting up a room. Maybe I can convince Joaquin to go to Babies R Us to look at Cribs, etc. where there is A/C! Yeah right, that store is like torture for any man!