Together 1 Month!!

Today Hannah and I celebrated being together as a family for 1 month! We spent a fairly quiet day at home but the importance of the date was not missed by mommy. One month ago today my life was forever changed when God ordained for a precious baby girl to be placed in my arms and little XiaoFen and I would be forever mother and daughter.

It's truly hard to believe that it's been only 1 month as I cannot imagine a moment of my days without her! Hannah and I are a great team and we do everything together. Having never been a mom before I wondered what it would be like. So much of what I knew as my 'normal' would be forever changed. Would I miss my Independence? Would I mind waking at night to soothe a little one? Would I miss the freedom to 'drop and go' with friends? All these questions and many more can be answered with one single word....NO!!! I don't miss any of these things.

Hannah is my everything and now we are a team. I know that we will find a balance later on where we are not together 24/7 but for now that's what she needs and you know what, that's what I need too!! I have waited so long for my precious daughter to arrive that I don't want to miss a moment if I don't have to.

I am very grateful for the parental leave I am granted from work although today marked a new step in our path as I began to teach piano again. Hannah was upstairs with my mom and she did really well! I did ok too and my eyes only filled with tears for a moment when I initially had to go downstairs and teach. Other than a little bit when she was sleeping one evening when we were in China, this is the first time we've been apart and it was tough! But, when I was done I came upstairs and was greeted with a big gummy grin and she'd had lots of fun playing with Grandma. I'm glad she did so well as I teach a little tomorrow night too and then we're off to a night of celebration as my friend Deb is hosting a shower for Hannah at the church. My sweet baby girl is already loved by so many and is so blessed with the love being showered on her!

And since truly no post is complete without pictures I'll share a few here. Please ignore the nose. It's kinda a standard look this week. She has a cold and I have a feeling she might be teething too based on the amount of chewing she's doing on her fingers and oh ya, the diaper she gave me tonight which required a full clothing change of every item she was wearing!

Playing with taggie in her crib.

I'm already seeing how important it's going to be for me to either pull out the tripod and use the remote or, have others take pictures of the two of us together or my little girl is going to grow up with pics of only herself in them. I'll start doing that soon.

A video which captures her wonderful little personality so well! I was introducing a new little stuffed lamb to her and it was fun to see her embrace it at her own speed and to see her jumps of joy too!