I can't believe Belle is now over a month old!  Time flies although days seem to be endless repeat of feeding, diaper change, and cat naps.  Belle weighed 10 pounds and 3 ounces on her one-month check and is now 21.75 inches long, both are at seventy-five pecentile.  She has started to smile when we kiss her cheeks and sometimes when I say "where's baobe?"  We are anxious to see her interact with us.  She's very good at being held by different people and tends to sleep through chattings, parties, walk in the park, or grocery shopping......

 

Belle is going through the baby acne which is totally normal for babies usually between one to two months of age, but it worries me just because it doesn't look pretty and comfortable, oh well, time will cure it.  Otherwise, she's healthy and happy.

Belle is still doing very well.  At our one week check up she had already gained some weight and was up to an even 8 pounds.  And we believe she has gained some more since then.  Mom & Dad are still looking forward to seeing her smile responsively and hearing her laugh (that happens around the 6 week mark I hear).

 

Today we dropped Ming's older sister Qunya (Angela) at the airport.  Qunya stayed with us for 5 weeks and helped us prepare for Isabel's arrival, helped Ming through the birthing process, and helped care for Isabel quite a bit during the daytime the last couple of weeks giving Mom a chance to catch up on some well deserved rest.  Thanks a ton Qunya!  Isabel (and her Mom & Dad) will miss you very much!  Qunya is on her way back home to China with a stop in the United Arab Emirates along the way.

 

Also, we have been working hard on finishing up the nursery room too so there are a couple of pictures of that in the slideshow now.  We went with a Winnie the Pooh theme including a wallpaper border, some wall decals, and a nice crib sheet/bumper pad set.  It's looking pretty good now.  Belle is still hanging out in Mom & Dad's room in a bassinet for a little while but now she has a room all set whenever she is ready!

 

We've also had a basement finishing project going on as well.  We were hoping to get that wrapped up before the baby arrived but it has run over.  We are hoping for it to get finished up in the next couple of weeks (additional bedroom, 3/4 bath, entertainment room, utility room, laundry room & work room area, and a nice sized "open area" (maybe a play room but in all likelihood where most of our stuff will wind up until we figure out how to organize it).  We will add some photos of that project once it has been completed.

 

And I (John) have to go back to work on Monday.  That's when we will see what kind of quality sleep I can get on a schedule.  Kind of scary!

 

We're home now and much happier.  We checked out on 6/2 about 2:30 pm.  Everything went extremely well with the birthing process but it's amazing at how little rest you get in the hospital: nurses are constantly coming in to check on mom and baby.  It seemed like every 20 minutes someone was coming in and waking up the baby or mom.  Now that we are home we can actually have 2-3 hours between interruptions which is sooo much better compared to the hospital.

 

We're still tired but it's much more manageable!