Todd

We are back from our trip to Northern California to visit Victoria's family and introduce Katherine. They were so very excited to meet her! She got to meet Grandma and Grandpa Noonen, Uncle Mitchell, Cousin Durward, and Aunt Debbie. It was also Victoria's birthday last Friday, so we had a party at her parent's house and my sister and her family came up to help celebrate. It's always a great time to see the Kuhl family. We ended up spending our last night at their house in San Jose since we flew in and out of there.

Everyone is asking how Katherine did on the plane, and she was great except for one small part. On our flight to California, we thought we would make it as easy as possible, and packed the premixed formula so we just had to throw it in a bottle and feed her if she got hungry on the plane. Well, apparently she didn't like it and cried for what felt like an hour, but was closer to 15 minutes. It felt like everyone was watching, but I bet no one even cared. Once we got some water for regular formula, we mixed it up, and she ate it just fine. Whew. On the flight home she ate and fell asleep for at least half the flight. We also were able to catch a few minutes of sleep.

I have two things to say about some California stuff that I want to pass on, which I usually don't. We were very satisifed with both Enterprise as a car rental company and Residence Inn in Concord as a place to stay. Enterprise (though they somehow tricked me into taking some basic insurance) was super friendly, and even drove us back to the terminal after we checked the car in. That was so nice with having the car seat and all. The Residence Inn was so much more than we expected! It was neat and clean, and with the kitchen, so easy to make a bottle whenever we needed to. It was up to date, and the price was incredible.

I finally gave up on Dell getting me a laptop within a reasonable amount of time. They did delay a week, but it looks like it was going to become a habit based on the shortage of Intel i7 processors right now. So, I cancelled the order, and hit Microcenter and ended up with a pretty sweet Toshiba Qosimo X505-830 for about the same price as the Dell. It's got an 18.3 inch widescreen, and is incredible! It will take me a bit to get it all set up, but nice to work upstairs and help out with Katherine a lot more.

Wow, babies take time away from blogging. :) That's okay. And coupled with my long work hours lately, I haven't had time for many things. In fact, all of a sudden, I realized we are heading to California tomorrow!

We are going to the Bay Area to show off Katherine to Victoria's parents and brother. It will be fun to spend a few days of downtime there. We'll also be meeting up with my sister and her family in San Jose. It's Victoria's birthday on Saturday so we'll be celebrating that with everyone as well.

It should be interesting travelling with a little one. Victoria began laying out all the clothes and other miscellany we'll be needing. It's not too much more than normal, but I am glad we snagged our tickets a long time ago on Frontier, so we get free bags. We're only checking two big ones, then gate checking the car seat and we'll each have a smallish bag for carry on. I hope Katherine is as easy going as she usually is, for the plane is quite a confined space. I hope we aren't "those people with the noisy baby" on the plane.

I am still anxiously awaiting the arrival of my laptop. From what I've read on the Dell forums, things aren't so great with laptops, shipping, customer service, etc nowadays. It's due to arrive next Wednesday, but from what I hear is happening to a lot of people is it gets to the ship date, and then gets cancelled and reordered with a month later ship date. If that happens, I may cancel the order and buy a different brand. The HP ones are comparably priced and have the Core i7 chips in them. But, then again, maybe everything will be fine.

Wow, things have been so busy that I haven't had a chance to blog about them!

Katherine has been growing like a weed! She had her 2 month checkup, which I think I mentioned, where she got her first round (or second if you count the hospital) round of immunizations. She's right on track for her height and weight. It seems like every day it's something new. She is babbling a lot now, which is really cute. She is definitely a morning baby, with lots of smiles when she gets woken up and is happy to see us.

She's also taken to getting a bit mobile. She's figured out how to scoot on her back. It's slow but deliberate. Victoria and I put her long ways on the couch and sit on either end and let her scoot towards one person, turn her around and scoot to the other person. It takes her about five minutes, but she's moving!

She also had her first Halloween. We went to the Britzman's house in Highlands Ranch and visited with them and their 18 month old daughter Rebecca.It was a blast, and everyone loved Katherine's costume.

I've finally gone ahead and ordered up a laptop so I can do some work upstairs and not be hidden down in my man cave. It just makes it easier in these early parenting years. It's coming soon, and should be pretty nice!

We leave in less than 2 weeks for California. I can hardly believe how this snuck up on me. We are visiting Victoria's side of the family and Katherine will get to meet her 2nd pair of grandparents, an uncle, a cousin, and other family. We'll also be hanging out with the Kuhl family (my sister and her family) before heading home.

Then it will be Thanksgiving time! My best friend, Maureen,  from college is flying in and we'll be preparing all sorts of tasty items. I am looking forward to that!

And now the post many people have been waiting for, my trip to Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama. It's interesting to me that so many people haven't heard of Space Camp, or those that do know, didn't know that adults could go to camp too. The season for adults is pretty short, and Victoria did an awesome job by calling in and ended up getting me in an unadvertised session of camp, one that's intended for alumni, and is the only session that is 8 days long for adults. It's only once a year, and is very special. The staff looks forward to the adult 8 day session because it's very special indeed. They get to pull out all the stops and do things they can't normally do throughout the year.

I arrived in to Huntsville a day early, which I am glad I did. I stayed next door to Space Camp at the Huntsville Marriot, a stone's throw from camp. I could see camp and was anxious to get started. I began with a trip over to the gift shop to get the "trip presents" out of the way since I wasn't sure how much time I would have during camp. The shop was awesome, plus the things I could see from outside the US Space and Rocket Center, which is all part of the same complex. The scale replica of the Saturn V standing tall sits at the entrance to the Rocket Center. I got back to my room just in time for the tornado warning to come into effect for the rest of the night. I ended up, because of the weather, of just grabbing a quick dinner in the hotel before heading to bed.

Saturday began my first day of camp, and I anxiously awaited the 1pm check in time. I headed to check in and was told to head to Hab 1, which is the "futuristic space station housing" that's a fancy name for dormitory. I quickly met one of my roommates and he took me over to meet the rest of the team. We were on Team Enterprise for the week. The first thing that struck me was that the people were REALLY into camp and many had come back year after year. I wondered what I had gotten myself into and though I am a super space geek, these people were way into it, more than me!

Later in the evening we met for a mission briefing and I got to meet the entire Enterprise Team. There were 16 of us in all. And this is when things got going. I began to meet our counselors for the week, Kenny in the evening, Candeis in the day. I learned what we'd be doing for the week...Four one hour missions on the track that we were enrolled in (I was in the mission specialist track, as opposed to the pilot track) and two two hour missions that were off track so we could experience something different. We'd also be doing lots of other things through the week. All of our training leads up to the reason why people choose to come to this 8 day program: a full 24 hour long duration mission on the final day!

Other things we got to do throughout the week included:

• The multi-axis trainer (MAT) where they strap you in and let the trainer spin you all around. It's not as bad as it seems, as your stomach is in the middle of the spinning, so it stays pretty stable. It's all in the head!
• A low ropes course where you learn a bunch of team building and team solving exercises.
• 1/6th gravity lunar chair where you get to feel what it's like to be on the moon. It's pretty tricky to move around, but very fun.
• High ropes course where we scaled a 50 foot climbing wall and then headed down a crazy zip line where you get a bit of free fall time.
• Mach 3 flight simulators that are full cockpit mockups of F-16 fighters, complete with RIO.
• Design our own mission patch. From scratch. Space Camp offers a semi-custom one, but this group likes to make their own.
• Space Shuttle landing simulators to practice all sorts of fun landing scenarios.
• Full 24 hour access to all the museums, including the stunning Davidson Center where an actual Saturn V rocket is on display.
• A lecture with Dr. VonTiesenhausen, designer of the lunar rover.
• A lecture with Ed Buckbee, former US Space and Rocket Center director, and involved in Mercury, Gemini and Apollo.
• A ride in a centrifuge, pulling 3.2g!
• Underwater mission using scuba, including instruction for those that have never scuba'ed before. (Had to have a doctor's signature, and do pre and post-dive physicals.)
• A very special trip (first time ever) with curator Irene, to the archives of the US Space and Rocket Center. Definitely one of the highlights, where we got to see all sorts of old space hardware, and even touch some spacesuits!!
• A lecture and rocket firing with a gentleman from Orion Propulsion, supplier of Orion 3rd stage RCS and Bigelow Aerospace's RCS for all their spacecraft.
• Graduation, complete with music, and guests.

I could go into lots of detail about each of those items, but I don't want this post to get crazy.

The food was so so. It was cafeteria style, although the 8 day adults actually got real plates! So that was pretty nice. The morning of our long duration mission we did get the traditional steak and eggs breakfast, which I've never had.

I have to say that the 8 day adult advance space academy isn't a vacation. It's VERY intense, and there's few breaks. There is a little time in the schedule for museum time and a few short half hours for breaks. But they never ended up happening since there is so much to do and especially plan for the LDM. Was it worth it? Heck yeah! I had so much fun and wouldn't trade the experience for anything. I got to see and do so many things in such a short amount of time that hit my geek side that I was super happy.

I could make whole other posting about all the missions I did, so I'll keep it short here. On the first four missions on my track, I got to be the following positions: CATO in Mission Control (the voice of NASA and NASA TV), Space Station Scientist (Second in command of the station), PROP in Mission Control (monitoring the propulsion systems of the orbiter), and Mission Specialist (where I got to be out on the Canadarm performing satellite repair). For the two off track missions I took Mission Science in Mission Control (Talk to the station and get any information they need to reboost the station or figure out anomalies) and Commander of the orbiter (where I got to land the orbiter, and subsequently got my callsign "Chopper" for coming in bit shallow on my landing and chopped off some trees, but still ended up on the runway). On the Long Duration Mission, I ended up as Station Scientist, where I got to launch on the shuttle, and was second in command on the station, until the commander of the station got electrocuted after a meteor shower and I became first in command for the second half of the mission.

Would I go back? I would LOVE to go back. Our plans are to try and have a second child soon though, so it may not work back into the plans for another few years, but I sure hope I get to go back again. Since I wasn't sure when I would be going back, I did get a nice clothing package, and a flight suit that I get to keep. They are really nice souveniers from an excellent week.

The last thing I would like to mention is that it while the geeky stuff was soooo fun, the people really helped make the experience so wonderful. Some of these people were coming back for their 16th time! They love when new people come and to show them all the fun possibilities. You end up trusting these people as much as you can. You do lots of trust exercises and really get to bond a one big team. Team Enterprise, you rock!

I only placed a small number of pictures in this post. To see the rest, please visit the Thalimer.com website and look for the Space Camp 2009 photos.

Ah, 8 days away from Victoria and Katherine was a lot. I had a real blast (more to come on that soon) at Space Camp.

Katherine had her 2 month checkup this morning and is doing quite well. She's average on her height and weight. Today was also the day she got her first round of immunizations. She cried a bunch after she got a shot in each thigh. As a parent it almost made me want to cry. She was okay about five minutes later.

My parents leave tomorrow to head south for the winter. It's been nice having them close by for a little bit.

I am so excited! I leave for Space Camp this morning. I've never been to Alabama, so it will be nice to add the 40th US State to my list today. I got all packed up last night and am wrapping up the last details of everything this morning.

Victoria will be good with Katherine. My parents are still in town, so that's a big help for her! We all watched LCROSS impact the Moon this morning during Katherine's 5am feeding. I am getting that little girl started early on all sorts of space geekiness! She weighed in this morning at 10 pounds! Double digits on her 8 week birthday!

The posts will be lacking until I return, though I may post a few intermittent things to Facebook as I get time, which I am sure will be pretty slim.

I will miss my two favorite girls! How can I not miss them? 

 

Last Saturday I turned 38 years old. Ever since Katherine was born time has flown at an exponential rate! I hardly knew my birthday was approaching this year until it was about a week away. We have begun putting all our efforts into Katherine, so no flashy birthday here. Victoria and I went to one of our favorite restraurants, The Saltgrass Steakhouse, on Friday night to celebrate while my parents watched Katherine. On Saturday, Victoria and my parents whipped up a superb dinner. Victoria and mom spent all day Friday cooking up homemade meatballs and sauce so I could have my favorite spaghetti and meatballs. It was incredible!

Every year on my birthday, Victoria has Child's Bakery (where we got our wedding cake) whip up a special themed cake. This year was out of this world, literally. With my impending trip to Space Camp on Friday, she went with the space theme. And yeah, I don't know anyone else that has THEIR name on a Space Shuttle!

This is for all the space geeks out there! ;)

My parents did get me The Sims 3 game as well. I got it loaded on my computer. Now just to find some time to play it!

Do I have anyone on my friends list here that is a knitter and would be willing to be commissioned for a project to be done within the next 2 months?

It's all I can do to try to keep up these days! I barely blog anymore, or go onto social networking sites in general...I just don't have the time! At least my time is going to a good place...my daughter. So, sorry the posts are a bit intermittent at the moment.

Katherine has been doing great! She's lifting her head, getting plenty of tummy time, and is growing like a weed! She hit 9.5 pounds this week, at 6 weeks old. Soon it will be time to say goodbye to the single digits. The only time in our lives when we weigh less than 10 pounds.

It's a bit difficult to get time to do anything other than hang out with Katherine, which is fine. (Unfortunately everything else gets neglected, but she's only this small once.) I also feel obligated when I am home to relieve Victoria since she spends all day (and sometimes all night) with her. Last weekend she fell asleep on my chest for a few hours. It was really cute, and nice to know she feels so comfortable.

Don't get me wrong. I am not feeling burdened by having a baby. I just need to learn that I have to shift priorities (or drop some) since our lives are so vastly different now. It's interesting to learn how selfish I was with my time before. As a result, Victoria and I each get 2 hours on Saturday and Sunday to do whatever we like. It's been nice to have a few hours a week to ground ourselves.

I've been using my time to geek out and play with computer stuff and soon I'll be on to a bunch of web development learning stuff. I want to beef myself up with a lot of technologies out there that I haven't played with because I find that stuff so dang interesting, and in my field of work, it's good to be on top of these things.

Time has just moved so quickly. All of a sudden I find that my birthday is this Saturday! My parents are in town and my dad celebrated his birthday last week, so that was nice. So Victoria and my mom are teaming up for making me a special dinner on Saturday. Victoria keeps asking me what I want for my birthday this year, and it's tricky. Since becoming a parent, I feel a built guilty if I use money for items that aren't for the baby. I would love to get a laptop so I could stay upstairs and not go to the study to do some things. I would love to get The Sims 3, which I haven't played yet, to see how it is, but I wouldn't have a lot of time to play anyway I think. I would love to finally get the parts for the observatory, but I am too tired to stay up late, much less build the structure. I am also going to Space Camp next week, and, well that is going to be an adventure and fun in and of itself. Granted, we paid for it a year ago, but it is falling around my birthday this year. I just don't know. Getting the 2 hours to myself twice a week has also been a nice present, but is part of the normal routine.

I am very excited for Space Camp next week. I get to add Alabama to my list of states visited, bringing the count to 40 states I've visited! It's going to be a highly immersive week, and I hope I am geeky enough compared to the people that I will be teamed up with. I haven't had time to prepare all of my geekiness quite yet. I might be attempting Facebook status updates and photos depending on how crazy it is, so keep an eye out.

This weekend Katherine got to go for her first walk in her brand new jogging stroller. Neither one of us really jog, but due to where we live, we needed a jogging stroller to negotiate the dirt streets. Lucky for us, Babies R Us was having their yearly trade in event, and someone had given us an old baby seat, which allowed us to turn it in for $40 off the stroller! The stroller is a little big yet, but she loves going out for walks already!

We also started something a little new this last weekend. Victoria and I get to take 2 hours each on Saturday and Sunday and do whatever we want by ourselves. While one person gets their 2 hours, the other watches Katherine. I spent some time working on computer stuff, and Victoria used some of her time to rest up and do a little "spa" time. It's kind of nice to still be able to ground yourself when things are a little crazy.

Katherine isn't minding taking her baths. She doesn't hate water, which we are so glad about. She's a pretty quiet baby actually, which has been a blessing! We haven't found a super way of giving her a bath quite yet. We've tried the kitchen counter, putting her bathtub in the regular bathtub, but all that seems to work so far is just camping out on the kitchen floor. She's still a little loose as far as motor control and her head goes, so it's a two person job still, but it's a fun 20 minutes.

She's been doing incredible when it comes to sleeping through the night! The last few nights she's been going to bed anywhere between 9pm and 11pm and sleeping (or not crying) until 5am! Wow, it's nice! And she's still managing to get enough food during the daytime to not be hungry at night or lose weight.

In fact, she had her one month checkup on Friday and she hit the 9 pound mark! That puts her right at the 50th percentile for her age, or exactly where she should be. She is a little short (20th percentile) and her head is perfect as well (48th percentile). She had an awesome checkup. It's the next one we aren't looking so forward to, when she gets her first set of immunizations.

Today is Katherine's 1 month birthday! Wow, a month went by so fast. Sometimes it feels like forever, more than likely due to lack of sleep. But it's worth it!

To celebrate her 1 month birthday, Katherine's Grandma and Grandpa Thalimer arrived on Thursday, and her Aunt Jenna and cousins Beatrice and Olivia arrived on Friday. It was a full house and everyone just couldn't believe how cute Katherine was!

It was really precious seeing everyone get to hold Katherine for the first time! You could just see how happy everyone was.

Beatrice and Olivia are 4 1/2 and 3 1/2 respecitively and we got a glimpse into our future a few years having the girls stay at the house. Toddlers sure are crazy! We thought our house was fairly child-friendly but realized it wasn't as much as we were hoping. The first hour or two was spent putting breakables out of the reach of little ones. Only a sign of things to come, I am sure. The girls came up with a new nickname for Aunt Victoria, Auntoria, to add to Unka Todd's nickname.

The girls have a lot of energy at their ages, so we had to find ways to help them burn it off. We went for a walk with the dogs on the first night. Bea got to walk/run with Katy and loved it! This was also the first time we snapped on the Baby Bjorn carrier and I walked Katherine. It was a pretty cool experience and I can't wait to do it again.

On Saturday we took the girls to a park to run off some steam, and then on to Chick-Fil-A for some lunch and more playtime.

Sunday was when the girls and Aunt Jenna would be flying back home, so they had a mini-outing with Grandma to go get some activities for the plane and some lunch.

After I took the Kuhls to the airport and arrived back home, Victoria and I reveled in the quietness of the house again. Someday our house will be that crazy for sure, but we'll grow in to that in time.

Lots more pictures at www.thalimer.com

There are a few other things going on that aren't baby items at the moment. :)

We did finally get our resolution complete with the painting of our house. We had a bad paint job, and it got redone, and it looks great! Our house transformation is about complete. Inside I finally finished taking off the old stair nosings last night in preparation for the stairs to our bedroom to get covered in the wood floors we've done our living room with. I hope to get it done by the weekend, but you never know.

I am getting really annoyed with Windows lately, and have been experimenting with alternate operating systems. I've loaded Ubuntu onto our server for the moment to try it out. I like it a lot so far, and things seem to function a lot faster, not to mention the 30 second startup time from a cold computer to being able to do something! If all goes well, I may change my main system to Ubuntu and just have a small Windows computer for anything I can't do with Ubuntu (iTunes, Vegas video editing, etc).

I go to Space Camp in a month! Woah! I am very excited. Victoria tells me I can't cancel it because of Katherine. We made the plans a week before finding out we were pregnant. It's going to be a blast from Oct 9-17th! Yes, you can go to Space Camp as an adult. It's a lifelong dream of mine!

Okay, one baby item, because I forgot to mention it in my last post...Victoria has begun posting her 365 photo project of Katherine on her blog...http://vdtstory.blogspot.com

We can't believe 3 weeks has already sped by! This week Todd went back to work and Victoria stayed home with Katherine by herself. It wasn't the first time alone, as Todd ran plenty of errands before he went back to work while Victoria and Katherine stayed at home. But it was a whole new world of learning to schedule the whole day to make sure all the feedings got done. There were plenty of naps too.

On Katherine's 3 week birthday we also weighed her, and she's officially hit 8 pounds! She also started smiling a bit this week and is starting to recognize us a bit more.

Time is really flying like everyone says. We have also heeded the advice about enjoying this precious moments that we can hold her and we are. It's tiring, but when she looks at us it's all worth it!

This coming week, Todd's parents and his sister and nieces arrive to meet Katherine for the first time! It will be a really exciting time.

It's been a few days, so time for an update!

I've started back to work as of yesterday. It's been quite a transition. Victoria and I started working on a morning routine last Thursday to see what might be most appropriate for us, so I could still be involved as much as possible. Most days we think I'll be able to feed Katherine a bottle before heading to work. Today didn't work out because both of them were sleeping, and sleeping through the night is critical, so I didn't get a chance this morning. Victoria has been awesome about getting me to bed early and taking care of Katherine through the night so I could get as much sleep as possible to be clear for work. I still wake up quite a bit at night, however, and get pretty sleepy in the afternoon.

Victoria did great on her first day alone yesterday. It's harder to stay in the routine when you're alone, but she'll get better each day. Katherine still got all her food yesterday, so no big deal. She also started losing her umbilical stump yesterday. I think it will probably finish falling off today. It's been a bit of an annoyance because we haven't been able to use things like her swing or certain outfits because they hit her right there at the belly since she's so small. Plus, I can't wait to give her a real bath instead of a sponge bath.

We've discovered it's not wise to plan a whole lot just yet, and I only plan on one activity a night, and sometimes that might be ambitious. Last night it was ironing. Tonight we will wrap up any thank you cards that aren't done, which I think is only two. Such small tasks, but that's about all there is time for, with making and eating dinner as well.

Katherine seems to be recognizing things a little more each day. Last night she did smile when she saw me after I got home. It's so cute. Things like that make the whole sleep deprivation thing so worth it. I also love it when she wraps her fingers around one of my fingers. It's so adoreable.

We had a few visitors over the last two weeks that brought us some yummy food to help out with our lack of time. The Johnson Family brought us a tasty Mexican dish. The Britzman Family brought us some Saurbraaten. The Rutherfords brought us some bread. Mmmm. And not a moment too soon...as time was so crazy, I ended up losing 7 pounds! (I've gained 3 back.) Victoria is also very close to being back to her pre-pregnancy weight!

Victoria also began her ambitious project yesterday of a 365 photo project that she'll be posting over on her blog: vdtstory.blogspot.com She'll be posting a new picture everyday of Katherine! Be sure to check it out!

We went to Katherine's 10 day checkup on Tuesday. She was actually 12 days old, but that's okay. She checks out quite well! She's past her birth weight, weighing in at 7lbs 4oz. This is great news as now we can (try to) skip the middle of the night feeding and let her sleep through the night. She did great on Tuesday night, not so great on Wednesday night. She seems to have one good night, then one bad night, over and over.

She's in the 50th percentile for height, so perfectly average there. And 25th percentile for weight. The doctor said she's in very good health, and has the most pleasant demeanor he's seen in awhile.

From there we headed over to the Parker Hospital for the second newborn screening test where Victoria got to see her blood taken for the first time. I had seen it a few times in the hospital.

We've started trying the sleep through the night thing since we were told we could, and it's been touch and go. The first night she slept a solid 6 hours. It was great! Last night we couldn't get her to sleep for more than 3 hours. The key seems to be setting up the entire feeding schedule so she can have a big feeding before we try to head off for bed. That can be tricky. We'll figure it out.

This morning I tried a morning routine since I'll be returning to work on Monday. Seems like it will work pretty well. We'll see for sure on Monday. As the days go on, we feel more confident with what we're doing, and we seem to have some more comfortable routines starting, though Monday will still be a real view of what's to come for years.

I also forgot on the list of little quirks last time, that when she's full she gets the hiccups. She gets the hiccups very often.

Last night we also did some tummy time. It lasted close to 30 minutes before I rolled her over. She did awesome, picking up her head and turning it several times. She's also scooting on her stomach a little bit like a caterpillar. If I put my hand behind her feet she'll push off and undulate forward.

Katherine is 12 days old today! The time just flies!! She has her 10 day pediatric appointment this morning. I've been weighing her almost every day, and it looks like she is probably back to her birth weight by now. She's getting a voracious appetite, which I suppose is a good thing. She has a strange schedule, but we are rolling with it. Babies just don't like schedules.

It hasn't helped with sleep. We both are getting about 4-5 hours per 24 hour period. Which I think I am finally adjusting to. And EVERYONE says sleep when they sleep. It's great advice, however, quite impractical at this point. She eats every 3 hours...and the feeding takes about an hour if we are lucky. Then another 15-30 minutes to settle her downand get her to nap. So that leaves us about an hour and a half. But remember, we also have to eat, and do bills, and clean her bottles, and take care of the pets, etc. So, we don't get a lot of chances to sleep, though we want to! This is only temporary and it feels like we get a little more sleep everyday, or take advantage of certain times when we might not have napped before.

I wanted to write down a few small quirks about Katherine before I forget them:

She doesn't like her hands swaddled. She despises it. In fact she woke me up this morning grunting because she wanted her hands free. Once I freed them from her swaddle, she went back to sleep for another half hour.

When she's waking up, she makes these little hooting noises like an owl.

I think she's seeing better (further distances) and this morning she kept looking at me and reaching out to touch my beard. She seems to like the new texture.

She's a voracious eater, a pirhana feeder, as our breastfeeding instructor referred to this type of baby. They are much easier to feed then babies that are snackers.

She falls asleep at the breast constantly. It must be that nice skin to skin contact with Mommy. She doesn't seem to last long before she'll fall asleep. When I bottle feed her, she stays awake the whole time, looking at me.

I've already taken care of an explosive poopy diaper and been projectile peed on. And yes, I take care of a lot of diapers! It's a parent's responsibility, even Daddy's.

I often bottle feed her on the couch, and she loves to look around, especially towards the half circle window in the living room. She seems to always like to look towards light.

She loves tummy time! Even so much that I had to cut her off and pick her up because she won't cry to tell me she's done. She only cried the first tummy time, the last one lasted 15 minutes before I picked her up since it was time to eat.

Katherine turned one week old yesterday. My how time flies. We are pretty sleep deprived at this point, which we hear is par for the course. Her days and nights are all mixed up, as is usual with a newborn. And the Old Wive's Tale about keeping them up during the day so they sleep at night, is just that, an Old Wive's Tale. Newborn babies sleep when they need to, and sometimes they just don't sleep at night. You can't keep a newborn baby awake on purpose. So, we're holding on to our time to see how it goes over the course of the next week since Todd goes back to work on the 31st.

She's had a great first week. Her weight is nearly back to her birthweight, and she is gaining about an ounce a day. This morning she weighed in at 6lb 14.5oz. She's eating very well, and likewise, things are coming out quite well too.

She's getting some tummy time every day to develop her neck muscles. She lifted her head and turned from one side to the other on Thursday.

As always, catch lots of pictures in the photo albums over at www.thalimer.com.

Wow, time has flown! The days have melted into one another. Many people are requesting updates and photos! So here we go! Many, many more photos can be found on our website, www.thalimer.com in the photos section under Katherine's very own album!

The time in the hospital was crazy. People we in and out of our room 24 hours a day checking on us and making sure Katherine was getting fed. Then there were the checkups for mom, baby, car seats, and the like. It was never ending. As much as we were looking forward to going home, it was nice to have the constant security of the nurses at Rose Medical Center to give all the answers to our questions.

We headed home on Sunday, August 16th. It's strange driving with a baby in the car. I drive pretty safely normally, but I found myself going extra slow and keeping my distance from everyone. I am glad it was a weekend so traffic was lighter.

When we arrived home, Victoria took Katherine to her nursery while I saw the dogs and cats for the first time in several days. We had preserved a hat from the hospital for them to check out Katherine's scent so they could get used to it. The cats weren't took interested but the dogs smelled it a lot. As we found out quickly, we had to introduce each animal individually so as not to cause a big commotion. They've all gotten used to her already. Katy, the oldest, is getting grumpy in her old age, but has proved to be the biggest worrier that Katherine is doing okay. She's constantly looking for her and wants to give her kisses.

Our first pediatrican appointment was at Parker Pediatrics on Monday around noon. We hadn't packed a diaper bag yet, so we weren't sure what all we'd need. Based on what had been happening, we knew she needed diapers, wipes and a burp cloth for sure, along with some other blankets and a changing pad. I can't say thanks enough to all our friends who bought diapers, wipes, and all the accessories we'd need to keep things running safely all the time! Katherin passed her first appointment with flying colors. Even the doctor said she was a perfect baby!

There have been some tough times too. We've found that Katherine is a night baby. No matter what, she likes to sleep after her feedings in the daytime, but not at night. It's made it a little rough for us, but we seem to be figuring it all out. We're trying to figure out all the different kind of cries. So far we know she's craying if she's: hungry, has gas, or needs her diaper changed, and occasionally just wants to be held. We hold her plenty, but sometimes she just doesn't want to be in the crib.

I've gotten pretty good already at diaper changes, even in the middle of the night. Even the poopy ones.

Katherine also got her first tummy time today. She didn't care for it much, but we'll be doing it every day to get her motived. We also need to schedule up some time with all our friends that want to come over and see her for the first time. We hope you all understand we may not answer the phone all the time, or get back to you as soon as we like. The hours just spin by so fast!

Katherine Dale Thalimer was born on August 14, 2009 at 8:43am at Rose Medical Center in Denver, Colorado. She weighed 7lbs 1oz and was 19.25 inches long. Her Apgar scores were all 8 and 9, which means she was really active and responding well!

The labor was long. It was an induction at began at 2am on the morning of August 13. Katherine apparently wanted to stay inside her comfortable home and up until about 7:30am on the 14th she was only 3cm dilated. We were certain things were headed for a ceserian section delivery since labor was taking a long time. Todd went to finally go get some breakfast, and came back to the room to Victoria saying she had a lot of pressure. They added more medicine to the epidural and the pressure increased. Upon getting checked around 8:00am, Victoria had suddenly become fully dilated!

The nurse began having Victoria push while Todd held Victoria's leg. She then ran and called in the obstetrician and more staff. Things went very fast and after only about five sessions of pushing, little Katherine entered the world at 8:43am! Todd cut the cord and she got placed right away onto Victoria's belly.

Todd watched over her while she got cleaned up and got her measurements taken and the first shots and eye drops. Shortly thereafter Katherine was able to latch on for her first breastfeeding session and took to eating like a pro.

After that we moved to our post partum room. A few hours later, Todd accompanied Katherine to the nursery for her first bath. Taking video of the first event was great and she also got her footprints. Since then it's been a steady stream of consultants and doctors coming in to check various things. She passed her hearing test, and her blood sugars are good which means she is feeding well.

She is feeding so well, in fact, that she won't leave Victoria alone for long. She's also very active, and has slept very little, especially in her first 24 hours of life. She loves to move her hands a lot and is constantly breaking out of her swaddle because she wants her hands by her face.

We go home tomorrow around noon.

Just got the call. We're on our way to Rose! Watch for further updates!