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Playdates

We got to watch our friends' baby today:

Santa visits

Who is this guy??

 Ohhh, I recognize you!

Practice makes perfect

You wouldn't know it from this picture, but Tegan doesn't dig bottles so much.  Fair enough, we haven't fed her with one very often.  So, we practice.  There is usually some crying involved, but we're getting there.

Good morning

Tegan wakes up with a smile most mornings now and is very content to hang out smiling away.  She is pretty stinkin' adorable.

It's all fun and games...

...until mom tries to take a christmas picture.  This is as far as we got, I gave up and haven't tried it again.  Maybe we'll get one this week, we still have a few days before christmas!

A new toy

This girl likes to be on the move just about all the time.  Fun for her, hard to keep up with all day long and get things done when just one of has her, like, oh I don't know, eating or showering or getting dressed.  So when Jeremiah saw this swing posted for free from another expat he emailed right away.  She loves to look up at the mobile and the reflective underside.

(it is impossible to get a picture of her with all 4 limbs in focus, I've given up :)

Proud parents

Cold?

It's still pretty warm here; last week I was still wearing shorts.  However, the slightest drop in temperature causes many folks here to break out their winter gear.  This doubles for most babies who are bundled in layers year round.  When we take Tegan out in what is an appropriate amount of clothing for her (she is often very warm) we get looks and comments from Taiwanese people telling us she is cold.  Sometimes we put a blanket over her just to avoid comments.  Yesterday I put on her hood to keep the neighborhood grandmas, who will undoubtedly peek into the stroller, at bay.

For the love of books

Morning walk

For those of you who aren't on facebook or missed us posting it yesterday - our most recent favorite picture:

Smile for the camera

We've got a smiley baby!  This week she's started smiling at Jeremiah and me, and when we show her some of her toys (especially a little black/white/red book Jeremiah picked out).  I've learned it's hard to catch on camera with her wiggling and making everything blurry - this is the best I could get... I'll keep trying though!

Why hello there dimple

1 month

Likes:
Bouncing
Moving arms and legs
Lifting head up
Sleeping on dad's chest
Going outside
Eating
Showers

Dislikes:
Sleeping in her crib
Pacifiers
Baths

Grandma Jo Jo has been visiting this week and we've had a lot of fun.  Tegan has gotten lots of quality time with grandma and mom has gotten a chance to take a few uninterrupted showers.

Both mom and baby have dr check-ups this weekend, we are interested to see how much she has grown!

We like skype

When Jeremiah's mom was young she lived in the Philippines for awhile.  During our last trip home she played for us a tape that their family had recorded and then mailed to other family members as a way to stay in touch.  We are so glad that family and friends are now just a skype call away.  Seeing and talking to everyone, especially now with baby Tegan, makes being away a little easier.

3 weeks old

Tegan was 3 weeks old yesterday, we can't believe how fast the time has gone.

Passport photos

This week we took Tegan to declare her as an American born abroad, which means a bunch of paperwork for passport, SSN and a birth certificate.  Among the things we had to gather was a passport photo.  Eyes have to be open, head straight on and a neutral mouth is preferred.  We took over 100 photos before we got one that was ok, and the shop still had to touch it up for us.  Here are some of the out takes:

But our favorite is this one (baring a striking resemblance to this character):

Love

Tiny toes

Ready for her close up

Love her

Introducing Tegan Clare O'Sullivan

Born October 30th.  She's amazing and we love her to pieces.

Just born - 6:58am

Getting warmed up

First Halloween

Doctor and hospital staff

Home!

39 weeks

39 long weeks.  Everything is going well, and I started my maternity leave this week.  Yesterday was full of cleaning, today I'm less inclined.  The best part of maternity leave is not figuring out what I'm going to wear to work as options have become limited.  My yoga pants are my favorite thing to wear now.

At the last doctor visit baby decided to sleep through most of the fetal monitoring, so the nurse had to come and wake her up to monitor her active heart beat.  First this meant pushing on my stomach to move her around a bit.  Unfortunately, that didn't work (she must have her dad's sleeping gene) so they brought out a thing that vibrated my stomach.  I didn't know it was coming and about jumped out of the bed.  That got her (and me!) awake and the doctor said her active heart rate looked good.

Hopefully we have some baby pictures up here soon!

38 weeks

Final count down is upon us.  Baby has decided my hip bones and rib cage are a good place to practice punching and kicking so things are getting a little uncomfortable - hanging in there though.  Everything looked good at our last appointment and we saw on the ultrasound that she has discovered how to suck her thumb.  

Time for bed - which is usually the signal for baby to start dancing :)

36 weeks

At this weeks doctor appointment we saw baby on the ultrasound (head down now), listened to her heart rate (strong) and measured for contractions (none).  

 After the doctor we went to a baby shower our friends threw for us and other couple from work.  There was so much delicious food and cute decorations:

Diaper cake

Animal themed cupcakes

Next week we will be officially full term!

35 weeks

35 weeks marks the 35 day countdown.  I think she has dropped a little, though it is still hard to breathe at times.  At almost every appointment baby girl has been breech, we will see this weekend if she has flipped.  For a long time I could tell which way she was and now I can't - it's just a big ball of kicks, punches and stretching in there.

We got a washer installed (our own laundry we take out and have done for us) and have now washed all little one's clothes and blankets.  In the last load were socks, aren't they cute hanging to dry?

As an added bonus - this is what I see on my side of our weekly photo shoot:

Until next week...

33 weeks

Feeling big.  I know, I know, I'm going to get bigger!  She can grow up to an inch this week... just this week!  She's also supposed to gain 1/2 lb each week for a few weeks now.  Whew, no wonder I'm tired!  I've read she might drop down a little this month, which be a relief to my lungs that I'm pretty sure she's using as a pillow.  She's gotten the hiccups a number of times now, and Saturday night I think she was having her own personal dance party.

I'm happy for her to bake away in there for the next 7 weeks, but boy are we excited for her to come!

32 weeks

Hello!  Today school was cancelled for a typhoon that didn't really affect us (though I'm not sure about other parts of Taiwan) so we had an unexpected 3 day weekend - love it!  We had our normal checkup this weekend and all is well.  We will now go every 2 weeks instead of once a month.  This morning I made a list of things to pack for the hospital for show time, but have yet to gather everything together.  Since we've known a few folks who have had their babies early we are trying to be prepared earlier rather than later.

The doctor estimated baby weighs about 4lbs now, and boy can I tell she's taking up more room.  Breathing has become harder; on the plus side it's making me sit up straight.  My fingers are swollen most of the time and my knuckles are sore.  Getting up off the floor is a challenge as is rolling over in bed.  We've got a couple of 4 day work weeks coming up so that should help with my energy level.

Hope everyone has a great week.  If anyone has advice on what to bring to the hospital I'm all ears!

Nursery

We are up against a few obstacles with this room: it's very small (hard to even get pictures of it!), since we rent we didn't want to paint the room, and our walls are made out of concrete so we can't use nails.  And, Taiwan seems to focus more on function rather than aesthetics, so it's hard to find things that are really cute.  For now the crib is in the nursery, but we'll move it to our room before she's born and she'll stay with us for awhile.  Cribs here seem really small compared to home, so it won't be a problem moving it around.  Also, the mattress size seems to be just a little smaller so our sheets from home are a tad big.

Cute star wars!

Hung very carefully, I'm hoping they stay up!

Quilt made for us, the backing matches the crib perfectly.  Can't wait to lay it out and put her on it!

Haven't been able to find a changing pad yet, might have to get creative

Jeremiah's idea - we used some extra pennants on the door so when it's open it looks continuous

A dress from when I was a baby

There you have it.  Still a few things here and there to get, but for the most part we're ready!