Chuga, chuga, chuga,....Poo, Poo

Chuga, chuga, chuga in goes the milk and out comes...well you get the idea from the title. Like a little digestive train, Milana spends most of her days perfecting this art. She does have other favorite activities like sleeping on daddy's chest, bath time, mommy's back scratches and swinging in her swing to keep her occupied.

Today we thought we would give her a change in her routine and take her on a shopping trip to Ikea, lunch and the grocery store. Like any girl going out on the town, she had put on a cute outfit. Here she is excited to wear her new outfit.

Mommy and daddy had figure out how we were going to carry her around in the store. We decided to try the baby front pack. Here daddy is modeling it with her in it.

She did very well in her baby front pack in Ikea and she slept the whole time. Our trip was going good so far, so on to lunch at an American icon McDonald's. She didn't get a happy meal but she sure got a lot of attention. At the table next to us was two older women and they couldn't stop talking about her. They wanted to know all about her. They kept saying "sehr suss" which means "very sweet" in German. She sure can take over a room. After we said our goodbyes to the nice ladies, it was off to the grocery store.

It was in the grocery that she started to wake up and get hungry. So while David pushed the cart and fed her at the same time, I grabbed the groceries from the shelves. All in all it was really kind of fun and not as much of a hassle as I thought it would be. Our four hour excursion was a success. Our trip out put my mind at ease since in a month we will be going over to the US on a twelve hour flight to visit family. After today, I think she will do good on the flight. On Monday we have a new adventure, our first set of shots! Stay tuned to see what happens...

One month old and a US citizen.

Milana turns one month old today. It seems like the time has just flown by. Yesterday she went to the US consulate to become a US citizen. Hopefully she will receive her passport before our trip to the states in October. She has changed so much in the past month and continues to change everyday. It is fun just to watch her change and her personality develop. She is the queen of facial expressions.

Here is a picture from the day she was born. So tiny and small.

Now a month later, with a healthy appetite, a little budda belly, and chubby even cuter cheeks. She has lots of nicknames. Tooty, Sweet Pea, Boogie Britches, Princess Poopy Pants, or her daddy's favorite just Princess. She loves to move her arms and legs to music, grabbing on to fingers, nap times on her daddy's chest, and rockin' in the chair with mama. Her favorite songs right now are most anything from the Mary Poppins sound track and Forever by Chris Brown. I am sure that will change but it keeps her happy and the content when she is fussy. She loves to get dressed in her different outfits and isn't camera shy. In fact, I would say she is a ham for the camera.

She is a very unfussy baby most of the time. However, when those fussy moments do arrive, it is apparent by her facial expressions what is making her unhappy. It makes it easier for mommy and daddy to decode what is wrong. She has recently started to make squeaking and stretching noises or maybe cooing. We can't wait to see what she does next.

2009 The Year of Big Changes

So I have never written on a blog before, but so many exciting things have happened to David and myself in the past few months that I felt this would be the best way to share it with everyone who is interested. That being said, lets start from the beginning of the year.

2009 started out with a big decision for us both to make. David and I were given the opportunity to live and work in Germany. So after about six months of weighing the pros and the cons before hand, we decided that we could not let a chance like this pass us by and make the move to Germany. So we accepted the positions and planned to make the big transition later in the year.

Excited about our big move, we weren't expecting more exciting news to come our way. About a month after accepting our jobs in Germany, I discovered I was expecting our first child. Needless to say we were taken by surprise, happy but very surprised. Now do we still go to Germany? We then decided it would be in our best interests to continue with our plans to move to Germany.

By the time we moved over to Germany, I was about seven months pregnant and feeling it. We had already found out we were having a little girl and had a name picked out. Everything though the pregnancy had been smooth sailing until about two weeks after we arrived in Germany. The baby was doing great, I on the other hand, was not. I won't go into the details, but the doctors over in Germany were discussing taking her early via c-section if I got much worse.

I managed to make it until my 33rd week. I had be up all night with pain and what felt like the worse stomach flu I have ever had. By the time six am came around, I was waking David up to go to the hospital. I had a hard time walking and even getting my clothes on. I was already scheduled to have more testing done that day and a decision was going to be made of when I should have a c-section. I guess when we got to the hospital they took one look at me and it was decided that our little girl needed to be born today.

I was prepped and in surgery by eleven in the morning. I was so terrified I could not stop shaking. I guess I have a fear of operating rooms or the fact that I was going to be awake for this or maybe the last thing I heard was that David was not going to be in there with me because he was afraid he would pass out. Although when I rolled over from getting the big long needle in my back, there he was in scrubs and a mask. I think having him there made all the difference in the world.

Milana Helen Presken was born on July 24 at 12:03pm in Heidelberg, Germany. She weighed about 4.1 lbs and was 16.7 inches long. She was healthy and everything checked out fine, she was just early. I started to slowly recover too. My stay was about a week in the hospital. Milana stayed for two and a half weeks until she gained enough weight and ate her bottles with out a feeding tube. She got to come home with us last Wednesday.

So this blog starts when she is about three weeks old. Hopefully it will be another way for our relatives and friends to get updates on our adventures in Germany and parenthood.