A family of three

As I mentioned in my previous post, Joke took pictures of our little family of three at Sofie's wedding. Joke's a very talented photographer (which had already become clear when she did our maternity shoot) and we're so grateful she made these great shots of us.

Here are some our favorites.

And here's a close-up I made myself. Look at that little bow tie! We have the cutest little man ever.

Mother's Day 2014

We celebrated our very own Mother's Day as a family for the first time last Sunday.

Klaas woke up early and went out to get me a wonderful bouquet.

A few days later, more flowers started opening up. Like this:

Seeing as it was their first Mother's Day as a grandmother, Elliot made a little something for both my mom and Klaas's mom.


Let me tell you, it's not easy getting a baby to unclench its tiny fists to make a handprint!

I loved finally having a reason to be celebrated myself on Mother's Day. Elliot's my world and Klaas is my rock who made it happen... I can't imagine my life without the two of them.

A family trip

It's a tradition that every year in spring we go on a trip with Klaas's dad's side of the family. It was the first time including Elliot although last year we'd just found out he was in our lives on the very morning we left for the trip.

This year we went to Borgloon because of the orchards and because we'd been to the Ardennes three times already. Elliot still needs plenty of naps (and being with 9 other people he didn't know made him sleepy to no end) so aside from going on a few walks, I actually didn't do much. Still, I didn't mind. I was perfectly content spending time with our precious little baby. :) Klaas joined the others at a wine tasting on Saturday and then went to the city of Tongeren on Sunday.

And now for some pictures!

 My sister-in-law with her husband.

 With Klaas's stepsister.

The grandparents!

 Klaas's stepsister's daughter.

 We walked the Pit route, a hike along several works of art. 

This church was one of those artworks. You can see what it looked like on the inside in the picture below.

The cathedral of Tongeren.

We really enjoyed ourselves and it's always fun to see Klaas's family again. It doesn't happen very often that we're all in the same place at the same time.

Elliot's first 12 weeks: a recap

Elliot's 12 weeks old today, so I thought it would be fun to give you a quick recap of the first dozen weeks of his life.

One of the items on our registry was this little box of Milestone Baby Cards. They're just what they sound like: cards about certain milestones your baby reaches that can be used in photographs. I thought these were really cool and we've used them for every milestone so far!

Here are his age milestones.

The next age cards are those from 4 months up until his first birthday. I can't imagine one day being the mother of a one-year-old!

And here are some of the other milestones he's reached so far.

Elliot started sleeping through the night when he was 2.5 weeks old. Up until then he would nurse right before midnight and then wake up again around 2. From 2.5 weeks onward, he nursed between 11 pm and midnight and then slept until 6-ish. Lately he's been sleeping for 7 hours straight, and there has even been the occasional 8-hour night. No complaints here!

He smiled for the very first time when he was almost 3 weeks old. I know lots of people say that when a baby smiles before the age of six weeks, it's just gastric smiles. Still, I know what his gastric smiles look like and these were nothing like that. We discovered we could make him smile by gently blowing his hair and face. He loved that. And look at that twinkle in his eyes. *sigh* He loves it when people smile at him and he gives them the biggest smile back. He's such a perfect little boy. <3

I also wanted to show you these. They're some more pictures of Elliot (and I) that Klaas took for his 365 project.

He loves playing under his arch. The vibrating purple elephant is his favorite. I'd been waiting for him to start grabbing toys or random items and he finally grabbed the elephant just last night!

Just when you buy an extremely warm and cozy bear suit for your baby, you get the softest winter in years...

 

Elliot has always been great at lifting his head. He loves looking around and has done so ever since the day he was born. Every single person tells us how attentive he seems, as if he's taking in every last bit of the world around him. 

  

In this picture he looks so much like my brother (Elliot's godfather) when he was a baby himself. :-)

 With his feline pal, O'Malley.

And three more pictures, depicting some of his lovely Rolls. (Before I got pregnant, and even when I was actually already pregnant, I swore I would never think of baby rolls as precious and lovely. Until I saw them on my very own baby...)