Looking back: Our first month

On Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 10:02 am, Charlotte Lynn Balena was born.  What a glorious day it was, and what a perfect little baby was delivered into our lives!

She weighed 7 lbs. 14 oz. and was 20 in. long.

For all the details about the delivery story, click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpS_g7BHspc  Ben jumped on a plane Thursday morning when he heard I was in labor and he arrived that night.  In this video, we are telling him the delivery story.  It's kind of lengthy, so only watch it if you want the long version of the story :)  Isn't Ben so cute with Charlotte?!  I think that was the first time he held her - I just love the looks he gave her!

 We got to go home on Sunday, January 23!  This was Charlotte's first car ride...can you tell how much she loved it? :)

We took a lot of pictures of her sleeping, and spent a lot of time watching her sleep.  On our second day in the hospital, we took a video of Charlotte sleeping.  I think the original video was almost 10 minutes long, but I edited it down for you :)  You can definitely tell that we are brand new parents and totally in love with our girl: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKRXj2C30ms

Rob and I also tried to sleep as much as we could, whenever and wherever we could.

But we were very happy, proud parents no matter how much sleep we got!

And we couldn't have done it without the help of all of our family!!!  Thank you for all of your love and support!  Meet the dream team:
Nana,

 Papa,

Grammie and Poppie,

Tio Mingo and Aunt Katie,

and Uncle Ben!!!

Here's another video from that first month.  You can tell we thought Charlotte hung the moon and how impressed and proud we were of everything she did.  Wait, that sounds like how we feel about her now too! :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xX1DeQ4JSoo

Charlotte loved doing tummy time with Daddy.  This video was taken when she was 3 weeks old.  It's kind of similar to the one above, but she opens her eyes in this one, so I had to include it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsgrkSVus34

And finally, here is Rob talking and moving for Charlotte - one of my favorite memories!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_PIDaE1Foc

This picture kind of sums up month 1: Rob and I loving on our girl and Charlotte looking like she doesn't really know what's going on yet but happy nonetheless :)