Life is speeding by!

Mariana is already three weeks old!  I am trying my best to treasure this newborn time as this very well might be the last time that we have a newborn at our house.  Cue tears and sighs of relief:  bittersweet.

 She is so loved by her siblings.  Sarah has exhibited zero signs of sibling rivalry.  Rather, it's almost as if when Mariana arrived, Sarah thought, "Well, it's about time that I had someone to look after!"  Sarah is definitely my little helper.  She runs for diapers, wipes, cream and anything else I might request.  One of her favourite things is to introduce her baby sister to people:  "Her's Mariana and her's a girl."

 The boys first question upon arrival from school is if they can hold Mariana.  Ben usually waits until everyone has had their turn before he asks for his.  It's amazing how much little boys love to stare at little babies.

 I love this photo because so many of our babies have looked like this in their infancy.  She particularly favours Ben in this photo.  Lucky girl.

 She wears this semi-worried look a lot.  For a little girl with completely translucent eyebrows, she still has extremely expressive brows.  At the moment her skin looks quite olive-y and her hair is dark.  However, it is far too early to proclaim that I finally have a girl with my colouring.  Her eyes, very unlike mine, are going to be blue.

 How can a baby not smile when in the care of Hannah, the baby whisperer.  Other than nursing, Mariana is most calmed by walking with her oldest sister or by being held tightly by her father.  She is tongue-tied and has one bottle a day in order to help her gain weight.  Dave likes to give this bottle as he tells me that changing poopy diapers (which he does) doesn't quite bond him with his babies in the same way as bottle feeding them.  Hannah watched Dave feed Mariana the other evening and whispered to me, "I didn't know that dad liked babies."  She has an appointment tomorrow to get her tongue tie fixed.  Of course, in typical small-town fashion, the doctor is my brother-in-law's first cousin.

 I love this shot.  Her eyes look slightly too big for her head and she has a very adult look to her; all of which remind me of Hannah as a baby.  I told Hannah that I think she looks like her and Hannah responded with a big smile, "Oh, good."  Mariana's lips are identical to Jacob's, Isaac's and Sarah's, all of whom have Dave's lips.  Hopefully they have inherited the Afelskie perma-smile.

 Too much love!

 It is Joe's birthday on Saturday - eight years old!  He absolutely adores babies, especially burping them as evidenced by his in-motion hand.  Jacob watched me bath Mariana last night and, in his sentimental way, said, "I do hope that I am bathing a baby in my mid-twenties."  I don't make these things up.

 This photo just ups the cuteness factor.

And to prove that she takes after her father:  asleep when not running or working.