Here are some cute pictures of Sophie on her very 1st Valentine’s Day!

On Valentine’s Day, we also finished setting up the nursery to make it hers. We have hung a few personalized frame that were gifts from family and friends. We have added some pictures and put the bedding on the crib to make the room a bit more girly. Sophie is going to like her new room if Karen ever decides to let her sleep up there.

Today is our 2nd wedding anniversary and we thought this onesie from Karen’s friend Namrata would be appropriate.

Rick surprised Karen by setting up the display case in their front entryway with pictures of our family and corresponding Precious Moments figurines. Karen gave Rick a “Daddy’s Little Girl” poem frame for his office.

Our family was very busy this weekend. On Saturday, our friend Liz came to visit from Tampa and we got to meet her boyfriend Jeff and have lunch with them at the Driscoll house. After that, we went to a birthday party for Liam, a family friend who is 1 year old.

Then, on Sunday, we took Sophie to get her 1 month pictures taken at JCPenney. She was very well behaved and we got some great pictures that we will be sharing soon.

Later that night, we went out for our first date without Sophie. Nan and Katie were babysitters for the evening while Karen took Rick out for a surprise trip on the Naples Princess to celebrate our 2 year wedding anniversary. We enjoyed getting the chance just to talk to each other. The cruise was a relaxing ride through the back waters of Naples where we got to see all of the beautiful mansions. The sky was perfect with no large clouds to block our view of the beautiful sunset off the front of our ship. We enjoyed having dinner on the cruise and Rick surprised Karen with an amazing charm necklace.

This morning, we started our day off by taking little Sophie Grace to her 1 month checkup. She was such a good girl at the doctor’s office. Sophie decided that the weighing station was hers and so she decided to mark her territory. After all the mess was cleaned up, we got her weighed and measured for length. Sophie now weight 10lbs 6oz and she is 22 ¾ inches tall. The doctor said that height is the least accurate measurement because it depends on the way the baby is stretched out. If she continues at this pace, she is going to surpass her mom’s height. She got her second vaccine shot today and will be back in a month for some more. She handled it much better than we would have thought. We also got the all clear to take Sophie up to see her cousin Chloe for her baptism next month. Karen and Rick are extremely happy that everything is going well and she is continuing to grow and stay healthy.

After the doctor visit, Karen took Sophie with her to lunch with Nan and Karen Confoy at Shula's. She had a fun time hanging out with the girls while they enjoyed an excellent lunch.

When Rick was done with work, he rushed home to get ready to go out to dinner for an early Valentine’s celebration with his two beautiful girls. He took them both out to a wonderful dinner at Roy’s. Roy’s has been a place of celebration for the Szatkowski family. Rick asked Nan and Pop if he could marry Karen there, we had our rehearsal dinner there, and we had our first anniversary dinner there. Now we can add the first dinner out with our daughter Sophie to the list. She was such a good girl and just slept while Mom and Dad enjoyed their Valentine’s dinner.

Today after Rick got off work, we took a little family trip to the beach to catch the sunset. Even though it was a little cloudy, windy, and cool, the sunset was still pretty and Sophie is looking forward to more trips to the beach in the near future.

Here are a few cute pictures of Sophie from this week playing on her play mat and smiling for the camera. She has been starting to coo and we LOVE it.

Today was Sophie’s first Super Bowl and you can see from the pictures below that she was not very interested in the game!

We had fun eating lots of snacks, doing a Super Bowl pool, hanging out with the family and cheering for the Giants. The game was much more exciting than Sophie would have you believe.

Today Sophie turned 1 month old and we really can’t believe it! One month ago today we were in the hospital just meeting Sophie for the first time and now we can’t imagine our lives without this little angel.

So much has happened in this first month...LOTS of firsts...
* First doctor appointment
* First walk around the neighborhood
* First bath
* First time to the Driscoll house
* First smile
* First walk in the park
and many more!

Since Sophie’s arrival, lots of things have changed at the Szatkowski house. We do more laundry and get less sleep, we have burp cloths everywhere, we would rather stare at Sophie sleeping than watch TV, leaving the house takes a lot more time and preparation, and we cannot put down the camera!

Sophie enjoyed her 1 month birthday. She went with Karen to have lunch with Katie, Nana, and Logan. After lunch, she had a nice nap with mommy.

Today Sophie Grace turned 4 weeks old. We don’t know where the time has gone. She continues to grow and we keep having to move some of her newborn clothes upstairs to be stored away.

Yesterday she got to spend the evening with Nan, Pop, Aunt Katie, Uncle Joe, Uncle Jimmy and Cousin Logan. We had to go to a baptism class so the Driscoll/Nugent crew got to watch Sophie and take care of her. We are all set now for her upcoming baptism in a couple of weeks. We have a hard time being away from her, as all we want to do is spend time with our little girl. It is tough on Rick being away all day while he is at work; his favorite part of the day is coming home to spend time with his girls.

During the day, Karen tries to entertain Sophie and hold her whenever she has her eyes open. Karen spends time putting her on the play mat daily to make sure she get a little bit of tummy time. Sophie also loves when mommy plays with her crinkle cow, rattle, and peek-a-boo toy. We have been trying to give her a bath 2 times a week and she continues to enjoy them. She seems to really like relaxing in the warm water.

Sophie is awake more often and just looks up at us with her beautiful eyes. She is so adorable and we just want time to slow down. Sophie is just growing too fast for us!

Today Karen woke up to find that Rick had dressed Sophie in her cute Gators outfit, including a onesie, hat, and booties. This was especially adorable to Karen since both Karen and Rick had on Gators pajamas. :) Karen & Rick wore Gator t-shirts and planned to get a Gator family photo, but Sophie decided to spit up on Rick before a picture could be taken. We know there will be other opportunities for pictures of this Gator family in the near future!

After running errands, Karen and Rick were really excited to take Sophie on her first walk to a nearby park. The weather was beautiful and the walk was nice and relaxing. It is fun to think about Sophie playing on the playground at the park in the future.

Happy 3 weeks, Sophie! We can’t believe our little baby is already 3 weeks old! Time has been flying by and we want it to slow down.

Today was Nana’s first opportunity to babysit Sophie for a little while since Karen had a dentist appointment. When Karen dropped Sophie off, Logan immediately said “floor! floor!” because he wanted Sophie’s car seat to be put down on the floor so that he could look at her. Nana reported that she was a little angel, which is not surprising!

Tonight after Rick got home from work, we gave Sophie her first real bath! She liked sitting in the warm water and did not cry at all.

Tonight was also the first time that we had Sophie sleep flat in the pack ‘n play. Up until this point, she has been sleeping in the nap nanny or the rock and play, but we wanted her to be able to stretch her legs out more, so we gave the pack ‘n play a try. She didn’t sleep as well as she usually does, so we are going to move it to a warmer area of the room and try again.

Here is Sophie's mommy getting a all cleaned up 26 years ago!

Today was the first time mommy spent time away from Sophie. Katie, Karen, and Nana went to see a movie and left the boys (Jimmy, Jim, Rick, and Joe) with Sophie and Logan. Karen was sad about leaving her little baby (even for just a few hours), but enjoyed getting to spend some quality time with Katie and Nana. When she got back to the Driscoll house, she found Sophie lounging asleep in daddy’s arms with her hand on her little tummy - looking as cute as ever! It was clear that she enjoyed the quality time with her dad.

We can’t believe Sophie is already 2 and a half weeks old! Time is really flying by and she is growing and changing every moment. Sophie’s belly button cord fell off last week and her belly button has been healing up more and more every day, so hopefully soon we will be able to give her a real bath. She has already outgrown 2 of her newborn outfits and is steadily gaining weight, which is great news! She also has already had to have her nails trimmed twice (thanks Aunt Katie!) because they grow very quickly.

Today was an exciting day because Sophie had her first non-family visitor! Maria and baby Liam came over to meet Sophie and brought her gifts. Maria loved holding and snuggling Sophie and Liam enjoyed walking around the house and playing with Logan’s cars. After Maria left, Karen and Nana took Sophie and Logan on a stroller ride through the neighborhood. The weather was beautiful and the whole group enjoyed the walk. Logan requested that next time we walk to the park. Karen and Rick are really looking forward to taking Logan and Sophie to the park near their house with beautiful walking paths and a really fun playground.

Sophie loves snuggling with mommy. Some times she just wants to be held and doesn't want to swing or hang out in her little seats. Karen loves holding her and spending time with her.

Today was Sophie’s first time riding in the car with just mommy! Karen was a little nervous because she had not driven since before Sophie was born, but she was also very excited to get out of the house! It took a lot more time and preparation to leave the house with Sophie...had to make sure she had been fed and changed, the diaper bag was prepared with everything including a spare outfit, bottle prepared with an ice pack, Sophie buckled into car seat with a blankie and pacifier...and we were off! After stopping briefly at the Driscoll house, Karen took Sophie to church to meet with Rick and show Sophie off to the Faith Formation department. Father John saw Karen in the parking lot and came over to congratulate her and gave baby Sophie her very first blessing! Everyone at church was very excited to meet Sophie and they gave Karen and Rick a card with the money in it from the pool that the catechists had created to bet on when baby Sophie would be born. Rick stayed at church to teach his 3rd grade class and Karen took Sophie over to Nan and Pop’s house for her first dinner out! Everyone at the Driscoll house loved seeing Sophie and wanted a turn holding her. Sophie slept in Karen’s arms and in the lamb seat for most of the evening. We think that she enjoyed the trip!

Sophie has been such a good girl and we love dressing her up in different outfits. Some days we go through a couple outfits, depending on how much she wants to spit up on them!

We love dressing her in sleep sacks and gowns at night. It makes it so much easier to get her diapers changed at night.

Today was also the first day that she got to play on her play mat. She loved just laying on the mat and looking all around at the different toys hanging above her head and kicking her legs.

Today we had everyone over for dinner at our house. Katie, Joe, Logan, Jim, Rick and Lynne all came up to spend time together. This was the first time that Logan got to meet his cousin Sophie. Logan showed a lot of interest in her and kept looking in the rock and play and saying “Hi” to her. He was so gentle with her and Katie helped him touch her little feet.

Logan loves going around and pointing out who owns different things in the house. He would walk around and point to a cup and say “Rick’s”. Then, he would point to a blanket and pacifier and say “Sophie’s”. He wants to know who has what so that he can keep track of it all. He loved grabbing Karen’s water bottle and bringing it to her when she left it on the table.

And of course Grammy and Grampy loved getting to spend even more time with Sophie, snuggling her as much as they could. They are going to spoil her so much once they move back down to Naples.

These last few days Rick got to spend some time with just his girls. Things have been a little bit stressful at the Szatkowski house as we have been figuring things out with our little Sophie.

Sophie really enjoys hanging out in the swing and can hang out there for hours just looking around or taking a little snooze. She also really enjoys spending time in her rock and play. We really enjoy the rock and play because we can just have near us while we are on the couch and can just rock her with a foot as we watch a show together.

Mommy and Daddy really enjoy spending time snuggling with their little girl. She is always so content just being wrapped up in our arms as we lay in bed, sit in the rocking chair, or hang out on the couches.

Our little girl is always so happy and every once and a while she flashes us a smile - mostly when she is sleeping. We try so hard to capture her little smiles, but sometimes they are just so quick. It is priceless when we do catch a smile or a little smirks! She makes so many cute facial expressions.

Today we took Sophie on her first walk through the neighborhood together. She was just sitting in the stroller looking around - taking in all the sights as we walked. Mommy wanted to be a hog of pushing the stroller, but Daddy did get a chance once we reached the point when we were going to turn around and head back home.

Today we also went back to the doctor’s office to see how things were progressing and are happy to report that Sophie has been gaining lots of weight and is almost back to her birth weight!

Today was Sophie’s first doctor visit. We got her all bundled up in the car seat and headed down to Naples.

When we got there, we had to strip her down and get her weighed and measured. She weighed 7 lbs 5 oz. and apparently she shrunk by 2 inches and is now 19 inches long. We think it is just because she was stretching differently. One thing that had us a little concerned is that her temperature was a little bit low. But once we got home and had Sophie bundled up a little bit more, her temperature was back to normal.

Everything is going well so far. Sophie is still extremely cute and always happy.

Today is the day Sophie and daddy get to watch their first Falcons game on TV together. It is a playoff game and she couldn’t be any more excited about the game.

But before the big game it was time for her first sponge bath. Aunt Katie came up to give us a hand to make sure that we did everything right. Sophie was so good during her bath - she didn’t really cry at all while she was washed/dried. She was just lying there in Karen’s arms as we washed her hair. Even when we set her down to wash her body, she would just look up at us and her eyes would say “What are you guys doing to me?”

Some quality mother and daughter bonding. Sophie’s little hand holding Mommy’s.

As game time rolled around, Sophie woke up even more as she was pumped for the game (can you sense the sarcasm here?). Grammy and Grampy came over to watch the game as well. They brought over a bunch of food to make it a real football party for Sophie...well maybe it was for Daddy.

Let’s just say the Falcons didn’t play well this week for the playoffs. Sophie wasn’t happy with the results either and just tried covering her face so she wouldn’t have to watch anymore.

After the game, Uncle The Nuge came up to spend some time with little Sophie.

Grampy and Grammy arrived today to come check out their first grandchild. They flew in from California to spend a week with us and most importantly their granddaughter. Once they came and started holding Sophie, it was tough trying to get her back from them. They loved holding her for as long as they could.

Every once and a while, daddy got a chance to hold his little girl.

Sophie has already started to work on her tan so that she isn’t as pale as Karen. Sometimes she also gets into her “Thinking Man” pose.

Grammy and Grampy came over Saturday as well to help us out, but really just so they could have a chance to hold Sophie some more.

Ever since she was born, everyone has commented on how long here fingers, toes and feet are. Rick thinks that she is going to make a great programmer one day. Unfortunately for her, her parents aren’t so great at sports, so she probably won’t be going down that route.

Today we got to bring Sophie home! We had to wait a while at the hospital for all of the discharge paperwork to be completed, but we took advantage of that time and just enjoyed relaxing and holding our little girl and watching her nap. Today Sophie has also started to find that her hand, thumb, and index finger make great pacifiers (well, when she can find them anyway).

Once we got all cleared to be discharged, it was time to carry down everything we brought to the hospital, plus the many things we acquired during our visit. Then, we got Sophie all dressed up to make the journey home. Karen did such a great job getting her all ready to go while Rick packed up the car.

Once she was all dressed, it was time to try to get her into the car seat without hurting her. Rick kept feeling like he was going to break off her little arms as he tried to tuck them in under the straps. But we got her successfully into the seat (with all limbs attached) and wrapped her up in a blanket. At this point, we were surprised to still be awake and functioning after such little sleep the night before.

All we had to do now was get checked out and put her car seat gently in the car. Once we got her downstairs, Rick pulled the car around so that mommy and Sophie wouldn’t have to travel too far in the cold weather we were having. We easily got Sophie into the car and were on our way home for the first time as a family of 3. That had to be one of the few times that Rick actually obeyed the speed limit all the way from the hospital to the house.

Once we made it home, it was time to rearrange a few things. We put little Sophie in the nap nanny on the lounger so she could just relax while mommy and daddy figured out where they were going to move everything to make it easier for them. We had moved one of the rocking chairs from upstairs down to our bedroom and we set up the pack and play in there so that we wouldn’t have to venture upstairs quite as often. Once everything was all set, we took Sophie on a little tour of the house, showing her all the space that was now hers to tear apart.

Today we went to the hospital at 7:00 am to help the baby start his/her journey into this world. The baby wanted to stay inside as long as possible, so we decided to go ahead and follow the doctor’s recommendation to get induced once the baby was 4 days past his/her due date. Once the induction process was started, it wasn’t very long until we got to meet our first addition. On January 3rd at 5:54 pm, Sophie Grace Szatkowski was born into our lives! She came into the world measuring 21 inches long and weighing 7 lbs 15 oz.

We were beyond excited to meet our little girl. Right after birth, Rick followed her over to the table where they were cleaning her and couldn’t take his eyes off of her. She was just laying there looking around, checking out everything that was going on.

Once she was all clean and checked out, we finally go to hold her. Karen did such an amazing job bringing such a beautiful little girl into our lives. We each wanted to hold her forever. Sophie was just so calm and snuggly.

Once Karen had progressed to a certain point, her family came to the hospital and were anxiously awaiting the arrival of our baby. They waited in the lobby for us to be ready to share our little girl with them. Rick went out to the waiting room to get Jim, Emily, Jimmy and Katie.

After they left, we got to spend more time with our little girl while we were waiting to be transferred upstairs. Rick was just standing over her watching her as she squirmed around, moving all of her limbs and fingers and toes. She just kept stretching out now that she was free of the small living quarters. Karen got to carry Sophie up to the top floor so she would never leave our sight.

That night, we didn’t get much sleep. We were busy waking Sophie up to eat and the hospital staff was constantly in/out of the room. Sophie was such a cutie all swaddled up in a blanket just resting after being evicted from her nice warm home.

The next day, Nana came by with more clothing for our little girl. We had all gender neutral clothing since we had kept the sex of our little baby a surprise until her birth day. So Nana brought over a bunch of cute girly clothes and some adorable little hair bows.

Today we added the final touches to the nursery. This is the first room in the house that we have customized and made our own. It was quite a bit of work and did come with a few disasters, but the finished product looks amazing.

We decided to paint the nursery two different colors - green on the bottom and yellow on top, with a white chair rail in between. While painting, Rick accidentally had an incident where he kicked over a can of green paint in the middle of the floor onto the white carpet. Luckily, the guys (Rick, Jim, and Joe) acted quickly and got all of the paint out of the carpet - before Karen even knew what happened! Rick enjoyed getting to use some power tools to put up the chair rail.

We have all of our furniture set up in the nursery now. Our new crib, changing table and glider are all ready to go. We moved one of dressers that was in the loft into the nursery for extra storage. Rick has a feeling that about 2 days after we have this baby, the baby will have more clothes than he does.

We only have to wait a couple more weeks to meet our little one. We are so excited and can’t wait for the baby to get here!

Today is a day to give thanks. It has been such a wonderful year so far for us. We are so thankful to have such amazing family and friends. We are also so thankful that we were able to get pregnant. This is our last Thanksgiving as a family of 2! Next year around this time we will have an 11 month old. We are so thankful for all the blessing in our lives.

We had the extended family over today for Thanksgiving. Each family of the families prepared a part of the meal to make one big feast. The house was full of Driscolls, Nugents, and Szatkowskis. Logan kept running around wanting to watch what was going on in the kitchen. He always wants to be a part of the fun. We had a wonderful feast with some amazing family!

Today we got to take another peek at our little one. It was our 20 week ultrasound to check that the baby is developing normally. So far, so good! We saw body parts including arms, feet, head (including a profile shot), and detailed things like the chambers of the heart. Since we didn’t want to know the sex of the baby, we had to “look away” for a majority of the ultrasound, which was challenging! Right now the baby is just hanging out sideways (transverse). We were able to get a couple cool photos though. A couple of them are profile shots of the baby’s face. It was neat watching it on the screen as we got to see the baby drinking in amniotic fluid - opening its mouth and closing it! Really still can’t believe that we are only a few short months from becoming parents. We couldn’t be more excited!

Today we went to the doctor for the first time since the test read pregnant. We still couldn't really believe that we were pregnant, even after 2 different tests came back positive a week apart. Karen has been having a rough couple of weeks with her body getting used to this whole being pregnant thing.

At the doctor's office we got our first ultrasound done. It was absolutely amazing. I don't think it really set in that we were going to be parents until today. We were so amazed at how fast the ultrasound technician was able to find the little one and pull him/her up on the screen.

It was so amazing to get to see the baby's heart fluttering on the screen. And to be able to hear the rapid heartbeat was surreal.

After taking measurements, they were able to figure out that the baby is about 8 weeks 2 days old. Our projected due date is December 30th, 2011.

We still can't believe we are going to be parents and we couldn't be more excited!