A Carolina Girl

Katie made her first trip to North Carolina during the first week in October to meet our extended family and friends and visit more with her grandparents. She was an angel on the flight to North Carolina, and while she didn't always enjoy the long car rides during our stay, she loved the people and activities. As she was cuddled by person after person, we learned she's never met a stranger.

In Eden, Katie met her uncle Priyesh and several of Sriyesh's family's good friends.

We then went to Shelby, where she spent the afternoon with her great-grandmother, Darwa (Doris Edwards).

In Mt. Airy, she met her great uncle Tom and great aunt Mary, as well as some of Anne's family's good friends.

We then headed to Chapel Hill for Katie's first UNC football game and to meet our tailgating friends (including her cousins Elizabeth and Frances).

She was awake almost the whole time taking it all in; the only thing that startled her were the fireworks when our team scored (which they did a lot).

Katie also had the chance to meet some of our good friends in the Triangle.

We were especially excited to introduce her to Caroline Conner, daughter of Emily and Lee. Emily and Anne are childhood friends and were roommates at Carolina, and we hope for the same for our daughters (born just four weeks apart).

Unfortunately, the girls slept through most of their first meeting, but we expect plenty of giggles later.

Whirlwind trip concluded, Katie hit the sack and slept for several days.

There were way too many cute pictures of Katie from our trip to include in one blog post. Please check out our album (below) for more pics!

Katie's 6th-8th Weeks

What about the dogs?

Several people have asked how our furry children, Simon and Betsy, are handling their new little sister. At first, they weren't sure what to make of her. The first time she cried, Simon cried too. Later, the dogs ran the other way. Now they take her in stride.

Betsy's maternal instincts have emerged; she frequently checks on Katie in her Moses basket or her carrier. She also quickly learned to enjoy the new baby stuff around the house. (That's a nursing pillow below.)

Simon, on the other hand, usually keeps his distance. However, he is starting to take more interest in Katie, particularly in her socks and her diapers -- as it turns out, he's a pretty reliable dirty diaper detector.

Katie gets social

We were sad to see Nana (Anne's mom) leave on Sept. 11 after spending a wonderful four weeks with us.

Left to make our own fun, Anne and Katie are keeping active. Katie was an angel at a couple of moms' group meetings. She also had her first play date last week with Lachlan, born just a month before her. Lachlan's mom, Liz, brought lunch and visited, and Lachlan tried out Katie's toys while Katie napped.

Katie, Anne and Sriyesh also helped Riley celebrate her first birthday. It was a beautiful fall evening and Katie had fun watching the big kids play.

Katie also has kept busy at home. Last week she started to gurgle and coo, with her favorite sound right now being "aaaaaaa". "Uhhhh" is a close second. She also started noticing her hanging toys, and she loves to swat at Mr. Parrot and Mr. Monkey, as well as the elephant toys on her jiggly chair.

Katie has been working hard on increasing her neck strength. She really enjoys pushing back off of our chests and looking around (reminding Anne of a little turtle).

We're also having a great time singing and dancing with Katie. Anne helps her do the hand motions to her old camp songs, and Sriyesh favors dancing to more contemporary tunes. But never fear -- we're still making time to cuddle.

Click below for more photos of Katie.

Katie's 4th-6th Weeks

Fun with Katie

Katie is starting to stay awake more during the day now and sleep more at night. That makes for more time for fun during the day. Today, she tried on her shades and took in the great outdoors.

She cracked us up with the expressions she made and how cute she looked in her sunglasses!

She also enjoys hanging out on the soft, fuzzy cow that was a gift from her friends at Penn. Do we see a modeling career in her future?

Katie doesn't cry all that often, but when she does, Sriyesh has developed a guaranteed-to-calm dance that he should patent.

Meanwhile, Anne is finding her niche in feeding, cuddling and reading to Katie.

We've also worked on commemorating Katie's birth. We named a star in her honor with the International Star Registry and preserved her two-week-old handprint.

We can't believe it's so tiny!

Check out our second album for more cute pictures!

Katie's 2nd and 3rd Week

Katie's Zoo

Katie isn't staying in her room yet, but we put a lot of love into creating a warm, fun environment for her.

It's a complicated little room to paint, particularly for Sriyesh's first time painting, but he mastered it. We had a lot of fun putting up the animal border together.

We wanted to keep it gender-neutral, but when we found out we were having a girl, we couldn't resist adding some pink accents.

We bought the sign for Katie's door and the letters for the wall ahead of time, but since we were keeping her name a secret, we stored them away. On the day after she was born, Sriyesh came home to put up the finishing touches.

She's a looker!

We've had a wonderful first six days with Katie.

We've been lucky to have both sets of grandparents visiting to take care of the new baby and the two of us. Sriyesh's parents have chosen Thatha and Achi, traditional Tamil names, as their new grandfather and grandmother names.

Anne's mom has chosen Nana and her dad is still brainstorming.

Katie is a really good baby, but we've still given some of the favorite baby-calming gadgets a try. Right now, the cute bumblebee swing seems to do the trick.

She's already starting to show her personality and has the cutest little dimples.

Katie's a night owl, just like her Daddy. She spent most of her first few days sleeping, but today she was awake and alert for several hours, taking everything in. She's absolutely amazing.

She loves it when we jiggle and dance with her, and she likes to be sung to when she's having a bath.

She's quite a boxer when she's wearing her mittens, and when she's not, she likes to try to put her entire hand in her mouth.

She's always making us smile.

Click below to see more pictures in our Web album from Katie's first week.

Katie's First Week