It's hard to believe that our little girl is already a month old! She's grown and changed so much over the past couple weeks. And we've learned a lot of valuable lessons in this first month. Here are just a few:

1. Diapers have limited capacity.
2. Babies have unlimited output.
3. Giggling uncontrollably does not make the mess disappear when the unlimited output exceeds the limited capacity of the diaper.
4. Sleep deprivation quickly becomes normal.
5. Getting more sleep than expected may cause irrational fears.
6. The fleeting "gassy" smiles make the 2 am feedings and diaper blowouts totally worth it.

Corinne got to spend some time meeting more of her family the past couple weeks. While my brother was home on leave, he was able to come over with Sydney (my niece) and spend some time with us. Sydney adores her cousin and can't seem to get enough of her.

Corinne and Sydney

Jeremy's mom, Bonnie, and sister, Tahnee, came out for Corinne's baptism at the end of May. Corinne's godparents are Tahnee and our friends Phil and Becca. Our friend, Ryan, was available to stand in for Phil and Becca.

Here is a link to some of Corinne's baptism pictures.

And now, for the exciting news. At her 1 month appointment, we learned that Corinne is growing like crazy and is tipping the scales at 9 lbs 9 oz and is 22 inches long! I'm still shocked she's a month old and can't believe how much she's grown already.

Here is a gallery with pictures over Corinne's first month.

Here are a couple pics from June 10th.

What a cutie

My little sugar baby

An attempt at a pose

Its hard to believe that Corinne is a week old. This week has gone by so slow, starting with being in the hospital for 2 days until Tuesday around supper time. I just don't like hospitals that much, makes me wonder why I ever decided to work for one. Those days in the hospital just seemed to stretch on for a long time, but I think that's just because I was really looking forward to coming home with our little girl.

Here are a couple of photo galleries that I have added:
Hospital after born
Going home from hospital

I also added a Corinne gallery that is where we will start putting all new photos:
Corinne Zerr gallery

So it has definitely been quite a change to get used to having to be up every 2 hours in the middle of the night for feedings, and realizing that myself, I can't do much to make her feel better when she's crying. She really only has one thing that makes her cry, and I know that Mom is the only one who has the goods to make it better. It sure took a while for Corinne to get the hang of how to do the breast feeding thing, but now that she has it down, watch out! Poopy diapers left and right.

Like the other day when I was on the phone and had her in my lap. She was making her usual little sounds then all of the sudden, a deep grunt that she made for a few seconds, followed by a squirting sound that I could hear and feel on my lap. She can be totally innocent, wide eyed, and looking all around, but in a heartbeat, she can turn into a grunting poop factory. Its the most funny thing that we've had in this first week at home. I'm getting pretty good at changing diapers, and I find that Corinne really likes it if I make the sound of air tools like I'm changing a car tire at a pit stop. Well, maybe she really has no clue what is going on, but I still have fun with it.

We've had a really good time this week, we have been helped out a ton with people bringing food over that we're still having for meals. We haven't really gotten out much, just once to go for a walk, but that will change in this upcoming week, we have the first doctor appt for Corinne on Monday, and baptism is Memorial Day weekend.

I'm proud to announce that Corinne Sophia joined us on Sunday, May 10th, for Mother's
Day at 7:12am. She was 7 lbs 5 oz, 20.5" long, and both Mom and baby are perfectly
healthy.

We started with contractions about midnight, and after realizing they were coming
consistently every 2-4 minutes for over an hour, we realized that this was the real
deal.

So we hopped in the pickup and made it to St. Luke's by around 2 am. Apparently, that
was a very popular time for babies to be born, as there were about 3 moms that arrived
around that time, so quite a few nurses had to be called in.

We stayed in Triage until nurses were able to arrive and saw that the contractions were
still going, and I was so excited that it really was going to happen, we were going to
see our baby!

We went over to a delivery room and got all settled in, the contractions were still
coming very frequently and getting stronger, they weren't anything like Katie had felt
before. She relaxed in the tub in the delivery room for a while to help get through
the contractions.

Katie's parents joined us in the delivery room and were a big help. I didn't pass out
as many of you, including me, expected, although I was very close for quite a long time
during delivery. I'm so proud of Katie, she did the whole thing without any drugs,
which was something that was important to us, and we wanted to make every effort to try
it without. She was absolutely amazing!

So Corinne came out with a head of hair, and with the cutest wrinkled hands and feet
because she was a couple days overdue (we were due on May 8th). But she was the best
Mother's Day gift that we could possibly dream of.

Here are some pictures. Don't worry, these aren't all of them, but we'll get them all
up when we get home and get a chance to settle in.

Hospital Baby Closeup

Mama and baby at hospital

At hospital, baby holding daddy's finger

So I really haven't posted much of anything since the Honeymoon, but a ton of stuff has happened.

After getting back from the Honeymoon, Katie had some great news to wake me up with on my birthday. I was kinda surprised to get woken up so early, and I'm pretty grumpy in the morning, but Katie just HAD to get me up. Katie found out that she was pregnant! She took one of the tests later on in the day just to be sure, and no doubt, it was true! What a birthday gift for me! Plenty to be continued with this story...

A couple months later, the Boise MSBL baseball season came to a close, and I was lucky enough to not have other committments this year around playoff time, so I was able to be a part of our second championship in a row. We had a great season and a lot of fun.

Katie and I have both been helping out with the junior high youth group at Our Lady of the Rosary this year as program leaders. Katie used to help out when at St. Marks, and this year is my third year helping out.

We started the youth group basketball team practices up again and had a great showing in the Hallissey basketball tournament, which is the annual junior high Catholic basketball tournament. We won the sportsmanship award, and also took 3rd place in the tournament. It is always a lot of fun. When you win the sportsmanship award, you get your picture taken with the Bishop, its a pretty big event.

I also was offered a second job at St. Luke's, working more as a traditional web developer to help out the Nursing Services team turn a spreadsheet-based application into a much more flexible web application, capable of integrating lots of financial productivity measurements into helping the staffing products. Got to present this to the CEOs and VPs of the organization over the last couple weeks and was given the go-ahead to start a pilot program with it.

So as our spring came, it was filled with lots of changes, learning about pregnancy, getting the living room painted and blinds updated, and getting baby's room ready. We are just days away from the official due date, May 8, and we will be +1 family size in no time at all.

Some of the pictures from the photographer are on the photogropher's website.

Sneek Peek

At Church

Couple

Family and Friends at Albertson's Park

Misc.

So after the very busy week, were were down to our last days in town. We decided to spend Saturday at Balboa park checking out the museums before heading to the San Diego Padres baseball game with cousin Matt that night. We were leaving early on Sunday to fly back home, so we had to head home after the game to get some rest.

Friday was the last day at the Ocean Inn and staying on the beach, and we were going to miss it, but the plan was to hit the San Diego Zoo and drop off the minivan, so there was something to keep Katie happy for the rest of the day.

Our third day in San Diego for the honeymoon was our first full day with our rental minivan, so we wanted to make use of it while we had it. So we decided to drive North out of town, through La Jolla, and eventually reach LegoLand in Carlsbad. On the way back, we had some more fun on the beach by the hotel, before heading back downtown. The night would end with a very romantic dinner cruise (yeah, that's right, I'll admit it), that we had booked the day before. It was a very fun, relaxing day to have.

Our 2nd day was full of plenty of fun and adventure. We woke up to the sounds of the waves breaking on the beach just outside our window...such an amazing sound! The rest of the day was filled with checking out Old Town San Diego, visiting the Midway, checking out the Gaslamp quarter, and finishing off the day renting a minivan. Yep, you read that right...a minivan.

So yeah, I brought my laptop on my honeymoon, but trust me, it was for planning our days adventures. You see, I didn't exactly plan anything, because that's how I roll. I reserved the hotel room online the night before we left, I had bought the plane tickets three weeks before we left, but I had no rental car or specific plan on what we were doing. I'm sure things will just work out, right???