Allie's first two weeks

We have enjoyed watching Allie grow and change each day during her first few weeks. Her personality has certainly developed and is fun to watch unfold daily. These are a few pictures to show her personality and some "firsts," including her first Sunday at church (at two weeks old).
Enjoy!

Allie's Here!!!

I know it's taken a while, but finally I'm posting some details and pictures of our little princess! Allie Jael Rancatore was born Sept. 2 at 1:10 p.m. She weighed 6 lbs. 6 oz. and was 21" long.
She is a beautiful, wonderful baby; and we love her very much.
Enjoy these pictures from the hospital!

More Goodies for Allie

My parents came for a visit August 2-7, right at 34 weeks. They came bearing gifts, including many of my baby blankets and books. We enjoyed looking through those and remembering where each blanket came from or who made it, and I have enjoyed reading some old favorites that I had forgotten about!

We spent time visiting while they were here. Mama and I went shopping and ate at the Olde English Tea Room in downtown Wake Forest on Saturday. Daddy and Mama also took me shopping on Friday for Allie's swing and highchair. Tony put those together Sunday, and they are even cuter in person than on the Internet! I think Allie will enjoy them both!

Thanks to our parents and other family and friends, we are closer to being ready for Allie's arrival!

San Antonio--Remember the Alamo!

I know this is a couple months overdue, but we wanted to go ahead and put up a few pics of us from San Antonio at the Southern Baptist Convention. We had a great time--it was a much-needed "vacation" before the life-changing event of becoming parents! Also, while we were there, we got to see one of our best friends from college, Janna Johnston. It was great to catch up and hang out a little with her. Plus, she was pretty excited to see me with a pregnant belly! So you know, this trip was June 9-14; and I was 26 weeks along.

Memorial Day, Crawfish and Cribs

We had a great weekend with Tony's parents and brother. We started it out Cajun style with a crawfish boil on Saturday--yummy! I think Allie approved of her first exposure to crawfish.
In addition to the 60 pounds of crawfish, they brought many gifts from family and friends in Louisiana. We have many pink items, Classic Pooh items, LSU goodies and other cute baby things!
While they were here, they bought Allie's crib for us, and Tony and his dad put it together. We had fun watching them piece it together! Tony put together our travel system later in the weekend. I think we made some really great choices, and we are so thankful for the generosity of our loved ones!
It was nice, too, to be able to put all Allie's stuff together in her room. Last weekend, we moved in to our new two-bedroom duplex. We are really enjoying having more room and are getting settled in slowly but surely!
Allie started getting more forceful with her kicks over the weekend (maybe it was the crawfish). Her little attitude is coming out already, though! I was sitting on the couch with my arm resting on my stomach. Apparently, she did not appreciate that because she gave my arm a mighty kick! Then, when we were at our doctor's appointment on Wednesday, she started kicking as soon as the doctor put the heart monitor on my stomach and didn't let up until that part of the appointment was over.
I'm afraid it seems little Allie has already inherited her mother's stubborness!
This last appointment included the glucose test--which checks for gestational diabetes. Thankfully, we passed and will not have to undergo any further testing!

What a baby wants...

This past weekend Tony and I began the registry process for little Allie. It's amazing how much stuff such a little baby needs! From transportation (strollers, car seats) to luxury bedding (cribs, mattresses) to elegant dining (highchairs), Allie should be welcomed into the world in style!
Then there are toys! OK, so daddy and mama had a little bit more fun there than Allie may for a while...what can I say? I absolutely love all the teething books, the noise-making books, the touch and feel books and the bi- and tri-lingual books!! Yes, I'm into the whole bi-lingual, learning toy thing--don't worry, they're cool toys, too. Our daughter won't be a geek--she'll be a really cool smart baby!
Then there are clothes! Girls do have a lot of cute things, but we didn't go overboard on that. We mainly registered for the necessities for the first six months--onesies, hats, socks, etc. We only put a handfull of cutsie things on there--it's hard to find the right styles for the season of when she would be able to wear it. And, in the early months, she will be growing so fast--there's no sense in getting too many floofy things that she can only wear for a week or two.
Well, the registry process was a lot of fun for us. We would highly recommend it. If you want to read more registry details, complete with pointers, check out a recent blog I posted to my MySpace site: http://www.myspace.com/joyrancatore. Also, in case you would like to check out our choices, you can view both our registries online: Babies R Us (www.babysrus.com) and Target (www.target.com).

Here goes...

With the quickly approaching arrival of our first child and the cute examples of several friends, we have decided to enter the wide world of blogging--outside of MySpace!
I am sure our posts will be somewhat slow and sporadic at first; but once little Allie arrives in September, we will have much more to post and blog about! We hope that this blog will be a source of smiles and deep thoughts for friends, family and not-yet-friends.
Thanks for checking us out, and we hope you come back to visit again!